Michael the Iconographer
1st December 2005, 03:50 PM
I have not returned to TAW. I only wish to post this interview that I found on line because many here do not find me qualified to make the assertations I have made about iconography. However, Archimandrite Zinon is more than qualified. He is widely respected as one of the foremost iconographers alive.
http://www.roca.org/OA/111/111g.htm
The discussion took place in June 1990, between Archimandrite Victor (Mamontov), rector of St. Euphrosyne of Polotsk Church in Karsava, Latvia, and Hieromonk Zinon, a talented young iconographer of the Pskov-Caves Monastery. It is translated from an unpublished manuscript.
Fr. Victor: Fr. Zinon, many understand the renaissance of the Orthodox Church in an external sense; I should like to discuss its true, inner renaissance, the deepening of our ecclesiastical awareness. In speaking about the life of the Church, about life in the Church, let's begin with what is most important-the Mystery of Baptism.
Fr. Zinon: In recent years there have been many new discoveries in the field of liturgics. Ancient manuscripts have been found of church rites, and other liturgical texts. They shed light on the life of the early Church, on those aspects which later were subject to change-whether for historical reasons, by chance, or simply by human volition. And if we are to speak about liturgical renewal, then we must speak first of all about those distortions which we have introduced into our church life and which we alone can and should rectify.
You mentioned Baptism. The problems concerning the reception of new members into the Church are many. Their solution demands great effort, patience and time. But there are problems which are fairly easy to solve. However, whether out of negligence or for some other reason, they persist, and this raises a disquieting thought, that if the simpler problems cannot be resolved, what can be said about more major problems? I have in mind here the manner in which baptisms are performed.
Here [in Russia] the practice of sprinkling instead of immersion is almost universal. And to think that this was the source of so many disputes with the Roman Catholics. In Slavonic the very word "baptism" means immersion. Our forefathers used to say: krestisa korabl (lit: the ship was baptized), i.e., it sank, it was submerged. In the Gospel Christ reproaches the pharisees for observing ordinances concerning the washing [in Slavonic the word is kreshcheniye, "baptizing"] of cups and pots (Mark 7:8), while neglecting the cleansing of the heart.
"As many as have been baptized into Christ, have been baptized into His death" (cf. Rom. 6:3). Baptism is an image of burial, and immersion obviously corresponds more closely to the essence of this great Mystery. Fr. Victor: A young fellow came to me recently asking to be rebaptized. "I was baptized very quickly, clothed, and I felt nothing," he said. Baptism must be preceded by spiritual enlightenment and repentance. In the early Christian Church, the community took upon itself the care of catechumens and carefully, like a loving mother, prepared them for the Mystery: they instructed them in the faith, chose their sponsors. In the Ss. Peter and Paul Brotherhood in Riga, which was recently revived with the blessing of Metropolitan Leonid, this tradition is being restored-with fruitful results. But such examples in today's church life are few.
Fr. Zinon: I fear that if each rector of a parish, or someone else, would do this on his own, this would be an individual action and it would be doomed to failure.
For example: a man comes to me desiring to be baptized. I tell him, "You can't be baptized right away; you must first learn about the faith. Go to church, learn the basics of faith, get acquainted with the services, test yourself-the firmness of your intention: can you change your life, can you become a totally different person from what you were before..." He seems to agree, but then takes his request-whether consciously or by chance-to another priest, and the latter tells him: "What is all this, by all means you must be baptized right away. Don't listen to that other priest; he's full of inventions." If the man goes to another, and to a third priest and they all tell him the same thing, he'll have to submit and accept the conditions. If, however, he approaches the Mystery more seriously, with more preparation, it will be for him an important event in his life. Only in emergency cases, when a person was near death, was he baptized immediately. But these were unique cases.
The general practice was this: a prayer was read over the person desiring to enter the Church and he was joined to the catechumenate. His name was entered on a special list. The catechumenate lasted from one to three years, depending on local practice, and only then was he found worthy of Holy Baptism. And this day was a feast for the entire local Church. It is absolutely essential that the above be revived in our time; when people are so inconstant, so light-minded, it's better to test the sincerity of their intention with time.
Regarding infants-Fr. Alexander Schmemann discusses this at length in his book, Of Water and the Spirit. The practice of baptizing children became firmly rooted only in the age of Constantine, when marriages became fully churchly and there was greater assurance that the baptized children would be raised in faith and piety. For in the time of the early Church it often happened that the husband was a pagan and the wife a Christian, and it was unclear how the child would grow up-as a Christian or as a pagan. Children of unbelieving parents shouldn't be baptized at all, certainly not secretly from the parents. Today it often happens that the godparents themselves are not baptized, and the parents are not even believers. Here I should like to cite a passage from the "Homily on Holy Baptism" of St. Gregory the Theologian:
"...what have you to say about those who are still children, and conscious neither of the loss nor of the grace? Are we to baptize them too? Certainly, if any danger presses....But in respect of others I give my advice to wait till the end of the third year, or a little more or less, when they may be able to listen and to answer something about the Sacrament; that, even though they do not perfectly understand it, yet at any rate they may know the outlines; and then to sanctity them in soul and body with the great sacrament of our consecration." (XXVIII)
Today the opinion is widespread that an infant who dies unbaptized is doomed to eternal torment. In the Synaxarion for Saturday of Meatfare Week, when the Church commemorates the dead of all ages, there is a passage which speaks of infants dying without Holy Baptism; they do not experience blessedness but neither do they enter torment but are kept by God in a special place. The same hierarch speaks of those who "fail to receive the Gift [of Baptism]...not so much through wickedness as through ignorance or tyranny" [i.e. involuntary] ...these "will be neither glorified nor punished by the righteous Judge..." (XXIII)
Nowadays the person being baptized is told that the Mystery of Baptism cleanses from original sin, that he receives grace, without which it is impossible to be saved. However, he misses the full grandeur of the Mystery because it has long ago been divorced from the Liturgy (with which it should be joined, just as the Mysteries of Ordination and Matrimony), and has become a separate rite. The newly-illumined one is fortunate if he vaguely understands that he has become a member of God's people, a member of the Body of Christ and a new creature. Since Baptism has been severed from the Liturgy, the entire community, the whole local Church does not participate in it, and for this reason there is no sense of being ushered into the Church as an assembly of brethren. And after Holy Baptism a person generally lives on his own, as circumstances dictate. It is a great misfortune that a person coming to church does not feel that he has entered some kind of community, a family, where people remember him, care for him, pay attention to him. If he doesn't take the intiative to become acquainted with anyone, no one will ask him anything; people may offend him or simply disregard him. If he comes-fine, if he doesn't-that's also fine. No one will look for him or offer their help.
All this is evidence that we have no real communities among us; our church life has become individualized, it has become a personal matter. Each person lives and struggles on his own, and for this reason he often can't accept another's spiritual experience, which differs slightly from his own. The sad fruits of this situation are mutual estrangement, withdrawal, a hardness. I often hear from people zealous for salvation strange words: "How good it was to pray in church today; it was almost empty and no one bothered you; you could hide and concentrate." This is private prayer. That is what Christ referred to when He said, When you pray, shut your door and pray to your Father Who is in Heaven. But church prayer carries a entirely different set of requirements. Here everyone "with one mouth and one heart" glorifies the One Heavenly Father.
Fr. Victor: In apostolic times, in the early Church Christians lived according to the commandment: "always everyone and always together". Today's Christians have forgotten this commandment and, in the words of Archpriest Nicholas Afanasiev, they desire somehow "to withdraw from everyone and stand alone before God, in order to receive something personal." If we can understand that the foundation of Church life lies in sobornost, i.e., in being always together, then we shall discover the true nature of the Eucharist-the center of life in Christ. But while we continue to violate the Church's unity, withdrawing outside its borders, our frequent individual reception of the Holy Mysteries says nothing about liturgical renewal.
