The Theology of the Icon: Image and Likeness

The Image

The number and the intensity of organized visual information that we receive each day would be unimaginable to the human being living in the past… each second your brain must process 25 images filled with detail. It is easy to compute how many images per minute or hour that is. As soon as you leave the home, you are accosted by new visual information, advertisements, notices, signposts, etc. A person has no time to deal with one image in one instant, to analyze it, to digest it. He or she has no time for inspection. The surface on the external appearance of things, but also on the external appearance of people we meet.

As Bishop Jovan of Belgrade says, “It is as though the proverb becomes ever truer: that the cloths maketh the man, or rather, the clothes and everything else that can be seen about us that makes an image of us.” But what is an image and how does it relate to the theology of the icon?  Let us begin by exploring what an image is. “The word eikón (icon, image, likeness, figure, type). It comes from the ancient Greek verb iko or ika, meaning one that looks alike; is similar; is alike; appear; and is the same. The word icon is used to denote artistically faithful painting and sculpture representation copying of a being, his or her facial features, or an object. St. John of Damascus, in his First Treatise on the Holy Images, states that “an image is a likeness depicting the original but with a certain difference, for an image is not like its original in every way.” To this he adds, “every image is both like and unlike its prototype, for the image is one thing, and that which it images is another, and there is unquestionably a difference between them, since they are not identical.”[1] Bishop Jovan goes on to explain that “It is important to underline that the set expression refers exclusively to something that is real and true, that is, to something that relates to a given model and prototype. And does not relate to anything that is specious, illusory, imagined or nonexistent.” In fact, this is the very notion of idolatry. “The view of the Holy Fathers of the Church is that only the images of things that do not exist are to be called idols, such as the images of nonexistent gods invented by Greek mythology.” Nevertheless, the Greek philosophers, like Plato, believed that the material world (the visible world) was an image of the invisible world of forms. What this demonstrated is that there was an understanding that the image and the prototype which the imaged had its likeness to were in a tight bond, and had an intrinsic connection. In fact, the ancients believed that the one imaged was truly present in the image. Bishop Jovan explains: “Such beliefs had existed much earlier among Eastern peoples, who believed that their gods or rulers are indeed present in images and iconic representation. Any destruction of such representations was considered and interpreted as a direct attack and rebellious insurgents against the figures that such images or sculptures represented.”

Acknowledging idolatry being the representation of non-existing entities or gods, the Orthodox Church understands that the holy image/icon and its model are firm in a bond. Of course, to us enlightened modern men with our scientific image of the world, this sounds absurd, primitive, and superstitious. Agreeing with this point His Grace adds, “To us, this may appear as a completely absurd difference. Modern man is not prone to believing either in the presence of a depicted character in the image, or in the link between the depicted character and the image for a modern understanding. The issue here is of completely separated realities. In his great adventure, modern man has done everything to master the world that used to frighten him and make him insecure. Humankind has drawn sharp boundaries of physical reality so that, as much protected from outside influences as possible, we could confine ourselves to the safety of our own self. We know, of course, that several centuries ago, the world was different, more enchanted. We study how a great battle it was to disenchant it. We all remember how growing up, we had to remind ourselves and others about the fallacy of many phenomena, and links between phenomena that we have accepted through child intuition as truthful and important, beautiful or frightening. In order to function unhindered and healthy in a modern world, in order to reach our projected, albeit somewhat confined self, we have to constantly remind each other what exactly the scientific image of the world is like. We needed to study and practice so as not to remain slaves of the outdated image of the world around us. Consequently, we are undeniably not prone to disrupting the fortress around ourselves to the risk of contact with the hidden world. In which links between different levels of reality exist, to be sure. The courage and the possibility of preserving a healthy mind and personal integrity in contact with the disturbing living reality of links between the visible and the invisible world, we are offered only by the real, true faith. And the holy images icons are the real place to test the faith: a portal for the return into God’s world from a faceless and mechanical world of modern technology that is ever more growing into nothingness.” As His Grace so eloquently expresses it: “While in the West, holy images have a goal to induce certain religious excitement with their vividness, impressiveness of presentation and by evoking the persons on the image, being a pious soul to adulation, the Orthodox icon serves as a link between the one who prays and God, the Theotokos, and the Sanctified. The icon serves as a means of approximation to the transcendental being of divinity.”

