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The Icon: Theology Through Image
| Article
# : |
13627 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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8 / 1988 |
2,449 Words |
| Author
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Susan Fegley Osmond
Susan Fegley Osmond is an editor in the Arts section of The
World & I. |
When Christianity came to medieval Rus with the baptism of Prince Vladimir of Kiev in A.D. 988, a tide of religious art flowed into Russia from Byzantium. The central role that art was to play in the spiritual life of Russia is indicated by the story that it was the beauty of the great imperial city and its churches that precipitated the conversion of the Kievan prince. The Primary Chronicle, the earliest historical record of the Kievan period, explains that Vladimir's emissaries, seeking a religion suitable to unite his people, found Moslem worship "frenzied and foul-smelling," and in the ceremonies of Western Christians, they "beheld no glory"; but Constantinople entranced them:
The Greeks led us to the buildings where they worship their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss to describe it. We know only that God dwells there among men, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations.
In the cathedrals that sprang up throughout their expanding realm, Kievan princes sought to re-create this experience of exalted spiritual beauty, of the community of the faithful dwelling together with God in the magnificence of ritual and visual splendor that presaged the coming Kingdom of Heaven. It was not abstract ideas or the logic of theology that drew the early Russians to the new faith. Rather, it was the concrete beauty of liturgy, image, and sound that enthralled them and conveyed to them the essence of the Christian message.
This passion for beauty, for seeing spiritual truth in tangible form, has always been a distinguishing
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