The rest of the article may be read in the link provided above.
http://www.roca.org/OA/111/111g.htm
The discussion took place in June 1990, between Archimandrite Victor (Mamontov), rector of St. Euphrosyne of Polotsk Church in Karsava, Latvia, and Hieromonk Zinon, a talented young iconographer of the Pskov-Caves Monastery. It is translated from an unpublished manuscript.
Fr. Victor: Fr. Zinon, many understand the renaissance of the Orthodox Church in an external sense; I should like to discuss its true, inner renaissance, the deepening of our ecclesiastical awareness. In speaking about the life of the Church, about life in the Church, let's begin with what is most important-the Mystery of Baptism.
Fr. Zinon: In recent years there have been many new discoveries in the field of liturgics. Ancient manuscripts have been found of church rites, and other liturgical texts. They shed light on the life of the early Church, on those aspects which later were subject to change-whether for historical reasons, by chance, or simply by human volition. And if we are to speak about liturgical renewal, then we must speak first of all about those distortions which we have introduced into our church life and which we alone can and should rectify.
You mentioned Baptism. The problems concerning the reception of new members into the Church are many. Their solution demands great effort, patience and time. But there are problems which are fairly easy to solve. However, whether out of negligence or for some other reason, they persist, and this raises a disquieting thought, that if the simpler problems cannot be resolved, what can be said about more major problems? I have in mind here the manner in which baptisms are performed.
Here [in Russia] the practice of sprinkling instead of immersion is almost universal. And to think that this was the source of so many disputes with the Roman Catholics. In Slavonic the very word "baptism" means immersion. Our forefathers used to say: krestisa korabl (lit: the ship was baptized), i.e., it sank, it was submerged. In the Gospel Christ reproaches the pharisees for observing ordinances concerning the washing [in Slavonic the word is kreshcheniye, "baptizing"] of cups and pots (Mark 7:8), while neglecting the cleansing of the heart.
"As many as have been baptized into Christ, have been baptized into His death" (cf. Rom. 6:3). Baptism is an image of burial, and immersion obviously corresponds more closely to the essence of this great Mystery. Fr. Victor: A young fellow came to me recently asking to be rebaptized. "I was baptized very quickly, clothed, and I felt nothing," he said. Baptism must be preceded by spiritual enlightenment and repentance. In the early Christian Church, the community took upon itself the care of catechumens and carefully, like a loving mother, prepared them for the Mystery: they instructed them in the faith, chose their sponsors. In the Ss. Peter and Paul Brotherhood in Riga, which was recently revived with the blessing of Metropolitan Leonid, this tradition is being restored-with fruitful results. But such examples in today's church life are few.
Fr. Zinon: I fear that if each rector of a parish, or someone else, would do this on his own, this would be an individual action and it would be doomed to failure.
For example: a man comes to me desiring to be baptized. I tell him, "You can't be baptized right away; you must first learn about the faith. Go to church, learn the basics of faith, get acquainted with the services, test yourself-the firmness of your intention: can you change your life, can you become a totally different person from what you were before..." He seems to agree, but then takes his request-whether consciously or by chance-to another priest, and the latter tells him: "What is all this, by all means you must be baptized right away. Don't listen to that other priest; he's full of inventions." If the man goes to another, and to a third priest and they all tell him the same thing, he'll have to submit and accept the conditions. If, however, he approaches the Mystery more seriously, with more preparation, it will be for him an important event in his life. Only in emergency cases, when a person was near death, was he baptized immediately. But these were unique cases.
The general practice was this: a prayer was read over the person desiring to enter the Church and he was joined to the catechumenate. His name was entered on a special list. The catechumenate lasted from one to three years, depending on local practice, and only then was he found worthy of Holy Baptism. And this day was a feast for the entire local Church. It is absolutely essential that the above be revived in our time; when people are so inconstant, so light-minded, it's better to test the sincerity of their intention with time.