Returning to the idea that our material world and transcendent reality are in a firm bond, and this bond being understood through the image, Fr. Maximos Constas states: “Within God are the eternal images and archetypes of all things that are created and come into being (cf. Eph 1:9-12).”[2] In fact, this is precisely what St. Maximus the Confessor states when he says, “The entire spiritual world is mystically imprinted in the sensible world, while the entire sensible world subsists cognitively in the intelligible world, and their activity and function is one.”[3] Therefore, we can say – as the Fathers do – that the entire visible created cosmos is an icon of the spiritual world, of God, of the Holy Trinity. Consequently, the only way to understand the world, man, and his relationship to it, is through the theology of the icon.

What is man’s relation to the world? Dumitru Staniloae explains that both “man and the cosmos are equally the product of a creative act of God which is above nature, and both are maintained in existence by God through an act of conservation which has, likewise, a supernatural character… The cosmos is organized in a way that corresponds to our capacity for knowing. The cosmos – and human nature as intimately connected with the cosmos – are stamped with rationality, while man (God’s creature) is further endowed with a reason capable of knowing consciously the rationality of the cosmos and of his own nature.”[4]

Much like Heidegger who said, “we are the only beings in which being is a question,” we can say that we are the only beings in which rationality is a question or concern. We appear, as Staniloae puts it, to be the “only being which, while belonging to the visible world and stamped with rationality, is conscious both of the rationality it posses and, simultaneously, of itself.”[5] This is similar to the “anthropic principle” recently developed in physics that states that the world is so structured that it is observable, knowable, and intelligible so that rational beings (anthropos) can observe, know, and understand it. In other words, where else would rational beings be other than a place that is capable of being understood? The world is uniquely situated, and not coincidentally, for the existence of man. The world is intelligible and possesses rationality, which proves that the cosmos is the product of a rational being, as Staniloae explains, “since rationality, as an aspect of a reality which is destined to be known, has no explanation apart from a conscious Reason which knows it from the time it creates it or even before that time, and knows it continually so long as that same Reason preserves its being. On the other hand, the cosmos itself would be meaningless along with its rationality if there were no human reason that might come to know the cosmos because of its rational character.”[6] We are called to come to know the world, the cosmos because its rational character, and in coming to know the world, we come to know ourselves, and vice versa – to know thyself is to understand the world. The world provides the material basis for our existence, the understanding of it and in turn the understanding of ourselves. However, as Staniloae points out, “the world, by contributing in this passive manner to our formation and to the deepening of our self-consciousness, does not itself become – through this contribution – conscious of itself.” What this means, as he explains, [contra vegans and secular environmental warriors] is that “we are not for the sake of the world, but the world is for us, although man does also need the world. The point of the world is to be found in man, not vice versa. Even the fact that we are aware that we need the world shows man’s superior position vis-à-vis the world. For the world is not able to feel our need for it. The world, existing as an unconscious object, exists for man. It is subordinated to man, even though he did not create it.”[7] Calling back to mind the anthropic principle in physics, we see that we live in a world that is uniquely suited for man because it is for man. Moreover, as Staniloae elaborates, it is a “world that has been created to be humanized, not man to be assimilated into the world or into nature.”[8] Man is both at once a microcosm, “a world which sums up in itself the larger world,” and as St. Maximus says, a macrocosm, “because he is called to comprehend the whole world within himself as one capable of comprehending it without losing himself, for he is distinct from the world.”[9] The term St. Maximos uses in discussing that man is called to become a world writ large, is “macro-anthropos.” Stanoloae states that this “term conveys the fact that, in the strictest sense, the world is called to be humanized entirely, that is, to bear the entire stamp [or image] of the human.”[10] Therefore, we come back to the same point: “the destiny of the cosmos is found in man, not man’s destiny in the cosmos.”[11] “The entire cosmos serves human existence in a practical way… the inferior chemical, mineral, and organic level of existence… have no purpose within themselves…Their purpose consists in constituting the material condition of man’s existence.” The image of God is in man, being created in God’s image, but the world being stamped with the image of rationality by its Rational Creator is seen as an icon/image of God in that the created universe is in fact a microcosm/macrocosm of man. The cosmos, therefore, is an icon of God and man: man reflecting God in Whose image he is made, the cosmos reflecting man insofar as it is for man and it is called to be fully humanized by man, man reflecting nature inasmuch as he is constituted by its material elements and is a microcosm of the world, and that image reflecting its creator and source – God. Man sees himself in the cosmos, and in seeing himself he comes to know himself, but in coming to know himself, he sees God in Whose image He is created, and in seeing the image of God, He comes to know God. It is as if the icon in the world and man is like a mirror. In fact, St. Theodore the Studite compares the surface of the icon to a mirror. He states: “Objects reflected in a mirror stand in a dynamic relationship to their source, for they appear only by virtue of the immediate and continuous presence of the actual object, apart from which they have no existence. The face of a person looking into a mirror appears on the surface of the mirror, but the likeness itself remains outside the actual physical mirror. Moreover, the appearance of a face in a mirror does not mean we include the mirror in the conception and definition of the face. The likeness “adheres” to the material of the mirror but does not “inhere” within it, since the image in the mirror vanishes the moment the likeness that appears in it moves away.” [12]

Christ, Man, and the Incarnation

“Always and in all His Word God wills to effect the mystery of His embodiment.”[13]

Alan Riou explains St. Maximus’s statement further here:

The incarnation of the Logos in the logoi of created beings at the time of the creation of the world and of the four elements, when the Spirit of God covered the waters; the incarnation of the Logos in the logoi of Scripture and the four Gospels, when the Spirit inspired the ‘prophets’; the incarnation of the Logos in our flesh, in the man ‘of our kind,’ in the humanity that is ours, realizing the fullness of the four cardinal virtues, when the Spirit covered the Virgin with His shadow.[14]

Returning to our conversation on the meaning of the image, we see that, as Fr. Pomazansky states, “Every image necessarily presupposes a similarity with its archetype; consequently, the presence of God’s image in man testifies to a reflection of the very attributes of God in man’s spiritual nature.”[15] However, following St. Gregory of Nyssa, we see that the entire “Byzantine theological tradition as a whole… was ‘a movement away from a Platonizing and exaggerated dualism between mind and body, intelligibles and sensibles, towards a more specifically Christian understanding of reality.’[16] The result was a material-sacramental vision of God and the world that did not simply disallow facile disjunctions of sensibles and intelligibles but defined salvation itself as a coincidence of such opposites centered in the dual-natured person of the incarnate Christ.”[17] We find this to be true in man, God’s highest creation, who has been made in the image of God Himself. As Meyendorf explains, “man is truly man because he is the image of God, and the divine fact in man concerns not only the spiritual aspect – as Origen and Evagrius maintained – but the whole of man, soul and body.”[18] Recalling that the fact that the image and prototype after which it is imaged are in a firm bond, we Orthodox understand that “the Incarnation implies that the bond between God and man, which has been expressed in the Biblical concept of ‘image and likeness’ is unbreakable.”[19] We know that the Son is the exact image (eikon) of the invisible of God the Father so that when human “beings are created “according to the image and likeness (homoiosis) of God” (Gen 1:27)… the human nature of the incarnate Son is the image of God’s divinity.” [20] For as Christ says, “whoever has seen me, has seen the Father.”[21] Fr. Maximos explains that “With the incarnation of this image, a particular human nature, namely, the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth, became the human expression of that same divinely consubstantial image, so that the form and face of Jesus manifest the very glory of God. The celebrated “hypostatic union” of patristic Christology (producing a “composite hypostasis” in Christ) [composite meaning two natures in one Divine Person, not that Christ is now a human person and a divine person] means that what distinguishes the Son from the Father is precisely that which unites him with his humanity.[22] The identity between the Word and his assumed flesh means that the Word’s eternal sonship becomes a property of his humanity, so that whoever beholds the face of Jesus of Nazareth beholds the Son of God (cf. John 14:9).”[23]

Bishop Jovan states: “The Orthodox Church remained consistent with the Holy Tradition, and it did not depict an invisible God on its icons; that is, it would have never even depicted and painted God had the Son of God’s Word of God, God of Logos, the second hypothesis of the Holy Trinity not become incarnate. Only after the Word of God had incarnated had become true man, had entered into history with all human traits except sin, He became visible, palpable, fully described. And from then on He is depicted in icons as the theoanthropos (the God-man). It can be said that by becoming incarnate, the Lord God, beyond description, describes, depicts Himself. In the biblical scriptures of the New Testament, the word icon receives new meaning. “He who has seen me has seen the father” were directed only to those who looking at Jesus Christ the man, at the same time comprehended his divinity, which He shared with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He who is God deigned to appear in human flesh of ours so that we could see. In the same way, as we see when depicting the divine model of living. And so in this manner we would be able to imitate the one who made that. The man has again become the icon of God. An image painted by the finest of painters, Jesus Christ, and thus as a spiritually revamped and rekindled icon of God. The man expresses the beauty of his paragon, prototype, model, original.” This is precisely Vladimir Lossky’s point: “Through the Incarnation, which is the fundamental fact of Christianity, ‘image’ and ‘theology’ are linked so closely together that the expression ‘theology of the image’ is almost a tautology.”[24] This is our theology: it is the icon, the image.

“At the heart of this paradox stands the belief that the Son of God is a divine image identical in essence with its archetype. With the incarnation of this image, a particular human nature, namely, the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth, became the human expression of that same divinely consubstantial image, so that the form and face of Jesus manifest the very glory of God. The celebrated ‘hypostatic union’ of patristic Christology (producing a “composite hypostasis” in Christ) means that what distinguishes the Son from the Father is precisely that which unites him with his humanity.[25] The identity between the Word and his assumed flesh means that the Word’s eternal sonship becomes a property of his humanity, so that whoever beholds the face of Jesus of Nazareth beholds the Son of God (cf. John 14:9).”[26] This is precisely what allows for the possibility of the Incarnation. As Fr. Maximos explains, “The identity of a single divine person (hypostasis), who is simultaneously consubstantial with divinity and humanity becomes the condition for the possibility, not simply for an artistic depiction of Christ, but for that depiction to be presented and received as the human form of the eternal Son.”[27]

Man is made in the image of God so when Christ (the exact image of God the Father) becomes man, He becomes an image of His image. For “If the human nature assumed by Christ was created “according to the image and likeness of God” (Gen 1:27), and if Christ himself is the image of God, then Christ, in the words of Maximus the Confessor, ‘became a figure and symbol (typos kai symbolon) of himself, presenting himself to us symbolically by means of himself.’ This perhaps seemingly enigmatic phrase simply means that the two natures into which Christ is indivisibly distinguished stand in an iconic relationship to one another. In assuming human nature, the incarnate Word becomes—like all human beings—an image of God. At the same time, and by virtue of his divine nature, he is also the archetype of that image, and thus he becomes an “image of himself.” Here the analogy of the image/icon as a mirror reappears. Not only does Christ become an image of Himself in the incarnation, assuming human nature made in the image of God, as well as fully possessing the divine nature as the archetype of that image so that He becomes an “image of Himself,” He mirrors His image of Himself, as St. Maximus says, as a “forerunner of himself, since he manifests [reflects] himself in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, running ahead of himself,” not only in the words and symbols found in the Scriptures, which St. Theodore identifies as icons themselves, but in the Theophanies/Christophanies of the Old Testament. Although we are told that no man can see the face of God, God truly appears to man face to face (prosopon pros prosopon), or rather, person to person in the Christophanic icon of God in the Old Testament, not as a hologram (and here the analogy of the mirror breaks down) but really as God, the Logos, Christ the 2^nd Person of the Holy Trinity. Therefore, even in the Old Testament, Christ the exact image/icon of the Father, is the great cosmic signum, as Fr. Maximos puts it, since He is “both signifier and signified” insofar as “in him the created human image of God is united seamlessly with its uncreated divine archetype.”[28] And it is through this sign, this image, this icon, that “believers are led up from ‘himself to himself,’ that is, from himself as man to himself as God.” And it is through this sign that you shall conquer [Nika].

