Fake Icons
22 April 2008 - 18 ניסן 5768 by Huw
I forget who it is… there’s a monastery out in the Southwest, I think? Well, someplace. They paint icons. They are, I think, not a Roman Catholic monastery, or, maybe, not “officially” so: perhaps Sedevacantist? Or maybe just “Old Catholic” Episcopi Vagante? Don’t know. Anyway, they paint icons - and sell them on the web. And there are those Orthodox hyper pious sorts out there who will tell you, straight up, that because the party in question are not really Orthodox, these icons are not really icons: real Icons can only be painted by real Orthodox doing traditional things. Otherwise they are, really, just idols and we risk our souls…
So here’s a story of Damned Thing. (Pardon me, I use that phrase in the Fortean Sense.)
Back in the fall of 2004, Fr J took all the men of the parish to visit his Spiritual Father, then the Abbot of the monastery of the Ascension, in Resaca, GA. In the middle of the monastery Church was an Icon of the Theotokos. And, on the day it was delivered to the monastery, it was observed to be weeping - a miracle witnessed by the entire community.
Proper procedures were followed, of course: the first thing you do is exorcise it. Then, when it keeps on weeping, you enshrine it. And you serve an Akathist of Thanksgiving. And you have prints made and give them to pilgrims… And because of all the trouble, Fr Abbot said once, according to Fr J, “I wish she had never wept…”
Here’s the damned part: it wasn’t even a hand-painted icon! It was a print of an icon, mounted on wood with glue - like all the $5 icons you can buy at your local bookshop - or even print off the internet! And here’s the other thing: the print of the icon came from those heterodox people who can’t even paint “real” icons! This Heterodox Non-Real Icon was there enshrined as a weeping icon in a monastery whose Orthodoxy is not in Question. At all.
Gah.
I think God works outside of our boundaries more than we know… in fact, I think our human boundaries (church/dogma/whatever) are meaningless to God.
Amen. My fellow seminarians and I would spend huge (for us) amounts of money at a local seminary that firmly believed that we, being part of the Greek Orthodox church, were bound for hell. But they gladly took our money when we bought their icons. My best friend from school is from the Church of the East and we would often go together to shop for icons - I can only imagine what they thought of that. Whatever. I love how we try to impose limits on God, who is truly the great beyond. What are we thinking?
Yikes - meant to say monastery rather than seminary in the first sentence. Been a long day…
I was once given a tour of a Greek Orthodox church, filled with beautiful, proper Byzantine iconography, including very skillful mosaic work. Obviously the parish had big bucks.
The parish also had a miraculous myrrh weeping icon of the Mother of God. The icon itself was a copy of what was clearly a Roman Catholic style Madonna, a close-up of her face, without the Child Jesus (another supposed no-no of Orthodox iconography).
The young priest giving the tour made some smart-ass comment like “Maybe she’s weeping because she’s in a Roman Catholic painting.”
Sigh …
(Scratches head) Well, of course God works outside our boundaries. Was that not the whole point of the entire Book of Jonah, of the Samaritan woman, of the adulterous woman, of Sts. Peter & Paul . . . (well, you get the idea)?
However, part two of your comment is slightly misleading. You say, “I think our human boundaries are meaningless to God . . . .” By phrasing it that way, you are already assuming they are only, and nothing else but, human boundaries. I beg to differ. If that is all they are, then—as St. Paul says when he speaks of the Resurrection in 1 Cor. 15—our sins are not forgiven, and we are of all men most to be pitied.
Frankly, if that is all they are, why bother, other than to make myself feel good about my now-meaningless good works and good thoughts?
Fr E - while I know the entire idea of a la carte religion is annoying… increasingly I think St Paul’s line is true: the Resurrection makes meaningless even those divisions that Paul thought were still important. Why bother? Because you are working out your salvation.
But, again, given the “Whole package” approach… by which I mean the idea that *everything* is (T)radition, Where do you draw the line? I know that neither Maximalism nor Minimalism is very satisfying. BUt I think, “Jesusism” (pardon the neologism) is much broader than any one denomination is willing to admit.
