The Transfiguring Art of The Church
An expressly liturgical language is intended not only to function as a suitably dignified medium, but also to cultivate an awareness of the division between the sacred and the profane. This division is evident in every material manifestation of the Church — in her architecture, her vestments, her music, her iconography. In each of these the Church has her own mode of expression which is quite different from that of this world.
Many object to such a distinction, maintaining that it is a false dichotomy that lessens the immediacy of God in the world. On the contrary, Orthodoxy’s assumption of material forms that differ from those of this world is an assertion of the two central realities of man’s relationship with God, namely, a) that man has fallen away from God, and b) that God has come to man to restore him. Man’s fall is apparent in the secular arts, material expressions of a fallen mind, products of a nature tainted by sin; God’s presence in creation takes perceptible form in the Church, which manifests God’s deifying grace and the transformation thereby of created substance.
If the Church’s art were identical with that of fallen man, then there would be no material expression of our sanctification, and the Church would have surrendered its witness to man’s redemption, since our redemption is made possible by the assumption of materiality (specifically, of our human nature) by the Immaterial. Man’s mode of expression is influenced by man’s sinfulness, while the Church’s mode of expression is divinely inspired, and they cannot be identical. Thus, the existence of an expression unique to the Church is evidence not of God’s distance from man but of His presence in our midst.
Man is a fallen creature, and the purpose of the Church in the world is the deification of man, not the humanization of God. The Church — that is, Christ — achieves man's deification through participation in created human nature, and man appropriates this deification by participation in the Divine, in the life of the Church. This meeting of the Divine and the human occurs not only on an intellectual plane, but in everything that pertains to man, including his physical senses. The influence that even the secular arts (such as painting, literature, and music) have on the soul is very great, because of the integral unity of man's body and soul.
In the Church, sanctified creation generates spiritualized arts that adorn, express, and elucidate the Mysteries (sacraments) of the Church, and so are a means of man's sanctification and deification; hence iconography and chant and the literary corpus of the Church are Mysteries in their own right. These spiritualized arts exert on a man's soul a perceptible influence that contends with that wielded by secular arts, and they finally surpass the latter in influence by virtue of their capacity to deify.
For this reason, it is important that the iconography and the chant used in church adhere strictly to the norms established by the Fathers, for exposure to the pure expression of the Church's Mysteries immerses one in their deifying influence. In the words of Saint Paul, “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).
— from The Pentecostarion,
Holy Transfiguration Monastery,
1990; pp 19-20.
Many object to such a distinction, maintaining that it is a false dichotomy that lessens the immediacy of God in the world. On the contrary, Orthodoxy’s assumption of material forms that differ from those of this world is an assertion of the two central realities of man’s relationship with God, namely, a) that man has fallen away from God, and b) that God has come to man to restore him. Man’s fall is apparent in the secular arts, material expressions of a fallen mind, products of a nature tainted by sin; God’s presence in creation takes perceptible form in the Church, which manifests God’s deifying grace and the transformation thereby of created substance.
If the Church’s art were identical with that of fallen man, then there would be no material expression of our sanctification, and the Church would have surrendered its witness to man’s redemption, since our redemption is made possible by the assumption of materiality (specifically, of our human nature) by the Immaterial. Man’s mode of expression is influenced by man’s sinfulness, while the Church’s mode of expression is divinely inspired, and they cannot be identical. Thus, the existence of an expression unique to the Church is evidence not of God’s distance from man but of His presence in our midst.
Man is a fallen creature, and the purpose of the Church in the world is the deification of man, not the humanization of God. The Church — that is, Christ — achieves man's deification through participation in created human nature, and man appropriates this deification by participation in the Divine, in the life of the Church. This meeting of the Divine and the human occurs not only on an intellectual plane, but in everything that pertains to man, including his physical senses. The influence that even the secular arts (such as painting, literature, and music) have on the soul is very great, because of the integral unity of man's body and soul.
In the Church, sanctified creation generates spiritualized arts that adorn, express, and elucidate the Mysteries (sacraments) of the Church, and so are a means of man's sanctification and deification; hence iconography and chant and the literary corpus of the Church are Mysteries in their own right. These spiritualized arts exert on a man's soul a perceptible influence that contends with that wielded by secular arts, and they finally surpass the latter in influence by virtue of their capacity to deify.
For this reason, it is important that the iconography and the chant used in church adhere strictly to the norms established by the Fathers, for exposure to the pure expression of the Church's Mysteries immerses one in their deifying influence. In the words of Saint Paul, “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).
— from The Pentecostarion,
Holy Transfiguration Monastery,
1990; pp 19-20.