The Hypostatic Union: The Divine Person of Christ and Icons of Christ

The painted icon is, therefore, itself an icon of the icon, and as such it leads us from the image to the archetype, just as Christ is the image of the archetype who is God the Father. However, because the image/the icon, as St. John of Damascus says is “both like and unlike its prototype,” such that there is a distinction between the person that is Father and the person that is the Son, despite being identical in essence, the painted image/icon of the Icon of God (the Son) will be more pronounced. The painted icon is not one in essence with Christ, which is precisely why in giving relative veneration to the icon, we are not worshiping the paint and wood[29]; nevertheless, relative “veneration given to the image does not mean that Christ is not present in his icon.

According to Theodore the Studite, ‘the original (prototypon) is present in the icon not according to its essence but according to the likeness (homoiotes) of the person (hypostasis).’ Christ and his icon are inseparably united on the basis of their common likeness, for Christ has only one hypostasis that is common to himself and his icon, and “it is this hypostasis, that is, his depiction (charakter) that appears in the form of his likeness, which is present in the icon and venerated.” Though Christ and his image differ with respect to their natures, “one would nevertheless not be wrong to say that the divinity is in the icon … not by a union of natures, for the icon is not deified flesh, but by a relative participation through which it shares in the grace and the honor.”[30] Therefore, we can conclude that while the physical material of the icon is not the object of veneration, it renders present the likeness of Christ, which is inseparable from Christ, and through the material form of the icon is venerated by the faithful. Christ and his icon are inseparably united on the basis of their common likeness, for Christ has only one hypostasis that is common to himself and his icon.

Conclusion: The Theology of Iconography

From this we can see that if we simply “approach the icon only as a work of art, we shall go fully amiss. Its essence will evade us. The mysterious icons show, but at the same time also contain, that which is hidden from the common eye. In the Orthodox Church, holy icons are not just decorations. They are far more than that. They are organically connected to the holy mystery of the Eucharist. The holy icons made with hands open our spiritual eyes so that we can see spiritual and elevated realities. That is, an icon reveals and shows to us that which is. It can be said that the existence of holy icons and their understanding is a precondition for the correct understanding of God revealed Christian teaching and of that which stands before humankind if it wants to live in accordance with the God’s redeeming plan of salvation of created beings from the deterioration of death. A Christian is not simply a viewer of an icon. Above all, he is a devotee, an icon dual (one who loves/respects icons), because through the holy icon, man experiences spiritual rebirth and enters into unity with the living God. In Orthodox Church, holy icons have always had a similar importance that is given to the precious and life giving cross of Christ. But looking at and by obedience, or veneration, given to the icons and the precious cross, a Christian receives blessings and simultaneously reaches a higher spiritual knowledge – theosis.

From the orthodox point of view, in a certain manner, the holy icons and the precious cross are teachings of a deeper meaning. In the Orthodox Church, the 1st Sunday of Easter or Great Lent is called Sunday of Orthodoxy. It is dedicated to the victory of iconoclasm and to the reinstatement of observance of icons in Constantinople in 843AD. Reestablishment of veneration of icons is considered the first great victory of Orthodoxy. Icon dualism has, up to this day, been one of the most important traits of the Orthodox Church. For all these reasons, we can infer that by getting to know the theology of the icon, we are in fact getting to know the most important truths of the Christian faith.” Therefore, let us is in this sign, this icon, conquer (NIKA) and declare our Orthodox victory over our enemies.

