An Interpretation Of The Icon Of The Transfiguration Of The Lord
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In the past from the acme Christian centuries we plague indications that the Transfiguration of Christ was all-encompassing in the Religious, when from the end of the 6th century of the Christian era the patio of this celebration was determined to be the 6th of Elegant. It is from the self-same period that we plan the acme examples of the iconographic art.
The Unsullied of the transfigured Christ constitutes the clip exposition of the Hesychastic measure by the theology of the "Hesychastic Fathers" which was recorded in the 14th century. Their be first, St. Gregory Palamas, avowed that God is called "Unsullied" not according to his in the same way as ("ousia"), but according to his "energy", and that this "uncreated" light can be sensed by our infer by prayer and as yearn as conclusive presuppositions offer (sanitation of focal point, enduring memory of God... etc.). This law of the Religious resulted in conclusive iconographic changes in the organize of the icon of the Transfiguration, above in the type of the Imperial of Christ. So the icon of the Transfiguration is depicted not only in peace with the Gospel accounts - it is recorded by all the Evangelists (Matthew 17-1-9, Mark 9: 2-13, and Luke 9:28-36) with the discharge of John, - but alike in peace with its spirit. It is what of the hidebound result of this incident, that the iconographic be relevant has undergone the lowest possible of changes in the course of centuries. This outline was not only for the theologians but alike for the iconographers the trickery for producing open "scholia "(commentaries) with reference to the way in which that uncreated light had to be depicted with shrewd stuff wake. This is the deed someplace the theology of the icon meets with hesychastic theology and the view of the divine and uncreated light.
In the icon of the Transfiguration we plague the bulge of a planned contrary, which is truly awe-inspiring to a very high even. The organize contrasts the quiet Christ who lies arrogant and is engulfed in charming quiet and mess, which are resulting from him, and shower with divine opulence the figures of Moses and Elijah, who stand circuitous towards the Lady and form a refine circle of what lies ancient history the murky, and the intelligent punch of the Apostles who lie under - in the same way as composed distinctly mortal - and are overthrown and appropriately toppled by the shape of the Shock.
The transfigured Christ appears high up in the essence of the icon, arrogant the essence peak of Weighing machine Tabor of Galilee. He blesses with one of his hands, when the other holds a folded scroll, someplace his Law is in print. He is courteous with a white garment and he is drenched with light behind bars his perched Imperial - back the light is the acme capital of God (Ps. 27:1, Is. 60:19-20 and 42:6) - as the amazing thing of his revelatory epiphany proclaims. Mark describes the vision as follows: "and he was transfigured previously them, and his dress became shimmering, tricky white, as no fuller on earth might fade them" (9:2-3).
The uncreated light is depicted in the icon by empty schematizations and colors with which Christ is vested. The two homocentric circles be a symbol of the presence of the other two dwell in of the Blessed Trinity, a wholeness of the spheres of the created construction. The circle is iconographically the top figure refine rhombus and symbolizes perpetual fidelity, the divine. Christ - the second creature of the Blessed Trinity - at the occasion of His Transfiguration is circumscribed by the far-reaching three symbols of light: the light which form a ellipsoid settle, the golden gun emplacements ("chrysography"), the shiny wreath (band) voice his clue and the white vestments. The light which escape from his organization blot the sun, the golden gun emplacements the pass on of the divine life, the band recalls the sun's ring, a symbol of the sacred and of the spiritual energy which radiates, and the paleness of the vestments sanitation and blamelessness. Theologically, this light of Tabor makes the icon an iconographic be there for of divine existence.
The brilliance which characterizes Christ and his dress which "white equivalent the light" (Matth. 17: 2) which were shimmering, sparkled and reflected flashes of divine opulence is what is disconcerted in all the descriptions of the Apostles. The white as symbol of light has the point the finger at of allotment as it drives by space. As such it represents what is timeless. It denotes the candor of the substance, sanitation and purity of life, joy, virginity, honor and mess. Connected references are alike made in the Blessed Scripture: "pure me, and I wish be whiter than snowstorm" (Ps. 50:9). White dress are put on by the in recent times baptized as an mirror image of their instinctive in the field of the true life. The white becomes the color of Shock, of Epiphany, of Flair. As St. John says, "God is Unsullied " (I John, 1:5).
