Philokalia

My first book has just been published: The Philokalia: The Eastern Christian Spiritual Texts -- Selections Annotated and Explained (SkyLight Paths, 2006: ISBN 1594731039). It lists for $16.99, but Amazon has it for $11.04.

The Philokalia is the great spiritual classic of Eastern Orthodox Christainity. It has been published in English in four volumes, with a fifth volume of supplementary materials due out within a year. Because the size of the work can be intimidating to first-time readers, I have taken selections from the four published volumes and added notes and commentary to help introduce the reader to the world of the Philokalia.

The selections are organized thematically in seven chapters: (1) Repentance; (2) The Heart; (3) Prayer; (4) The Jesus Prayer; (5) The Passions; (6) Stillness; and (7) In the End: Theosis. There is an introduction and a list of suggestions for further reading.

The book is a part of the Illuminations series from SkyLight Paths, which presents edited and annotated editions of spiritual classics from the major world religions. The series includes an edition of another Orthodox classic, The Way of a Pilgrim. SkyLightPaths has also republished The Monks of Mount Athos (formerly O Holy Mountain) by the late Trappist monk, Father Basil Pennington.

Christian Worship and Capital Punishment

Dr. Tobias Winright (a Roman Catholic moral theologian) and I coauthored a pamphlet on what Christian worship might have to say about the death penalty. It was published by The Ekklesia Project and is available as a free download.

Can War Ever Be Just?

Can war ever be just? Or to put the question more practically, is it morally permissible for Christians to fight in a war? The Roman Catholic moral tradition going back as far as the fourth century after the birth of Christ has held that it is possible for Christians to engage in war justly, but that tradition may soon be changing. The source of that possible change is someone unexpected – Pope Benedict XVI. In this article I will address the development of the Church’s teaching on just war over the centuries, and then outline what the current pope has had to say on the issue of just war.

How has the Church viewed Christian participation in warfare? The primary source of her teaching on this and all other theological issues is the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospels. His teaching was unquestionably a nonviolent one, and early Christian bishops and theologians believed that our discipleship required us to refuse to do violence. The 3rd century Apostolic Tradition attributed to Hippolytus required that candidates for baptism forswear violence: “A soldier in command must be told not to kill people; if he is ordered to do so, he shall not carry it out. Nor should he take the oath. If he will not agree, he should be rejected. Anyone who has the power of the sword, or who is a civil magistrate wearing the purple, should desist, or he should be rejected.”

Once the Roman Empire recognized and then supported the Church, however, some theologians began to re-think the Church’s opposition to war. St. Ambrose of Milan (ca.339-397), who had been agovernmental official before entering the Church, began to teach that, under certain conditions, it was morally permissible for Christians to take up arms. His position grew more influential with its adoption by his protégé, St. Augustine of Hippo (ca. 354-430), and it reached its now classic formulation in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas (ca.1225-1274). In short, it holds that Christians may fight in war under certain circumstances. First, a nation may go to war only if certain conditions are met (these are called the jus ad bellum criteria – “justice in going to war”). Second, the war must also be conducted under certain conditions (the jus in bello criteria – “justice in war”).

A contemporary just war theorist has identified the following jus ad bellum criteria: (1) “The cause must be just; in other words, responding to a grave public evil, such as unprovoked aggression or threat to the human rights of entire populations.” (2) “The authority waging the war must be legitimate, duly constituted in service to public not private goods.” (3) “The intention motivating the war must be right, objectively aiming to promote the common good, not a hidden agenda.” (4) “Success must be probable, not a futile effort that does little more than destroy lives and resources on both sides.” (5) “The overall war effort must be proportional; in other words, the achievable good must outweigh the destruction that the war itself causes.” (6) “War must be the last resort, coming only after exhaustive attempts to resolve the conflict by peaceful means.”

