The beauty of holiness: holy icons as spiritual education
The beauty of holiness: holy icons as spiritual education

Summary/Abstract: The deep beauty of holy icons is not attached primarily to the skill of the artist, but rather to the proper disclosure of the truths that they reveal. Written correctly, holy icons form a central component of Orthodox Christian theology, locating persons within Traditional Christian understandings of God, His saints and the Church. Icons provide both spiritual orientation and education regarding Christianity’s core metaphysical, epistemological, historical, and spiritual understandings. Wrongly written icons, modernistic and expressionistic paintings, fail in this regard; truth is distorted by the desires of the artist. This presentation briefly explores five dimensions about which holy icons provide instruction, situating canonical understandings regarding the nature of reality and of our place within that reality: (1) the relation of persons to the world; (2) the relation of persons to animals; (3) the proper relationship among living humans; (4) the relation among humans over time; (5) the relation between persons and God. Readers are put on notice, however, that this analysis of icons necessarily truncates the phenomena it analyzes. Holy icons are set within lived experiential ritual practices, interacting with reality in facets beyond the ability of academic discursive analysis to conceptualize. It is by praying with holy icons that we truly come to appreciate the ways in which they embody canonical understandings regarding the nature and meaning of the cosmos and of man’s place within it.

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