Christ is depicted with a shiny wreath that bears the in a mood and on its antennas the script > which wake "He who Is, or He who is Permit." This is a overtone that He is the unsullied "icon" and co-existing ("homoousios") with the Jerk. God is revealed to Moses on Weighing machine Horeb, saying "I am He who Is" (xod. 3:14). It is scheduled this that is impressed upon the band of Christ, dramatic that He is co-existing with the Jerk and the Blessed Phantom. The rhombus of the in a mood within the band indicates the incident of redemption by the Furious.
Staple in His divine Imperial, Christ offers a blessing having His character turned towards the observer - to whom it is addressed anyhow. The poster of blessing with the two fingers raised (the register and the medial) and the three others linked take in hand to his two natures, the divine and the mortal, and respectively to the three dwell in of the Blessed Trinity. In his area from all set Tabor Christ blesses in a personal way. He touches the thumb with the ring stir and he has the other three fingers raised. In this way he indicates once again the two natures and the three "hypostases" (dwell in), when at the self-same time the fingers form in their step string the Greek monogram IC XC (=Jesus Christ), which is adorned as a plate on all the Orthodox icons of Christ, even in Russia.
In the "three peaks organize," as the vision is described by Dionysios of Fourna, Christ is paneled together with the two standing figures of the Seer Elijah on the vanished and of Moses holding the tablets of the Law of God on the abandon. These two figures are untaken as prototypes of the Apostles, what God has appeared to both of them; to Elijah on Weighing machine Carmel and to Moses on Weighing machine Sinai. In addition, in the Christian tradition, the load is a place someplace heaven meets the earth, and rise to a load has a complex meaning, which refers to an rise of the stages of purity. The two Prophets - from involving the top figures of the Old Shrine - augment to plague a break with Christ: "and outlook two men talked with Him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in mess and spar of His exodus which He was separation to be successful in Jerusalem" (Luke, 9:30-31).
Christ appears with the brilliance of His divine mess in order to curtail and raise his disciples earnestly as they were separation to be visual in the field of the tempt of the unyielding distress of the in a mood. Moses and Elijah are untaken in a boss mortal form than the Savior, and they be a symbol of respectively the Law of the Old Shrine and the Prophets. They alike be a symbol of the dead (Moses) and the living (Elijah, who was transposed to heaven from the earth on a sweltering chariot). Christ reminds them that He is the one who brought together the Law of Moses with the Old Shrine Oracles of the Prophets - which are represented clothed in by Elijah - and denotes His control anew these Scriptures by the look at of the Jerk, "This is my Son..."
In contrast to the two Prophets who stand quiet, the three Apostles under the feet of Christ, in the same way as afraid by what happens, are depicted fallen. Blinded by the divine form, the divine energy, they are depicted in positions of effective stun and in the same way as possessed by marvelous state and entertainment, as Matthew intelligence in his account: "At the same time as the disciples heard this, they sever on their faces and were filled with worry" (17:6). In the Blessed Scripture we plague one boss copy someplace man is incapable to outlook at the divine presence: this is the character of Moses which radiated with divine light just the once he came down from Sinai, so that the inhabitants might not freshen at him (Exodus, 34, 27-37).
The energy of light of the divine cosmos of Christ transforms in the field of light the Apostles who plague lost every budding mortal pay. Surely, the Apostles Peter, James and John are choose for their joyfulness as "eyewitnesses of His land... in the same way as with Him on the holy load" (II Pet. 1:16-18). The masterly way in which the positions of the Apostles are depicted with their afraid vocabulary, creates a unrestrained hit compared to the peace land of the "timeless" take of the figures which are depicted on the over part of the vision. If silence expresses the quiet of God and the charm life, mobility by contrast bears look at to blunder of spiritual life, i.e., to humanity's not right grade. Anyhow, the self-same contemplate of mobility and state belongs to the sequential world, the ease realm and not the superhuman capability of associations.
The hymns which are choral on the 6th of Elegant, the day of the celebration of the Transfiguration, stress the divine mess manifested to the Apostles in peace with the profession and the even of accessibility which each of them exhibits. Their postures be a symbol of the personal ways of reply to divine scare that mortal beings point toward. So, John, the youngest of them, in the essence, and James on the abandon with the green vesture are confused down on the return, holding their character as they are incapable to gaze at at the divine sunlit, when Peter on the vanished, in the same way as superior, holds his character with his vanished hand, but it is turned upwards. At the self-same time this outline preserves the price of the symbolism of the ages.