The jus in bello criteria are: (1)“Non-combatants are to be immune from harm, military forces may never target civilians directly, and must make every effort to avoid indirect harm as well.” (2) “Specific military campaigns must also be proportional, employing no more force than necessary to meet military objectives.” (3) “Intention must continue to be right, subjectively motivated by a desire for peace withjustice, not vengeance or hatred.”

These criteria make it clear that the Church’s just war tradition is not an endorsement of war, but a set of principles for assessing whether and under what conditions Christians may engage (morally) in combat. Naturally, the current war in Iraq has stimulated a great deal of reflection among theologians of all Christian traditions, much of it on whether the U.S. satisfied the requirements of going to war justly and on whether the U.S. is conducting the war justly. Most moral theologians have found that the present war does not satisfy several of these criteria.

A new element in the debate is over whether the tradition holds that there is a presumption against war. Some current proponents of just war theory believe that there is not any such presumption; instead, they believe, there is a presumption against injustice, which a war might seek to remedy. I believe the answer is found in St. Thomas’ treatment of just war in his Summa Theologiae, the Second Part of the Second Part, Question 40. The first and obvious clue is the question itself: “Whether it is always sinful to wage war.” The question itself may be the work of a later editor, but the phrasing fits the content of Q. 40. Indeed, St. Thomas does not discuss war under the heading of justice – the virtue one might reasonably expect it to fall under – but under the heading of sins against charity.War falls between his discussion of “schism” and “strife.”

We find confirmation of this in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed., which discusses just war in the context of the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves and specifically under the heading of“Safeguarding Peace.” The Catechism speaks first of the importance of peace, and then of the importance of avoiding war, saying that “the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war” (§2307), andthat “All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war” (§2308). It acknowledges the right of governments to “lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed” but adds, “The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy” (§2309).

So why might Pope Benedict XVI be interested in amending the Catholic tradition on war? The first clue is his choice of a papal name. The last pope to bear that name, Benedict XV, was popularly known as“the peace Pope.” Justin Cardinal Rigali confirmed that the Pope told the College of Cardinals that he chose the name because “he is desirous to continue the efforts of Benedict XV on behalf of peace. . . throughout the world.”

While it is early in his papacy, we do have various statements he made as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the head of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.We know that he joined Pope John Paul II in condemning the U.S. war in Iraq asunjust. On more than one occasion, the Cardinal declared the war would be unjust because “the damage would be greater than the values one hopes to save.” In this he was following a settled principle of the just war tradition – “the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition” (§2309).

Moreover, he made it clear that the idea of a “preventive” war is contrary to Catholic just war teaching. Because some American Catholic supporters of the present war have nonetheless argued for the legitimacy of preventive war, the Pope might wish to revise the Catechism to make the Church’s teaching more explicit.

The principal reason for thinking a change might be in the offing were remarks (then) Cardinal Ratzinger made at a press conference two years ago in which he discussed possible changes to the Catechism: “the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it isstill licit to admit the very existence of a ‘just war’” (May 2, 2003). This is not really a change in the tradition but a concern already addressed in the Catechism: “The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating” whether a war may be considered just (§2309). While no reasonable person would say that the U.S. has intended to kill noncombatants in Iraq, the nature of the warfare and its weapons has meant a staggering loss of innocent life. Such an outcome has always been considered to be a violation of the criteria for conducting a war justly.

If Pope Benedict XVI promulgates in his papacy the understanding he has had of the just war tradition in recent years, it will not be a change in the Church’s teaching but its application to the realities of war in our time.We may expect that he will do nothing other than to seek to make real in the life of the Church the teaching of Christ that concludes the Catechism’s treatment of war:“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God’ (Matthew 5:9).

Why Study the Liturgy?