Fr G - I think, in some ways, it’s ironic that those icons, of which you speak, as well as the liturgical translations from the same source, are a standard among the “World Orthodox” out here. They are brilliant.
Ben - I have much the same story about OUr Lady of Perpetual Help. Sigh.
At the church here in the Village we have an Icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, one of my favs by the way!
Icons are Icons are Icons! I don’t care where they come from! If they help you pray why not use them.
God save us from the Uber Pious!
BTW that monastery of which you speak has some of the best incense.
I wish I had a good answer between maximalism and minimalism. But, may I suggest that perhaps maximalism and minimalism form the outermost boundaries for what is “acceptable” to our Lord?
Having said that, folks who try to live on the bleeding edge of maximalism or minimalism often already are “outside” of “acceptable” in that they have an attitude problem that needs some fixing.
Now before you tell me again how Jesus is quite willing to forgive, let me grant that. But willing to forgive, or willing to work with someone does not automatically mean that what they are into is “acceptable”. I am convinced that, for the sake of saving their souls, our Lord consistently works with and draws people who are otherwise engaged in “unacceptable” behaviors or have “unacceptable” approaches to “Church”, “doctrine”, or “worship”.
So, I can easily grant that our Lord is working with many people, while, at the same time, I am calling them to change their “Church” approach or their “doctrine” or their “worship” or their “unacceptable” personal behavior. The two need not necessarily contradict!
Fr E - I rather like your reply, especially as far as maximalism and minimalism form the outermost boundaries… [ But]… folks who try to live on the bleeding edge of maximalism or minimalism often already are “outside” of “acceptable” in that they have an attitude problem that needs some fixing.
This makes good sense to me.
But I would say only that, regarding the part I elided in my quote, you wrote, “what is “acceptable” to our Lord” and later added “willing to forgive, or willing to work with someone does not automatically mean that what they are into is “acceptable”.”
And while I can not but agree with your logic, neither can I agree that you might know what Jesus would find “acceptable” - nor can I: we both go on blind faith there - faith in what we *feel* to be so.
For me the question is more can you and I at the point of disagreement, share in communion?
PS: I rather like Our Lady of Perpetual Help :-)
Lest we be too hard on those gosh darn Orthodox Christians (boy, when love dies, it sometimes dies hard), perhaps some more information is in order. This sounds a lot like “Monastery Icons,” a self-msde outfit once out in the Midwest that has bounced around from Gnosticism to Old Catholicism to Orthodox Christianity to Monophysitism to Hinduism to occultism, in various combinations at various times, said to perform Hindu and occult practices over its icons. Probably something a good blessing by the Church couldn’t undo, but why should Orthodox Christians use their money to make such religiously unstable folk wealthier?
For some background, read: http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/general/monasteryicons.aspx
Hi Gregory - Long time no see! Thanks for the link. Of course in citing the nutty folks at ORthodox Info, you’ve not done your case much good. Um… accusations of “occult” practices would go hand in hand with proof.
PS: I’m not being hard on those Orthodox - as I hope you see by (a) the ORthodox who comment here agreeing with me; and (b) by the fact that the “good guys” in my post are, themselves, Orthodox. I’m only being hard on the nutty ones.
I looked back at my post, and it was not clear. But, to clear it up would take too much room. Suffice it to say that it is an “open” secret that there is more inter-communion that happens among Eastern Christians in the nations bordering the southern shore of the Mediterranean than is officially recognized. In a sense, it is an admission of a high degree of “acceptability” both by the Lord and by each other.
There is a second sense of acceptability. Those would be the people whose behavior is such–a la Cornelius–that despite their mistaken doctrine, God “accepts” them and works with them. Note that Cornelius was already classified as one who followed the tenets of Judaism rather than Rome.
I could go on, but you get the idea. The term “acceptable” can be and is used in several senses. But that is not a topic for here.
Thank you for that rather wonderful reply.