In this homily, Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen) talks about the significance of Orthodox icons, emphasizing their role in spiritual reflection and as a means to encounter Christ. He discusses the humility of God, the process of becoming like Christ, and the transformative power of sacred art in the Orthodox tradition.
Metropolitan Jonah is a retired American Eastern Orthodox bishop who served as the primate of the Orthodox Church in America until his resignation on July 7, 2012.
Video source: Saint Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church, Stafford, Virginia
March 9th, 2025 (Sunday of Orthodoxy)
For more resources, check out the website of St. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church https://sthermanorthodox.org/ and the bookstore of St. Demetrios Monastery: https://virginiamonks.org/collections/all
Metropolitan Jonah:
Their [i.e. iconoclasts] idea was that it was shameful to depict the Son of God in His humiliation, in other words in His human form. And yet it’s exactly that humiliation, that self-emptying, that taking the form of a servant and being subject to death—even the death of the cross—which is the ultimate humiliation. That is one of the most important revelations of who God is for us because we have a humble God.
In the words of the Fathers, it’s the word of the Word: Jesus, the Son of God, is the Word of God and He spoke and things came to be by the grace of the Holy Spirit. So all of creation came from the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit. Each one of us is a word that was spoken by the Word of God, which is a reflection of Him in a unique way so that each one—each person, male and female—is an image of God.
Our task is to enter into that process—the process of the fulfillment of that potential within us—its actualization into likeness to Christ. When like Him we will be resurrected from the dead and radiant with the uncreated grace of God—be radiant with the uncreated light, be radiant with the presence of God—because all these things are aspects of the presence of God.
When we look at an icon on one hand we’re seeing ourselves in a mirror. You wonder why icons are dispassionate—you know they’re not smiley or they’re not sad—they’re just… That’s because in Orthodox Church services we don’t do emotional manipulation but rather let icons reflect back to us our own state of being so that we can see ourselves better.
The material icon brings to mind and brings us into an encounter with our Lord Jesus Christ because when you come up and venerate His icon you encounter Him—that’s the whole point of it. And how often do we think about this when venerating icons? We’re encountering Christ. When we encounter saints through their icons, it’s not just the saint we are encountering; we’re encountering that saint in Christ.
We might look through an icon to see His face and to know His glory, His power, and His divinity so that we also might be filled with His divinity, power, and life.
life.
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