Someone recently asked me the question “Why study the history of the liturgy?” It is not an uncommon question, although it is perplexing to hear it from Catholics. After all, Vatican II reminded us all that the Eucharist “is the source and summit of the Christian life” (Lumen gentium 11; Catechism of the Catholic Church 1324). Even so, many Catholics – lay and ordained – see the study of the Church’s liturgy as something of a frill, rather than an essential. Even the theology faculties at many Catholic colleges and universities see having a liturgical theologian on their staff as a low priority. One distinguished Catholic university I know has 24 full-time theologians on their staff, but not a single one of them specializes in the liturgy. Rather than speculate as to how we got to where we are in all this, however, I will simply give my own answer to the question asked:Why study the history of the liturgy?

In short, we need to study the historical and theological development of the liturgy in order to understand where we come from, where we are now, and where we might be going. To flesh this out, I will point to one example – the role of the words of institution in the Mass (Christ’s words spoken at the Last Supper – “This is my body…. This is my blood.”). This issue has been important in the history of the Church, and not just to theologians.

A lack of historical knowledge and understanding was a major cause of the Reformation. Martin Luther and other Reformers made a number of false assumptions about the Catholic Mass of the 16th century. They believed that the Catholic Church had radically distorted the ancient liturgy, polluting it with what they believed were all sorts of unbiblical ideas and practices. This led most of the Reformers not only to dismiss very early elements of the Eucharist, such as sacrifice and real presence, but also to gut the structure of the liturgy itself. One such move was Luther’s reduction of the anaphora (also known as, among others, the eucharistic prayer, the canon of the Mass, the Great Thanksgiving) to little more than the words of institution.

Thanks to the work of liturgical scholars, we now know what Luther and the Reformers did not know. The re-discovery of many eucharistic liturgies of the first millennium of the Church’s history has shown us not only that the anaphora was the very heart of the Eucharist rather than some late accretion, as Luther supposed, but that he was even wrong in supposing the words of institution to be the necessary element in the Mass.

This might surprise you. Generations of Catholics have been told something similar to what Luther believed. It has been commonplace in Catholic theology for centuries that Christ’s words of institution, spoken by the priest, are “consecratory,” i.e., they are what change the elements of bread and wine into the sacramental Body and Blood of Christ. Meanwhile, the Eastern Christian traditions (Catholic and Orthodox) have tended to see the epiclesis, i.e., the invocation of the Holy Spirit over the elements, to be consecratory.What change has taken place, and why?

First, liturgical theologians have come to understand the anaphora (which is Greek for “offering”) as consecratory. Typically, the anaphora is an extended, unified prayer containing a number of elements (usually 11) such as the sursum corda (“Lift up your hearts,” etc.), the Sanctus (“Holy, holy, holy….”), the institution narrative (containing Christ’s words on institution), the anamnesis (the remembering of Christ’s death and resurrection), the offering (of the consecrated Gifts back to God), the epiclesis (the invocation of the Spirit on the elements and the assembly), intercessions, and a closing doxology (praise to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). This means that to isolate any one of these pieces as the essential or consecratory element of the anaphora is a mistake. Today, therefore, the Church would say that the whole prayer of the anaphora is consecratory, and has said so in a variety of documents.

Second, as to the identification of the words of institution as consecratory, liturgists have long known that the Liturgy of Addai and Mari, which originated in Edessa (in northeastern Syria) and which is one of the oldest liturgies of the Church (and one that is still in use by some Eastern Christians), does not contain the words of institution. As Fr. Robert F. Taft, S.J., has written, “On what legitimate theological and ecclesiological basis could Rome argue than an apostolic church whose ancient principal anaphora had been in continuous use since time immemorial without ever being condemned by anyone – not by any father of the Church, nor by any local or provincial synod, nor by ecumenical council nor catholicos nor patriarch nor pope – on what basis would one dare to infer that such an ancient apostolic church had never had a valid eucharistic sacrifice?”

The issue of the Liturgy of Addai and Mari was settled by the Church’s magisterium in 2001 by its Guidelines for Admission to the Eucharist Between the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian Church of the East. The document’s purpose was to “assure Catholics [who] receive Communion consecrated at an Assyrian Eucharist using the Anaphora of Addai and Mari that they are receiving the one true body and blood of Christ.” The document’s authority is beyond question, as it was “approved by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Pope John Paul II himself.”