Regarding infants-Fr. Alexander Schmemann discusses this at length in his book, Of Water and the Spirit. The practice of baptizing children became firmly rooted only in the age of Constantine, when marriages became fully churchly and there was greater assurance that the baptized children would be raised in faith and piety. For in the time of the early Church it often happened that the husband was a pagan and the wife a Christian, and it was unclear how the child would grow up-as a Christian or as a pagan. Children of unbelieving parents shouldn't be baptized at all, certainly not secretly from the parents. Today it often happens that the godparents themselves are not baptized, and the parents are not even believers. Here I should like to cite a passage from the "Homily on Holy Baptism" of St. Gregory the Theologian:
"...what have you to say about those who are still children, and conscious neither of the loss nor of the grace? Are we to baptize them too? Certainly, if any danger presses....But in respect of others I give my advice to wait till the end of the third year, or a little more or less, when they may be able to listen and to answer something about the Sacrament; that, even though they do not perfectly understand it, yet at any rate they may know the outlines; and then to sanctity them in soul and body with the great sacrament of our consecration." (XXVIII)
Today the opinion is widespread that an infant who dies unbaptized is doomed to eternal torment. In the Synaxarion for Saturday of Meatfare Week, when the Church commemorates the dead of all ages, there is a passage which speaks of infants dying without Holy Baptism; they do not experience blessedness but neither do they enter torment but are kept by God in a special place. The same hierarch speaks of those who "fail to receive the Gift [of Baptism]...not so much through wickedness as through ignorance or tyranny" [i.e. involuntary] ...these "will be neither glorified nor punished by the righteous Judge..." (XXIII)
Nowadays the person being baptized is told that the Mystery of Baptism cleanses from original sin, that he receives grace, without which it is impossible to be saved. However, he misses the full grandeur of the Mystery because it has long ago been divorced from the Liturgy (with which it should be joined, just as the Mysteries of Ordination and Matrimony), and has become a separate rite. The newly-illumined one is fortunate if he vaguely understands that he has become a member of God's people, a member of the Body of Christ and a new creature. Since Baptism has been severed from the Liturgy, the entire community, the whole local Church does not participate in it, and for this reason there is no sense of being ushered into the Church as an assembly of brethren. And after Holy Baptism a person generally lives on his own, as circumstances dictate. It is a great misfortune that a person coming to church does not feel that he has entered some kind of community, a family, where people remember him, care for him, pay attention to him. If he doesn't take the intiative to become acquainted with anyone, no one will ask him anything; people may offend him or simply disregard him. If he comes-fine, if he doesn't-that's also fine. No one will look for him or offer their help.
All this is evidence that we have no real communities among us; our church life has become individualized, it has become a personal matter. Each person lives and struggles on his own, and for this reason he often can't accept another's spiritual experience, which differs slightly from his own. The sad fruits of this situation are mutual estrangement, withdrawal, a hardness. I often hear from people zealous for salvation strange words: "How good it was to pray in church today; it was almost empty and no one bothered you; you could hide and concentrate." This is private prayer. That is what Christ referred to when He said, When you pray, shut your door and pray to your Father Who is in Heaven. But church prayer carries a entirely different set of requirements. Here everyone "with one mouth and one heart" glorifies the One Heavenly Father.
Fr. Victor: In apostolic times, in the early Church Christians lived according to the commandment: "always everyone and always together". Today's Christians have forgotten this commandment and, in the words of Archpriest Nicholas Afanasiev, they desire somehow "to withdraw from everyone and stand alone before God, in order to receive something personal." If we can understand that the foundation of Church life lies in sobornost, i.e., in being always together, then we shall discover the true nature of the Eucharist-the center of life in Christ. But while we continue to violate the Church's unity, withdrawing outside its borders, our frequent individual reception of the Holy Mysteries says nothing about liturgical renewal.
The rest of the article may be read in the link provided above.