The Ecumenical Work of the Icon: Bringing the Iconographic Tradition to Catholic Seminaries

The Ecumenical Work of the Icon

Bringing the Iconographic Tradition to Catholic Seminaries

Hilda Kleiman

The Ecumenical Work of the Icon

Bringing the Iconographic Tradition to Catholic Seminaries

Copyright © 2018 Hilda Kleiman. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: Joining the Conversation

Documents of the Second Vatican Council

Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms of Ecumenism

Ut Unum Sint: On Commitment to Ecumenism and Additional Contributions

Receptive Ecumenism and Catholic Learning

Orthodoxy and Ecumenism

Chapter 2: Contributing to the Conversation

The Theology of the Icon

The Vocation of the Iconographer

The Icon and the Liturgy

The Iconographic Canon

The Iconoclast Controversy

Treatise III of On the Divine Images: A Summary and Response

The Icon in Twentieth-Century Russia

Chapter 3: Inviting Others into the Conversation

The Iconographic Arts Institute

Mount Angel Seminary

The Iconographic Tradition beyond Catholic Seminaries

Bibliography

For my students, past and present, and for all of my colleagues within the Iconographic Arts Institute. May God be glorified!

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten Son of the Father.

John 1:14

Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust,we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

1 Corinthians 15:49

Preface

The Studious Believer

When I began theological studies at Mount Angel Seminary in 2006, I was introduced to a definition of a theologian that has continued to resonate with me as I have been drawn into new areas of theology through my studies and teaching. In his book The Shape of Catholic Theology, Aidan Nichols explains that a student is a theologian when he or she takes his or her studies as a solemn engagement to developing over a lifetime the gift of Christian wonder, of curiosity.¹ The theologian, he explains, is the studious believer who asks why? As the completion of my MA at Mount Angel Seminary coincided with the beginning of my more formal study of iconography, I started asking why about iconography and Orthodox Christianity and how to approach them as a Catholic, as a student of the icon, and as a member of the faculty of a Catholic seminary.

While I had the benefit of my theological studies at Mount Angel Seminary when I began studying iconography through the Iconographic Arts Institute in 2009, I was, in some respects, starting with very little background. For five years prior to the official start of my study of iconography, I observed the institute students and teachers by visiting their studio as much as I could during the weeklong institute each summer, but due to other responsibilities, I was not able to observe their process in its entirety. Before 2009, I had not dedicated much time to reading on iconography or Orthodoxy, and I had only made a few brief visits to an Orthodox church. The first of those visits occurred when I was a freshman in college and my philosophy professor took a group of his students to Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church in Portland, Oregon, for Vespers. The sheer number of icons and amount of incense in the church was splendid, yet at the time I did not follow up on that experience with additional questions for my professor or reading on my own.

Since 2009, I have been learning as much about iconography and the Orthodox tradition as I can through the institute, individual reading and study, receiving lessons from a master iconographer, and visiting Orthodox churches whenever possible. Sometimes my reading about the Orthodox tradition speaks of those who are learning about the Orthodox Church, regardless of whether they have the explicit intention of becoming Orthodox themselves, as being on a journey to Orthodoxy. Even as a Catholic, I find this an appropriate way of describing the process in which I have been engaged with the icon and the work that continues to grow from it. I am on my own journey to Orthodoxy, which is a part of a journey toward greater Christian unity as well. I understand this book as a description and significant part of that journey.

In some respects I am hesitant to speak about that journey, in part because of my relatively limited experience with Orthodoxy thus far. However, I still find myself being remade in how I see and experience the Christian faith. Simply put, there was life before I was introduced to iconography and Orthodoxy, and there is life after I was introduced to iconography and Orthodoxy. This book specifically offers my colleagues and students, many of whom have also had a limited exposure to Orthodoxy and iconography, what I have learned during this journey thus far.