So has the Church changed its mind about the words of institution being consecratory? Yes and No. Yes in the sense that we no longer see the words spoken by Christ as a formula of consecration to be repeated by the presider at the Mass to “confect” the sacramental body and blood of Christ. But in another sense it has not changed its mind. By re-reading her own tradition, the Church has recovered its earlier thinking on the matter. For when we carefully study what the early writers on this issue had to say, the fourth-century theologians St Ambrose of Milan and St John Chrysostom of Constantinople, we discover that they were not affirming a formula of consecration. What they were saying is that the words of institution are consecratory in that, as Fr. Taft writes, our Lord’s “pronouncing of them at the Last Supper remains efficaciously consecratory for every Eucharist until the end of time.” Thus even in the Liturgy of Addai and Mari, which contains no institution narrative, it is nonetheless the words of Christ spoken at the Last Supper that are consecratory.

So why do we study the history of the liturgy? We do so to better understand how both our practice and theological understanding of the liturgy has developed and changed over time.We do so because a lack of such understanding sows confusion and discord, as it did in the Reformation.We do so in order to understand why we celebrate and teach the way we do about the Mass of today.We do so because the Eucharist is nothing less than “the source and summit of the Christian life.”

Ecumenical Bioethics

A review of Gilbert Meilaender's Bioethics: A Christian Primer and Body, Soul and Bioethics, in the Fall 1996 issue of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity.

Recovering Ethics

A review of Vigen Guroian's Ethics after Christendom: Toward an Ecclesial Christian Ethic in the Fall 1995 issue of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity.

Theology and Icons

What follows are notes from a plenary lecture I gave at the 2006 Gathering of The Ekklesia Project in Chicago on July 17th.

When I began the formal study of philosophy as a college student, I assumed that aesthetics – the philosophy of beauty – would be an important component of my study. I had read some Plato, and had come to believe that there was a fundamental unity of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. But I quickly learned that it was mostly philosophers in mainland Europe who took beauty seriously. Most philosophers in Anglo-American philosophy did not seem to care about beauty; at least, not as a philosophical concern. Most seemed not to have shaken off the early 20th century dictum of the Vienna Circle that any statement that could not be verified was, philosophically speaking, meaningless. Thus aesthetic claims, as well as metaphysical ones (such as the existence of God), were dismissed from serious consideration by philosophers.

Even sadder to say, I did not find the situation much improved when my studies shifted from philosophy to Christian theology. Apart from the impressive work of the late Catholic theologian Hans Ur von Balthasar in his multivolume work on theological aesthetics, Western theology largely ignored beauty in its second millennium. The situation has been somewhat different in Eastern Christianity, i.e., in the Eastern Orthodox theological tradition. It is no accident that the most recent book in theological aesthetics to make its mark in academic theology, The Beauty of the Infinite, is written by a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy, David Bentley Hart.

Why is this so? Because I am myself an Eastern Orthodox Christian, it will no doubt sound chauvinistic on my part to claim that the East has preserved this attention to beauty, while the West has, for the most part, turned its attention elsewhere for the last millennium. Even so, I will make the claim anyway! For us it begins at the beginning – in the creation account of Genesis. We read in the usual translations that, after God created something, he called it ‘good.’ However, in the Septuagint, the Greek edition of the Old Testament that remains the official Old Testament of the Orthodox Church, we read that God said, after creating something, that it was kalon – beautiful. The Hebrew word carries both meanings, ‘good’ and ‘beautiful’, but the translators of the Septuagint chose kalon (‘beautiful’) rather than agathon (‘good’). Thus God’s appreciation of his creation is first described aesthetically, rather than morally.

