Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer
##common.pageHeaderLogo.altText##

Vol. 32 (2025)

Artykuły

Iconoclasm, Iconoduly, and the Old Believers: The Limits of the Representability of God in Eastern Orthodoxy

  • Wojciech Słomski
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52097/rs.2025.313-339  [Google Scholar]
Published: 2026-08-17

Abstract

The article examines the question of the representability of God in Eastern Orthodoxy through the lenses of Byzantine iconoclasm, the iconodulic theology of the Second Council of Nicaea, and the Old Believer hermeneutics of the sacred image. It argues that the controversy over icons is not an aesthetic dispute but a theological and ecclesiological one, rooted in the tension between biblical apophaticism and the Christological visibility granted by the Incarnation. Drawing on the Acts of Nicaea II, the study outlines an ontological conception of the image grounded in the relationship between the hypostasis of Christ and its visible representation. This is contrasted with the Old Believer genealogy of form, in which the truth of the icon derives not from its relation to the prototype but from fidelity to ancestral tradition. The article also explores the contemporary reception of Orthodox icon theology, showing that modern hermeneutics of the image develop within the tension between the dogma of the Incarnation and the historical memory of form. The conclusion highlights the dynamic character of Orthodox image-theology, wherein ontology, liturgy, and tradition converge, and asserts that the limits of divine representability arise not from artistic constraints but from the mystery of the Incarnation.

References

  1. Acta Concilii Nicaeni II, in: The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church, ed. Henry R. Percival, w: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 14, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company 1956. [Google Scholar]
  2. Avvakum, Житие протопопа Аввакума, им самим написанное, Иркутск: Восточно-Сибирское книжное издательство 1979. [Google Scholar]
  3. Avvakum, Žitie protopopa Avvakuma, im samim napisannoe, Irkutsk: Vostočno-Sibirskoe knižnoe izdatel’stvo 1979. [Google Scholar]
  4. Brubaker Leslie, Haldon John, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680-850: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2011. [Google Scholar]
  5. Golynets, G. V. (red.). Nev’janskaja ikona. Ekaterinburg: Bank kul’turnoj informacii 1997. [Google Scholar]
  6. Ioannes Damascenus, Contra imaginum calumniatores orationes tres, In: Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Graeca, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne, vol. 94. Paris: Imprimerie Catholique 1864. [Google Scholar]
  7. Itkina, E. I. (red.), Русский рисованный лубок XVII–XIX веков, Москва: Изобразительное искусство 1992. [Google Scholar]
  8. Krause Karin, Divine Inspiration in Byzantium, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2022. [Google Scholar]
  9. Nečajeva Galina, Vetkovskaja ikona, Minsk 2002. [Google Scholar]
  10. Pentcheva Bissera V, Hagia Sophia: Sound, Space and Spirit in Byzantium, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press 2020. [Google Scholar]
  11. Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, De mystica theologia, In: Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Graeca, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne, vol. 3. Paris: Imprimerie Catholique 1857. [Google Scholar]
  12. Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, De divinis nominibus, In: Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Graeca, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne, vol. 3. Paris: Imprimerie Catholique 1857. [Google Scholar]
  13. Sulikowska-Bełczowska Aleksandra, “The Cult of Old Believers’ Domestic Icons and the Beginning of Old Belief in Russia in the 17th-18th Centuries.” Religions 10 (2019): 574. [Google Scholar]
  14. Поморские ответы: напечатаны с подлинника, Москва: Типография П. П. Рябушинского 1911. [Google Scholar]
  15. Пустозерская проза, Ред. В. М. Живов, М. Б. Плюханова, Москва: Московский рабочий 1989. [Google Scholar]

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Similar Articles

1 2 3 4 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.