24.

 Though it is not mentioned in the textbook, can you explain how this doctrine is presented in the true Orthodox icon?

            Leonid Ouspensky deals with the phenomenon of theosis in iconography throughout his book Theology of the Icon. This author states that “the icon is intimately connected with the renewal, the deification of human nature realized in Christ.” Further on he explains that “men who have known sanctification by experience have created images that correspond to it.” He continues:

The icon is an image not only of a living but also a deified prototype. It does not represent the corruptible flesh, destined for decomposition, but transfigured flesh, illumined by grace, the flesh of the world to come (cf. 1 Cor 15:35-46). It portrays the divine beauty and glory in material ways which are visible to human eyes. The icon is venerable and holy precisely because it portrays this deified state of its prototype and bears his name.

Regarding true icons (also called Byzantine icons), these are the traditional icons of intense spiritual beauty that lead the viewer from the world of matter to the holy prototypes and to God. These icons bear the impress of holiness as a high decree of sanctification is demanded of the painter-monastics, who prepare for their task with fasting and ascetic endeavors. In the final analysis, iconography is the outcome of a holy life, and it is the fruit of a way of life. Other true icons having the imprint of holiness are those not-wrought-by-men's-hands that have appeared miraculously.

            True icons are not those of the worldly, innovative and ostentatious style patterned after Western paintings. The modernistic, Western-style icons are not holy, and it is an infringement of Apostolic Tradition to use them. This matter will be examined in further depth in chapter four.