We find this emphasis upon beauty throughout the history of the Eastern tradition. A couple of examples. First, there is the account of how, late in the 10th century, Prince Vladimir of Kiev wished to select a religion for the ‘Rus. He sent emissaries to various countries to learn about their religions. The Russian Primary Chronicle records that they ‘… went first to he Muslim Bulgars of the Volga, but observing that these when they prayed gazed around them like men possessed, the Russians continued on their way dissatisfied. “There is no joy among them,” they reported to Vladimir., “but mournfulness and a great smell; and there is nothing good about their system.” Travelling next to Germany and to Rome, they found the worship more satisfactory, but complained that here too there it was without beauty. Finally they journeyed to Constantinople, and here at last, as they attended the Divine Liturgy in the great Church of the Holy Wisdom, they discovered what they desired. “We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth, for surely there is no such splendour or beauty anywhere upon earth. We cannot describe it to you; only this we know, that God dwells there among humans, and that their service surpasses the worship of all other places. For we cannot forget that beauty.”

It is important to note first that theirs was not merely an aesthetic judgment: they wrote that ‘God dwells there among humans.’ And second, they connected the presence of God with that unforgettable beauty.

My second example of this emphasis upon beauty is in the writing of the great novelist of Russian Orthodoxy – Fyodor Dostoevsky. Let me read you a short passage from his novel The Possessed.

Are you aware that mankind can do without the English, that it can do without Germany, that nothing is easier for mankind than to do without the Russians, that it can live without science or even bread? Only beauty is absolutely indispensable, for without beauty there is nothing left in the world worth doing. Here is the entire secret; all of history, right in a nutshell.

You have probably also heard Dostoevsky’s most famous remark about beauty, namely, that ‘beauty will save the world.’

This characteristic Orthodox emphasis upon beauty, upon the visual nature of Christian truth, is most often associated with icons, which is the topic of the rest of my remarks in this panel discussion, as well as the subject of the workshop I did this morning and which I will be repeating this afternoon.

It is impossible for an Orthodox Christian to consider the topic of this gathering and more especially of this panel – the Gospel in pictures and poems – without thinking first of Orthodox iconography. He next thought would be the hymnody of the liturgy throughout the year, hymnody in which Orthodox dogmatic theology is expressed poetically. But given time constraints, I will focus on icons. First some history, and then some theology.

Sacred imagery was part of the Temple worship of the Israelites. Paragraphs away from God’s injunction against false idols, graven images, he gives details about the decoration of the Temple veil. We know that the interior of the Temple was painted with images from creation in the main hall, and that the veil contained images of angels, a sign that the Holy of Holies beyond the veil was heaven.

In the Christian era, tradition tells us that St Luke was the first iconographer, having painted a picture of the Virgin Mary on wood. While we cannot say with certainty when icons became a regular part of the Christian liturgy, we do find references to their use in the fourth century in the writings of, among others, St John Chrysostom and St Basil the Great. This was not controversial. But then something happened. A new faith arrived on the scene in the Christian east – Islam, a radically iconoclastic tradition. (Iconoclast means a breaker of images.) Under the growing influence of Islam, many Christians became iconoclasts. They rejected the use of icons and their veneration as ‘idolatry.’ There were two periods of iconoclasm in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. The first period was followed by the Second Council of Nicea in 787, which is reckoned as the Seventh and last Ecumenical Council. The fundamental result of the council was to approve the existence and veneration of icons, as well as their use in the Church’s liturgy. While acknowledging that an icon of God the Father is not permitted, an icon of the Son of God is permissible because the Second Person of the Trinity took on human nature and retains it throughout all eternity. The Fathers of the Seventh Council concluded that to deny the depiction of Christ in an icon was in effect to deny the truth of the Incarnation. And if God did not really assume human nature, then our nature will never become divine, we will never be deified, we will never be saved. As with all the other theological issues that confronted the fathers of the seven ecumenical councils, the issue of icons was deemed important because it touches on our very salvation. Iconoclasm was at its heart a denial of that basic truth of salvation enunciated by St Irenaios of Lyons in the second century and St Athanasius of Alexandria in the third: God became human so that humans might become divine.

