METROPOLITAN ANTONY (PACKANICH): WE MUSTN’T TALK ABOUT GOD WITHOUT REVERENCE

About iconography and theology without God.

From time to time, we seequite strange "creations" of artists who consider themselves as icon painters. All of them, with a difference in images, are united by one thing —by an exaggerated desire for self-expression. But what can be laudable in secular art, in iconography often givesquite contradictory results. After all, an icon is an image of God, and should be painted with great reverence and self-denial.

The more humility in the iconographer is, and the less individualism in him is, all the better. That’s why all artistic experiments in the field of icon painting should have a well-known framework, should be artistically grounded. But self-expression and icon painting are not very compatible. Because either we portray the image of God, or we express ourselves, i.e., literally, we express ourselves. And it is a great temptation to show your fantasies as an icon, to show your false idea of the Almighty distorted by sinful imperfect consciousness.

This is the misconception of many «icon painters»-modernists. But the same misconception is also presented in many new theologians who try to introduce a momentary political agenda into theology.

What you can find today in the so-called progressive theology: the justification of revolutions, the attempts to justify sin or legalize various deviations or indulgence in various radical forms of feminism, militant environmentalism, and anything else.

The essence of all these "theological" studies, at their diversity, as in the case of modernist "icon painting", is the same. This is the desire to showtheir own fantasies as a teaching about God.

After all, everything we know about God is revealed to us by Him Himself in His revelation, through Holy Scripture and Tradition. And therefore the essence of theology is not a stretch of human imagination and not an intention to combine christian teaching with another "spirit of this age". This is the study of Divine revelation. And here, as in iconography, there can be no amateur activity.

But the same people, who dare to portray the Lord or write about Him with disrespect and from their own mind, actually act like atheists. BecauseGod doesn’t exist for them.

And indeed, if someone paints a portrait of our supposedly earthly father, but he does not look like the original, or if someone begins to tell some tall tales about him, such creativity will immediately be exposed as quackery. Our reaction should be all the more acute, if we are talking about our Heavenly Father. You can only fantasize about what is not in reality. Thus, if a person slanders the Lord with his creativity, it means that he is either in error, or he’s a conscious blasphemer, or he simply does not believe in the existence of the Lord.

To avoid such a temptation, you need to humble yourself and stick to the Church.

 

Recorded by Natalia Goroshkova

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