The Otherness of Christ

A theological reaction to a series of icons of the Transfiguration.

Michael Galovic is an artist and icon writer of considerable repute in
Australia and New Zealand. A Yugoslav by birth, he is a graduate from
the Belgrade Academy of Arts. Since 1990 he has made his home in
Australia and his work can now be seen in over one hundred church-
es and institutions throughout Australasia. The Crucifixion and the
Stabat Mater are subjects he has often addressed, but he declares that
he wants to move on and bring the Resurrection into focus in his art
and, as a step on that journey, in 2016 and 2017 he produced the Trans-
figuration icons that sparked this reflection.
There is a strong thread of iconoclasm running through Chris-
tianity. Iconoclasm involves a distrust (and destruction) of religious
imagery because of a recognition of the utter transcendence of God.
God is completely Other from everything in Creation and any creat-
ed artwork representing God is in danger of being treated as an idol.
When an image receives the worship that is due to God alone then the
commandment is broken – “You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of any-
thing that is heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in
the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship
them.” (Exodus 20:3-5a)
The religion of Judaism, which shares with Christianity the Ten
Commandments (and most of what we call the Old Testament), inter-
prets that Exodus passage as forbidding the religious representation
of humans and animals. Islam is similarly aniconic – forbidding the
representation of sentient beings.
What distinguishes Christianity from Judaism and Islam is what
we claim about the person and dual nature of Jesus Christ. We hold
Jesus to be both human and divine. This has a huge number of impli-
cations, one of which was spelled out by St John of Damascus in the
heated debate on sacred images in the early 700s:
Therefore I venture to draw an image of the invisible God, not as
invisible, but as having become visible for our sakes through flesh
and blood. I do not draw an image of the immortal Godhead. I
paint the visible flesh of God. Against Those Who Decry Holy
Images, 6.

The Damascene goes on to cite the passage of John’s Gospel where
Jesus says “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9) and
the passage from St Paul where he declares that Jesus “is the image of
the unseen God” (Colossians 1:15). He argues that we cannot depict a
spirit, and God is spirit, but we can depict Jesus because he became
flesh. Jesus is the true icon of God the Father and therefore we may
make holy images of Jesus and the saints. The incarnation is the justi-
fication for icons. When God became human, God became visible and
tangible. They dined with him, they walked and talked with him. Jesus
shows us the Father, Jesus shows us God. Because of the coming of
Jesus Christ as an historical person, in one place and one time, Christi-
anity permits images of him to be made and to be venerated.
This was expressed by the bishops gathered at the Second Council
of Nicaea in 787 AD when they solemnly taught:
We decree with full precision and care that, like the figure of
the honoured and life-giving cross, the revered and holy images
(εικóνας), whether painted or made of mosaic or of other suitable
material, are to be exposed in the holy churches of God, on sacred
instruments and vestments, on walls and panels, in houses and by
public ways; these are the images of our Lord, God and savior, Jesus
Christ, and of our Lady without blemish, the holy God-bearer, and
of the revered and angels and of any of the saintly holy men. The
more frequently they are seen in representational art, the more are
those who see them drawn to remember and long for those who
serve as models, and to pay these images the tribute of salutation
and respectful veneration. Certainly this is not the full adoration
in accordance with our faith, which is properly paid only to the
divine nature, but it resembles that given to the figure of the hon-
oured and life-giving cross, and also to the holy books of the gos-
pels and to other sacred cult objects. Further, people are drawn to
honour these images with the offering of incense and lights, as was
piously established by ancient custom. Indeed, the honour paid to
an image traverses it, reaching the model; and he who venerates
the image, venerates the person represented in that image. (Tanner,
Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. Vol 1, 135-6)

Ever since this Ecumenical Council, the Catholic Church has dis-
played holy images in worship and in catechesis, in cathedrals, parish
churches, roadside shrines, and family homes. These images are meant
to attract us, to serve as models, to remind us of great deeds of God and
for God. When we see Christ in an icon we are encouraged to relate to
him, to greet him, to pray to him, to honour him, to worship him. The
icon is quasi-sacramental, a channel of grace and a path of communi-
cation with the divine. Icons are kissed, candles are lit before them,
flowers put beside them.
The humanity of Christ is easily able to be depicted, the perennial
challenge for sacred artists is how to hint at his divinity. Various artistic
conventions have been used – the gold background, a red background,
imperial garments, the halo, the mandorla (the almond-shaped slice of
heaven surrounding the Christ). We are so used to these conventions
that we take them for an ordinary part of the painting, but it is import-
ant to recognise them for what they are – unusual features that have