The second period of iconoclasm with the Eastern Church’s declaration of the ‘Triumph of Orthodoxy’ which is celebrated every year on the first Sunday of Lent, usually including the procession of the priest and faithful of the parish carrying icons in procession around the outside of the church building. This past Sunday, we Orthodox celebrated the Fathers of the first six ecumenical councils – all six on one day. But the seventh council is celebrated by itself as the triumph of Orthodoxy. This may strike you as strange – surely the so-called Nicene Creed which was produced by the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople in 325 and 381 was more important than the place of icons in the life of the Church. Surely the Chalcedonian definition of the two natures of Christ (human and divine) was more important than the place of icons in the life of the Church. Why on earth did Christians willingly undergo martyrdom rather than give up their icons or their veneration of the icons? The iconoclast emperors, after all, did not believe that they were asking the users of icons to renounce their faith in Christ. And yet, in effect, that is precisely what these emperors were doing. The fathers of the Seventh Council did not view iconoclasm as simply one heresy among others. It was, as the Russian theologian Paul Evdokimov wrote, ‘all the previous heresies rolled into one, a “heretical compendium,” undercutting the whole economy of salvation.’ Evdokimov goes on to say that the iconoclasts were, in effect, docetists – docetism being the heresy that says Christ became human only in appearance but not in reality. It is not coincidental that iconoclasts – ancient or contemporary – also rejected the veneration of the Saints and the divine motherhood of the Virgin Mary.

Clearly the icon is of great importance to the life of Eastern Orthodoxy. But they are now considered a source of theological authority. In Bishop Kallistos Ware’s modern classic, The Orthodox Church, he lists the following outward sources of theological authority for Orthodox Christians: the Bible, the Seven Ecumenical Councils (including the Nicene Creed completed by the first Council of Constantinople in 381), certain later Eastern councils, the Church fathers, the Liturgy, canon law, and the holy icons!

What troubles some Western Christians even more than the use of icons in churches is the fact that Orthodox venerate them, and by this I mean we light candles in front of them, we cense them with incense, we prostrate ourselves before them, and we kiss them – above all, we kiss them! Quite a few years ago I came to Chicago to one of the museums here that was opening a new exhibit of icons from Russia and Alaska. Before the public opening of the exhibit, there was a special opening for the Orthodox. There were two bishops present to bless the exhibit, quite a few priests and deacons, and a goodly number of the faithful. Shortly after the blessing of the exhibit had been performed, the loud and obnoxious sound of alarms began going off. The curators had placed proximity alarms above the icons so that an alarm would sound if a person got too close. Well, they hadn’t anticipated a bunch of Orthodox Christians kissing the icons. We quickly realized that it was the kissing setting off the alarms, but no one stopped kissing them. That simply wasn’t an option!

The short answer to those who are disturbed by such veneration is that given by the holy tradition centuries before the Seventh Council, and it is still the answer – in two parts. First, we teach and practice that worship belongs to God alone, but we allow the veneration of persons as well as holy objects such as the icons, the Book of Gospels, and the Cross – all of which we cense and kiss. Second, we believe that the veneration we pay to the sacred object is passed along to its prototype – to Christ, or the Virgin, or to the saint. And, strictly speaking, what we honor in the Virgin and in the other saints is God in them, and not their own merits.