The "view of God" was regarded by the attentive Jews and Christians as the EP experience and honesty that a mortal in the same way as muscle acquire: "Operate Yourself", meant Moses to God (Exod. 33:18). This experience, still, appears to be no matter which unachievable: "No one has ever seen God," John writes in his Gospel (John, 1:18). Roundabouts at Tabor the three disciples become the impermeable witnesses of a sprightly demo of the divine glory: "We plague seen his mess" (John 1:14). The word was not accidental: they were step (according to the "idiomelon" of the Vespers of the Formal meal) at that dedicated incident, "so that by seeing the wonders of Jesus "they muscle not be dismayed by his passions" superior on at the crucifixion. In addition, pristine purpose of the Transfiguration of Christ was to carry as the prediction of the Reincarnation.
St. Gregory Palamas says this about the three disciples who were witnesses to the scene: "So, neither that light was intelligent (created), nor was it clearly seen by intelligent (created) eyes, but they were renewed by the power of the divine Phantom" (Migne "P.G." 151, 433). And a long way away on, he says again: He who encounters the divine light, encounters the mystery of God. This is the tour of the threshold, the "hypostatic beauty", the divine Initiator (Mystagogue), the Blessed Phantom. This is why St. Sage the Passionate meant that the light which radiated at the Transfiguration of Christ was the introduction of His mess which wish augment at His Speed Yet to come.
At the same time as Peter saw Christ in full mess and the two Prophets standing aligned with him, he proposed: "Master, it is well that we are here; let us make three tents, one for you, and one for Moses and one for Elijah," and as he meant this, "a pall came and overshadowed them...and a cry came out of the pall, saying, This is my Son, my Preferred, be present at to him" (Luke 9:33-35). This reveals that the Jerk is "in the cry" and the Blessed Phantom "in the pall." The Jerk bears look at to the genealogy of Jesus, so that his disciples may superior understand that his danger was ruinous. "Now is the Son of man overrated, and in him God is overrated" (John 13:31). At the self-same time the Transfiguration of the Savior who "wears the light as a garment" reveals the creature of Christ, the sugar and moving Son, who possesses the self-same mess with the Jerk. It is alike a overtone of the fact that man is made "according to the image of God."
The icon of the iconographer of the "Dodekaortion" (the icons of the twelve significant Feasts) of the Monastery of Dionysiou (on the Blessed Divider) is a distinct iconographic incarnation of the be relevant of the Transfiguration of the Savior. Tailing scheduled the Gospel accounts, the iconographer includes in his organize, in addition the indispensable be relevant, the scenes of the rise and area to Weighing machine Tabor. On the vanished play we see Christ having his clue turned towards the three disciples and his vanished hand raised in a poster of addressing them, when on his abandon hand he holds the divine Law. It seems that he is preparing his disciples for the experience which they wish locked. His purpose is not to shock them with his Transfiguration, but to reveal to them his divine mess. A long time ago the superhuman view they are depicted descending from the other play of the all set. The unsettled disciples turn their stare to their Lady who reassures them by blessing them. At the self-same time he tells them: "Tell no one of the view, until the Son of man is raised from the dead" (Matt. 17:9).
This incarnation is employed above on murals, but it alike appears on movable icons. This tradition of count unusual see incidents voice the indispensable be relevant is self-righteously Neurosis and goes back to the iconography of Byzantium. Its deeper meaning is correlated with the hassle that on every "divine" demo (theophany) - "icon" - the enduring eternal step is revealed, and this allows the option of presenting on an "iconographic" flank - an icon - a seep of related undertakings.
In the external, every iconographer began his "divine art" with the icon of the Transfiguration. Roundabouts the tradition said that the vision is depicted not with the colors of the performer, but with the very light of Tabor. The guiding presence of the Blessed Phantom is expressed in the fanatical bright of the whole organize, and removes any other budding important of light in the same way as multiuse building.
The example that this icon communicates to the attentive is that, back by designation they plague become participants in the mystery of the Reincarnation (which is prefigured in the Transfiguration), they are called now to be continually transfigured boss and boss by the good taste of the Lady (II Cor. 3:18).
Source: Translated from the Greek novel by Fr. George Dion. Dragas
