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Question: 10
Dear Father Christopher,
Christ is in our midst!
In our archdiocese, for many years we have used English translations of
Russian liturgical books. I believe this is because most of our
seminarians go to Saint Vladmir's seminary which is the Russian-Orthodox
Church in America seminary. Our bishops are trying to encourage us to
follow "Byzantine-Greek" practice when this differs from the Russian
practice (i.e. funeral and memorial practices, Divine Liturgy rubrics etc)
Since we don't have our own proper Euchologion, besides the Russian
English books, we use English translations from the Greek archdiocese (and
I tend to use yours as it has better English!) Anyways, one of the big
differences I have found between the Russia and Greek Euchologions (or
Trebnik's ) is that the Russian books have all sorts of blessings for:
Icons, vestments, liturgical items, chalices gravestones, graveyards to
name a few.
So, my question is this, in the Greek books (our bilingual books are
abridged) in the Greek practice, do we bless Icons, vestments, gravestones
and liturgical items? I have been told that in Byzantine practice these
items are "blessed" by their use and the Russian practice of formal
blessings is "Latin". We do "church" icons in our parish but is it proper
Greek practice to "bless icons"? I hope my questions make sense.
In Christ,
Fr. Polycarp
Answer to Question 10
Dear Father Polycarp,
Christ is in our midst!
Yes, I understood the point of difference you were making between
churching Icons and blessing Icons. Greeks don’t bless Icons, but as you
said we do bring them to church (usually on Orthodox Sunday) to be left
there for 40 days. Theologically neither blessing by a prayer nor
churching is required. The Icon is similar to the Bible, in other words it
is the Word of God represented in images. From my book on Icons
(Discovering the Icon) found on the web site there are two occasions where
I mention how Icons receive their sanctification which I have pasted
below:
1) The icon is sanctified through its communion with Christ and the
saints, through the image and the inscription that it bears. It is holy in
the same way that the Cross and the Bible are holy. St. Basil the Great
says that iconographers are equal in honour to the Gospel writers. He says
this because what the Gospels explain by means of words, the painter
explains by means of his works. The Bible is holy not because of the paper
and ink, but because the words it contains are the words of God, written
by men inspired by the Holy Spirit. These words of God are holy because
they proceeded from the mouth of God and sanctify us each time we hear
them. In the same way we are sanctified through the Icon because it also
is the word of God represented in images, and to put it another way, as
the Icon is the image of Christ, so likewise the Bible is the verbal image
of Christ, Both inspire and teach us how to live so that we may find the
narrow road that leads to salvation.
2) An Icon must be a faithful interpretation of the prototype [original],
showing a recognizable image and the name of the person it represents. The
name identifies the person or persons and at the same time is a seal of
sanctification, for as with the Cross and the Bible, the Icon does not
need to have special prayers read over it or receive any other form of
blessing by a priest to make it holy. It cannot receive any additional
benefit from a priest’s blessing or any application of Myron [holy oil].
Some icons have no inscription, which is contrary to the theology of the
Icon, for it is the inscription that brings about its sanctification:
without it, the Icon remains a common work of art.
As for other items that you mention we do have a special short service for
blessing a new Chalice and it even says to anoint it with Myron. This is
found in the Great Euchololion book. We recently had a new extra large
silver Chalice made and our Bishop asked us to read the service and
instead of Myron to sprinkle it with Holy water. As for Vestments, our
original Vestments were blessed by the Bishop at our ordination and
logically only he should bless any additional Vestments we purchase at a
later date, but this is something we don’t do. But as we vest ourselves
for the Liturgy do we not bless each item as we put it on? Do we really
need a special prayer to sanctify our vestments, is not our blessing on
vesting enough?
As far as I know we do not bless cemeteries or gravestones. We consider
cemeteries to be holy ground because Christians are buried there and in
theory at least, all Christians are holy unto the Lord. Thus the bones of
the saints bless the ground they are buried in. I think that blessing
cemeteries is of a western influence which, except for the Roman Catholic
Church, do not believe in the sanctification and theosis of man.
With love in Christ
Fr. Christopher.
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