Of course, this won’t satisfy everyone. Even a Western critic who is quite favorable to Orthodoxy, Daniel Clendenin, has a bit of a problem with them. He does think that, ‘rightly understood, they can be a joyous supplement to the manner, if not content, of worship.’ But I would argue that he has employed some false premises in his criticism of icons. First, he claims that the Seventh Ecumenical Council assigned the icons the same importance as the Bible. That isn’t true. What the fathers of the Council say is that the icons are to be venerated, just as the Book of Gospels are to be venerated. There is no question that the Bible is the first and most authoritative part of the tradition. Second, he also gets at least one of his Protestant sources wrong, too. He quotes from J. I. Packer’s Knowing God, where Packer writes that the second commandment obliges us to refrain from using pictures or statues of Christ in our worship, public or private. But I have a tape of Packer speaking on which he is asked about that passage with respect to Orthodox icons. He said that he wasn’t thinking in the least of icons, but rather bad Christian art – those ‘realistic’ portraits that depict, e.g., a blonde, blue-eyed Jesus. Icons were not his target then, and they are not his target now.

Time is growing short, so I want to quickly show you one icon and briefly comment on its significance. It is the Anastasis icon. The name means ‘resurrection.’ The icon is sometimes incorrectly referred to as ‘The Descent into Hades’ or ‘The Harrowing of Hell.’ Father John Behr notes that the only name that appears on the icon and in the Church’s commentary on the icon is Anastasis. Although it does not depict the empty tomb or one of the post-resurrection appearances to the disciples, it is nonetheless the icon of Pascha (Easter). In fact, it is not a depiction of Easter Day but of the day before, Holy Saturday, when, St Peter tells us in his first epistle (3.19), Christ descended into Hades and preached to the departed spirits.

There are a number of versions of the Anastasis icon. The one here was painted in 1546 by an iconographer from Crete and belongs to a monastery on Mount Athos in Greece. In it, you see Christ taking Adam by the hand to pull him out of hell. You see other Old Testament personages in the icon as well. There is Eve (in some versions of this icon, Christ is shown taking Adam by one hand and Eve with his other), Abel (the first person to be murdered), and even St John the Baptist.

Beneath Christ, one usually finds a personification of death or hell, who is usually depicted as being bound, completely immobilized. One also sees the doors to hell. They aren’t merely open: Christ has broken them down. Broken locks, hinges, and nails surround them. They can never be put back up.

There is a final important detail – this icon does not depict the resurrection of Christ, but of Adam and, in Adam, of all humankind. The icon, in other words, depicts the effect of his saving passion, death, and resurrection. It is put simply in a hymn for Easter that we sing, seemingly, ad infinitum: ‘Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tomb bestowing life!’ At the great Paschal vigil in every Orthodox Church around the world, one sees this icon, hears that hymn sung, and hears the Easter homily of St John Chrysostom. What St John preaches in words, the icon depicts for us. Look at the the icon while I read for you a small section of that homily:

Let none lament his poverty; for the universal Kingdom is revealed.
Let none bewail his transgressions; for the light of
forgiveness has risen from the tomb.
Let none fear death; for death of the Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed death by undergoing death.
He has despoiled hell by descending into hell.
He vexed it even as it tasted of His flesh.
Isaiah prophesied this and said: Hades has been embittered by meeting him
below.
It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was annihilated.
It was embittered, for it was put in chains.
It took a body, and, face to face, met God.
It took earth and encountered heaven.
It took what it saw and was conquered by what it saw not.
O death, where is your sting? O hell, where is your victory?
Christ is risen, and you are overthrown!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in a tomb!

During the 12 years I served as an Episcopal priest, I preached every Easter, and all I ever preached was the Easter Homily of St John Chrysostom. In the 13 years I have now been an Orthodox priest, I have venerated this icon; I have preached on this icon. For it has shown to me in one picture the very heart of the Gospel. It has shown me in Christ’s taking Adam by the hand the entire purpose of creation, of the calling of Israel to be his people, of his word spoken through the prophets, of his Incarnation, teaching, death, resurrection, and ascension, of his sending of the Spirit at Pentecost – namely, to raise all of us up out of death to share in the divine life of the Trinity.

As C. S. Lewis said, ‘God likes matter. He created it.’ And just as God took on the matter of our human flesh and nature to save us, so, too, he uses the icon’s matter of wood, paint, and mineral to be a window into heaven, and a means of our participation in his very life.