Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Iconic Icon Supplements: The Symbols of Icons
Treasures of the Church ^ | 6/24/12 | Wolfsbane

Posted on 06/26/2012 7:03:28 AM PDT by marshmallow

Icon of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Mother of Carmel) by the Sisters of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Terre Haute, IN

One of the biggest difficulties Western Christians have in appreciating icons is a lack of understanding. I have previously discussed some of the theology behind iconography, but in this post I will discuss another big difficulty: the symbolism of iconography. Even if one can understand the theology of the icon and why one should venerate it, it is still difficult to venerate something that seems to be such a strange mess of non-understood symbols. This post will hopefully clear up some of that difficulty so that others can better understand icons and venerate them more worthily.

Monograms

The language used in iconography is often difficult by itself, since it is usually written in either Greek or Russian, often with a strange script that combines letters on top of each other or uses less common forms of letters. Even after getting past that, there are still some strange writings on icons. The most prominent of these are the two monograms of Jesus' Name and the title of the Theotokos.

In the West, IHS is the main monogram of the name of Jesus, often seen especially in Jesuit churches and institutions. In the East, the monogram IC XC is used, with a bar (which looks like a squiggly line) over each pair of letters, showing that it represents a name. The monogram is simply the first and last letters each of Jesus and Christ in Greek, Ιεσους and Χριστος. The final letter of each word, the sigma, is usually capitalized as Σ (often mistakenly used in advertisements as a Greek-style E, though it's truly an S), but in the script used in iconography, it is usually written.......

(Excerpt) Read more at thesaurostesekklesias.blogspot.com ...


TOPICS: Catholic; Orthodox Christian; Theology; Worship
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 06/26/2012 7:03:31 AM PDT by marshmallow
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: marshmallow

I give Catholic faith communites in the west credit that they are saving this form of prayer.


2 posted on 06/26/2012 7:31:51 AM PDT by Biggirl ("Jesus talked to us as individuals"-Jim Vicevich/Thanks JimV!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: marshmallow

An icon is venerated not for itself but because of the window it opens. It reveals divine truth, much as a secular portrait is said to reveal a person’s soul.


3 posted on 06/26/2012 2:02:04 PM PDT by RobbyS (Christus rex.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: marshmallow

I’ve been looking for a repository of this information for some time.

thanks so much for posting.


4 posted on 06/26/2012 9:34:05 PM PDT by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson