As was his custom, the thief began his day with prayer before an icon of\u00a0Mary and Jesus. But then the image began to move and he saw bleeding wounds\u00a0on the Christ child\u2019s hands and feet.<\/p>\n
Trembling, he cried out: \u201cOh lady, who has done this?\u201d\u00a0\u201cYou and other sinners,\u201d said Mary, \u201cwho crucify my Son anew with your sins.\u201d<\/p>\n
In this classic Russian icon called \u201cUnexpected Joy\u201d the thief repents and\u00a0begins a new life. The icon is complex, yet contains a spiritual truth that\u00a0would have been clear to the Russians who faced it as they prayed. They\u00a0understood the symbolism. They knew the parable. But what does this 19th\u00a0century icon say to Americans who see it hanging in a gallery?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard for us to grasp things like this,\u201d said Frederica\u00a0Mathewes-Green, author of \u201cThe Open Door: Entering into the Sanctuary of\u00a0Icons and Prayer.\u201d\u00a0\u201cThe thief is convicted of his sins and repents and the result is this\u00a0\u2018Unexpected Joy.\u2019 Repentance? Joy? We have trouble connecting the two. Of\u00a0course, we also have trouble imaging a thief who faithfully prays in his\u00a0icon corner. \u2026 It\u2019s like this icon lets us have a glimpse of a whole\u00a0different world.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was late on a muggy Washington, D.C., afternoon and a few tired visitors\u00a0were viewing the 89 works in a summer exhibition called \u201cWindows Into\u00a0Heaven: Russian Icons, 1650-1917\u201d at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center.\u00a0There were glorious angels from the doors that lead from sanctuaries to\u00a0altars. Immaculate icons from the workshops of czars \u2014 details painted\u00a0with single-hair brushes \u2014 hung near the rough icons of peasants.<\/p>\n
Many of the images featured familiar faces and scenes, from St. John the\u00a0Baptist to St. George and the dragon. This constant repetition of themes\u00a0often puzzles visitors. Others ask why some icons are \u201cmore artistic\u201d than\u00a0others, said volunteer John Harrison.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut this really isn\u2019t about art, is it? Each of these icons may be a copy\u00a0of a copy of a copy,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that\u2019s the point. The images are\u00a0familiar. But each icon had a life of its own. It is real. It was a holy\u00a0object to real people, in a real time and a real place. Their prayers were\u00a0real.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s almost impossible for Americans to grasp the role icons played in for\u00a0centuries in lands such as Russia, said curator James Lansing Jackson, who\u00a0assembled this exhibit. In addition to prayer corners in homes, these\u00a0\u201cwindows into heaven\u201d were found in factories, stores, schools, prisons,\u00a0offices, roadside shrines and countless other public and private locations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were literally everywhere and part of almost every event in life,\u201d he\u00a0said, reached at his office in Cedar Falls, Iowa. \u201cThe typical home might\u00a0have contained 20 or more. \u2026 There were probably 200 million icons in\u00a0Russia in the days before the 1917 revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many Orthodox believers fled as the Bolsheviks took control and they took\u00a0family treasures with them, including their icons, said Jackson. By the\u00a01930s, Soviet officials were selling antiques, art and icons on foreign\u00a0markets to raise hard currency.<\/p>\n
Some believers hid their icons during times of terror and persecution.\u00a0Then, as generations passed, some flung them aside as signs of a forgotten\u00a0faith. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, there was another frenzy\u00a0of interest in icons, for reasons ranging from spiritual hunger to raw\u00a0commercialism.<\/p>\n
\u201cIronically, the fact that they did have historic and antique value gave\u00a0many people a motive to save them,\u201d said Jackson. \u201cThey were saved by greed\u00a0and by the fascination that Westerners have for them. That\u2019s a strange\u00a0thing to say, but it\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, it\u2019s poignant to face icons in settings \u201cso far from their homes,\u201d\u00a0said Mathewes-Green. This is like being introduced to orphans whose lives\u00a0have been shattered. Who knows what happened to their families?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tragic when you see them collected as mere art objects, put away\u00a0somewhere in glass cases,\u201d she said. \u201cThey are beautiful and it\u2019s tempting\u00a0to get caught up in their beauty. But the icons are not what we are\u00a0supposed to focus on. That is not their true purpose.\u00a0They are supposed to lead us somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As was his custom, the thief began his day with prayer before an icon of\u00a0Mary and Jesus. But then the image began to move and he saw bleeding wounds\u00a0on the Christ child\u2019s hands and feet. Trembling, he cried out: \u201cOh lady, who has done this?\u201d\u00a0\u201cYou and other sinners,\u201d said Mary, \u201cwho crucify my Son anew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n