In the most interesting interview OSV conducted with Catholic iconographer Marek Czarnecki, that I referred to yesterday, we gain a sense of how we can properly understand the real language of icons. Before I quote from the second part of that OSV interview let me answer a question or two about this subject.

Am I suggesting that you cannot worship fully without icons? Not in the least. Am I suggesting that icons must be used in public worship? No. But are icons a form of idolatry? Those who answer yes to this question are numerous in evangelical Protestant circles and can easily impress others to follow their simplistic and iconoclastic reasoning without the evangelical having a framework for considering this subject. I am attempting to give such a framework and at the same time telling you why I use icons in my own worship.

Here is the second part of the interview […]

In the article on icons, that I referred to previously from the Catholic weekly OSV, there was an interview with a Catholic iconographer named Marek Czarnecki. Czarnecki has been writing icons for fifteen years. For him, this is more than a simple job, it is his personal calling. He sometimes devotes whole periods of time to prayer and fasting before writing. The Connecticut-based artist studied iconography for ten years with a Russian Orthodox iconographer before he began his work. Here, to give you an idea of what such a writer of icons does, is a small part of that interview:

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OSV: How does iconography relate to art, to theology, to prayer?

Czarnecki: People think that iconography is a style of religious art, and it’s not. It’s a whole vision of reality, but we use art as a tool to scribe that reality. . . […]

In my previous blog on icons I have very specifically noted that icons were written, not painted. This is a distinction that has significant meaning to those who discover that icons are a “window” for prayer, meditation and worship. I count myself among such Christians now. I have several carefully chosen classical icons in my place of prayer and private worship. I have the most famous of all icons, Christopantocrator. I also have an icon of the blessed Trinity and one of Saint Benedict, a role model Christian to me. These icons help me to pray and provide for me windows into the hopes I have for my own life. I also have an icon of the Apostle Paul. The icon I most treasure, since my dear friend Father Wilbur Ellsworth gave it to me on my 60th birthday, is an icon of the Apostle John, after whom I was named by my […]

For most of my life religious icons have been of no consequence to me spiritually. There were two reasons for this response as I now understand my journey in faith. First, I thought icons were idols. The fact that the Orthodox kissed them made me quite “sure” this was the case for decades. Second, my understanding of the proper use of icons was limited by my prejudice against them.

The more I have studied the theology of the ancient church, and the practices of that church in public and private worship, the more I have had to deal with a number of subjects that I knew very little about. This was the case with icons. My initial fears were addressed by thoughtful, helpful responses from Christians who were much better able to understand the important role of iconography. Eventually I could no longer avoid the subject of icons when friends became Orthodox and I became more than a little curious. I wanted to genuinely listen to other Christians, since this is at the heart of my own faith journey, […]