At times this is an uneasy journey, and I expect it will continue to be so. I have encountered the Christian faith in ways that I had not experienced before I began training as an iconographer. I have experienced a call to think, speak, and act in new ways, to further conversion, to theosis. I think this uneasiness and apprehension is as it should be. Faithfulness to the study of iconography means that conversion must be a real possibility. I have experienced the Lord through this study, and my hope is that through this study my colleagues, students, and members of the wider Christian community will draw closer to him as well.

1. Nichols, Shape of Catholic Theology,

19

.

Acknowledgments

My gratitude to my teachers at the Iconographic Arts Institute, Claudia Coose, Mary Katsilometes, and Kathy Sievers, especially for their support as I have found my place in the spectrum of callings to iconography.

I would also like to thank my colleagues at Mount Angel Seminary, particularly Dr. Owen F. Cummings, for his encouragement of an earlier version of this project, and Dr. Shawn Keough and Dr. Jodi Kilcup, for their readings of an earlier version of this project. I am also grateful to Dr. Mark Nussberger for his interest in the icon and his moral support during the final stages of writing this book.

Introduction

The Ecumenical Work of the Icon

A significant portion of the training undertaken by Kathy Sievers and Mary Katsilometes, master iconographers and two of the instructors for the Iconographic Arts Institute, was with Father Egon Sendler, a Jesuit priest who did much work toward the recovery of the iconographic tradition in the twentieth century. That tradition has been and continues to be rediscovered not only by the Orthodox but by Catholics and many Protestant denominations as well. At one point in her time with Father Sendler, Mary Katsilometes asked him what he thought was happening through the recovery of the iconographic tradition in the West. What was the reason for it? Why was it happening now? Father Sendler replied that while he did not fully understand what was happening, he was sure of two parts of this dynamic: the recovery of the iconographic tradition is the work of the Holy Spirit, and it is ecumenical. The renewed interest in iconography has a place within God’s work of salvation.² This insight is so central to the work of the institute that Fr. Sendler’s statement heads the introduction to the booklet that contains the curriculum for the Certificate in Iconographic Arts, which the institute inaugurated in 2016.

Mary has shared the story of her conversation with Father Sendler with her students many times, and it always left me wondering what it means to say that the icon is ecumenical. As my own studies have progressed, I have gathered more questions that build on that initial one. What does it mean for Catholics and other Christians, as well as for the Orthodox, to say that the icon is ecumenical? How does our answer to this question shape how and why we approach icons, both in prayer and as iconographers and students of the icon? What do I need to know and need to be able to share with others in order to understand the icon as ecumenical and to participate in its ecumenical work?

In this book, I claim that as Catholic Christian iconographers and students of the icon, our best approach to iconography includes understanding and joining the conversation that is the ecumenical movement. In order to do so, first we need to understand the Catholic and Orthodox approaches to ecumenism. Second, as students of the icon, we may contribute to that conversation through our respectful understanding of and participation in the iconographic tradition, a participation that may take a variety of forms. Third, we invite others to join that conversation as well. Within the context of this book, the invitations I illustrate primarily focus on students at Mount Angel Seminary, a Catholic seminary in St. Benedict, Oregon. Beyond the seminary, the invitations include materials offered with and to those involved in the Iconographic Arts Institute, as well as presentations and talks for a variety of other groups. These three steps of understanding ecumenism, contributing to the conversation, and inviting others to participate in the conversation correspond to the three parts of this book.

The groups with whom I have been involved each bear some responsibility for gaining a solid understanding of the iconographic tradition. As people who are discerning a vocation as iconographers, the responsibility of the students of the institute to understand and to share the iconographic tradition is clear. Their work and discernment will be deepened through an understanding of the icon’s ecumenical implications. Students at Mount Angel Seminary are discerning and studying for the Catholic priesthood. As pastors or from within other leadership positions, they may be called upon to make decisions about the art and environment of their churches and other buildings. If those decisions include traditional iconography, and I hope they do, they need to be shaped by a sound understanding of iconography and Orthodoxy. If they are serving in parishes that commission icons or already have icons in their churches when they arrive, they and their staff will also need to be good stewards of their icons. Good stewardship includes being informed about their icons’ theology, aesthetics, and place within the iconographic tradition. Parishes and religious houses in my diocese, the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon, now have many large icons, thanks to the work of Mary Katsilometes, Kathy Sievers, and a number of their students. These include but are not limited to St. Clare Parish in Portland, Saint Matthew Catholic Church in Hillsboro, Resurrection Catholic Parish in Tualatin, Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey in Lafayette, and Queen of Angels Monastery in Mount Angel. Continuing education about ecumenism, the iconographic tradition, and their specific icons may help people throughout the archdiocese to be good stewards of their icons, as well as perhaps encourage more vocations as iconographers.