[1] John of Damascus, Imag. I.9; and III.16, ed. Kotter 1975, 83, lines 3-5; and 125, lines 4-7; trans. Louth 2003, 25; and 95 (modified); cf. Theodore the Studite, Antirr. II.23, who notes that “the word eikon is derived from eoikos, and eoikos means ‘similar’.” (PG 99:368C)

[2] Fr. Maximos Constas, “The Theology of the Icon,” 1.

[3] Maximos the Confessor, Mystagogy 2 (CCSG 69:16-17, lines 241-47); trans. Berthold 1985, 189; see also Maximos the Confessor, Responses to Thalassios 27.4, where “through the invisible world,” God reveals “the visible world conceived on the level of its inner principles—or the invisible world made visible by means of its sensible figurations,” (CCSG 7:193, lines 44-46), trans. Constas 2018, 184.

[4] Dumitru Staniloae, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: The Experience of God, 3.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Staniloae, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, 2.

[7] Ibid., 3.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid., 4.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Fr. Maximos Constas, “The Theology of the Icon,” 10.

[13] St. Maximos, Ambigua 7; Patr. Gr. 91.

[14] A. Rios, Le monde et l’Eglise selon Maxime le Confesseur, Paris 1973, 62.

[15] Pomazansky, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, 124.

[16] Mosshammer 1997, 172. Pelikan 1990, 97; and 107, has similarly described the general movement of Eastern Christian thought from late antiquity to the early Byzantine period as a shift from “Christian idealism” to “Christian materialism,” signaling a “new Christian metaphysics and aesthetics” and a “new Christian epistemology.”

[17] Fr. Maximos Constas, “The Theology of the Icon,” 3.

[18] Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 141.

[19] Ibid, 152.

[20] Fr. Maximos Constas, The Theology of the Icon,

[21] John 14:9; cf. John 1:18

[22] Cf. Theodore the Studite, Antirr. III.I.22; III.I.34; III.II; and III.1 (PG 99:400D; 405BC; 417B; and 420D-421A). On the composite hypostasis (synthetos hypostasis) of Christ, see John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith III.77, ed. Kotter 1973, 122-26; cf. Madden 1993, 175-97; Mateiescu 2017, 63-78; Bathrellos 2004, 46-50; and Törönen 2007, 95-101

[23] Fr. Maximos Constas, “The Theology of the Icon,” 5.

[24] Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 133.

[25] Cf. Theodore the Studite, Antirr. III.I.22; III.I.34; III.II; and III.1 (PG 99:400D; 405BC; 417B; and 420D-421A). On the composite hypostasis (synthetos hypostasis) of Christ, see John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith III.77, ed. Kotter 1973, 122-26; cf. Madden 1993, 175-97; Mateiescu 2017, 63-78; Bathrellos 2004, 46-50; and Törönen 2007, 95-101

[26] Fr. Maximos Constas, “The Theology of the Icon,” 5.

[27] Ibid.

[28] St. Maximos Constas, “The Theology of the Icon,” 6-7.

[29] “The Iconoclasts, on the other hand, were unable (or for polemical purposes unwilling) to distinguish between nature and hypostasis. For them, an ‘image’ was a reality that tended toward essential identity with its archetype, and thus only an image representing both Christ’s divine and human natures could be considered an ‘image,’ though such an image, they averred, is both impossible and blasphemous, since the divine nature is not subject to circumscription.[Hence their belief that only the Eucharist was a true “image” of Christ; cf. Gero 1975, 4-22; Giakalis 1994, 93-101; Baranov 2010, 41-48; and Tollefson 2018, 127-29; 157-59.] For the iconophiles, however, the relationship between the icon and the archetype was not grounded on the divine nature or even the hypostasis of Christ as such, because the icon itself is not a separate hypostasis but simply belongs to and participates in the hypostasis of its archetype, not unlike the way a shadow is projected by a body.” (Fr. Maximos, “The Theology of the Icon,” 6.)

[30] Fr. Maximos, “The Theology of the Icon,” 9-10.