The election of Pope Francis as the bishop of Rome gives the ecumenical emphasis of this project additional energy. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew attended the installation of Pope Francis in Rome on March 19, 2013, an action that, according to George E. Demacopolous of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University, is a profoundly bold step in ecumenical relations between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholics.³ In response to and in honor of the presence of Patriarch Bartholomew, the Gospel for the installation Mass was chanted in Greek rather than Latin. In his address to Pope Francis the day after the installation, Patriarch Bartholomew emphasized that the unity of the Christian churches is essential to their witness around the world. We must continue the inaugurated theological dialogue so that we may jointly appreciate and approach the truth of faith, the experience of the saints, and the tradition of the first Christian millennium shared by East and West alike, he said.⁴ While that dialogue takes places at the higher and more formal levels of the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, the study, work, and prayer that each of us contribute through our own circumstances is also vital.

I am offering a consideration of Orthodoxy and ecumenism, the iconographic tradition, and opportunities for education on these topics that may not have been brought together in one book, particularly for the students and faculties of Catholic seminaries. I also hope I will benefit those discerning a vocation as iconographers and those who have traditional icons in their parishes and religious houses. I hope this work will serve as a complement to the work of Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew and serve as an example of receptive ecumenism.

2. Mary Katsilometes (master iconographer), in discussion with the author, November

2012

.

3. Demacopolous, Extraordinary Historical Significance, lines

10

–

11

.

4. Bartholomew, Address by His All-Holiness, lines

11

–

14

.

1

Joining the Conversation

The Ecumenical Movement

The end of each discovery becomes the starting point for the discovery of something higher, and the ascent continues. Thus our ascent is unending. We go from beginning to beginning by way of beginnings without end.

—St. Gregory of Nyssa

Since most members of the intended audience for this project are Catholic Christians, some key documents pertaining to Catholic participation in ecumenism are the entry point for joining the conversation that is the ecumenical movement. These include "Lumen Gentium and Unitatis Redintegratio" from among the documents of the Second Vatican Council, the Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms of Ecumenism, and John Paul II’s Ut Unum Sint. Each of these documents is significant for formal and informal students of iconography and thus contributes to their education.

Documents of the Second Vatican Council

Among the sixteen documents of the Second Vatican Council, the constitution Lumen Gentium: The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church provides the basic Catholic understanding of the nature of the church that supports the pastoral applications found in the shorter decrees and declarations, including Unitatis Redintegratio: Decree on Ecumenism. While this discussion focuses on the first chapter of Lumen Gentium, this constitution also contains sections on the structure of the church, the clergy, laity, and religious, and the eschatological nature of the church.

Toward the end of the first chapter of Lumen Gentium, the council fathers state that the church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church . . . although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure.¹ Given this understanding, the spirituality of Christian traditions outside of the Catholic Church may offer fertile ground for Catholics seeking to grow in their faith. This may be particularly true for Catholics who are approaching iconography as an aspect of their prayer or who are discerning a vocation as an iconographer. The icon is an element of sanctification, and Catholics who approach the icon through study and in worship have an opportunity to experience aspects of the Christian tradition they may not currently experience on a regular basis. Icons are certainly found in Catholic parishes and homes, but they often do not have the centrality they have in an Orthodox parish or household. An experience of the fullness of truth found in the Catholic Church is found in the sanctity we experience in the practice of iconography in the Orthodox Church around the world.

The opening chapter of Lumen Gentium also calls upon many images from the Scriptures through which Christians may ponder the nature of