DISCIPLE: Icons Convey Sacred in Light &amp; Color

DISCIPLE: Icons Convey Sacred in Light & Color

April 2, 2024

by Jim Thorp

This article appears in the Spring 2024 edition of the DISCIPLE newsletter. If you are not receiving DISCIPLE in your mailbox, contact the parish office at 763-497-2745 to register as a parishioner or update your contact information.

In the early 2000s, Father Michael Becker undertook an unusual project: building a large Neo-Byzantine church in a small German Catholic farm town. The new church was envisioned as an architectural prayer for the reunification of the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) Churches, separated since the Great Schism of 1054. The massive, copper-clad dome stood in stark contrast to the tall stone steeple of the historic church on the hill, and proposed icons of Christ Pantocrator (“Ruler of All”) surrounded by the Apostles and Our Lady of the Sign flanked by Eastern and Western saints and Doctors of the Church are unprecedented in this part of the world.

Father Becker called upon the Prosopon School of Iconology in New York to create these images. In 2004, Prosopon founder Vladislav Andrejev and a team of five men, including his son Dmitri (pictured above), worked full time for nearly five weeks to complete the icon beneath the dome, and finished the icons behind the altar and tabernacle in subsequent weeks. The resulting images have attracted artists and art enthusiasts. Catholics, non-Catholics, and even non-believers come to see and pray with the images in our church.

Last fall, nearly 20 years later, Vladislav, Dmitri, and a small team of artists including Dmitri’s daughters Lukina and Sophia, returned to St. Michael to create two new icons: an image of the Resurrection above the statuary apse and an image of Pentecost over the choir apse. The new icons were funded by a generous estate gift of our former pastor Father Leonard Siebenaler and parishioner contributions. The gold treatment of the walls of the apses was completed by painting contractor Susan Lynn, who assisted Conrad Schmitt Studios with the overall painting project.

The Resurrection Icon

Located above the statuary apse, our new icon of the Resurrection portrays the risen Lord leading the righteous souls who passed away before his coming up from Sheol, the land of the dead, where they had waited for redemption. The location is especially appropriate: During wakes, the deceased is positioned on the marble slab beneath it, and two angels of the Resurrection (part of last winter’s painting project) appear on either side of the apse.

Jesus is portrayed in motion, bursting the gates of the land of the dead with the force of his coming. Indeed, the gates are beneath his feet and the ground is littered with pieces of the hinges and latches, chains and locks, which kept the righteous dead confined.
Greek initials identify him as both Jesus Christ (IC XC) and He Who Is (O Ω N): Jesus is not just a man of God, but God Himself.
The figures surrounding Jesus are not named, but tradition informs who we might expect to see, including our first parents, Adam and Eve (the kneeling couple call them to mind), as well as the Old Testament kings and prophets (e.g., David and Solomon, Moses and Elijah). You may also find Christ’s forerunner, St. John the Baptist, typically portrayed in brownish clothing with wilder hair and beard.
Women are also portrayed with Jesus, calling to mind the queens and holy women of the Old Testament (e.g., Bathsheba, Esther, and Ruth).
Fantastic fruiting trees grow on either side of the image, reminding us of the eternal life in Paradise to which these souls—and all of us—are called.

The Pentecost Icon

An image of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles at Pentecost, after which they left the upper word and proclaimed the Kingdom of God to everyone who would listen, adorns the half dome above the choir. The Blessed Virgin Mary appears centrally in this icon, with 12 Apostles arrayed in a semicircle around her. Tongues of fire dance above their heads, descending from the dark blue of heaven, a color symbolizing the deep mystery of God.

Mary does not have a tongue of fire above her head, as she was already full of grace and overshadowed by the Holy Spirit at the Annunciation.
She is holding a cloth with 12 red seeds of faith of the Apostles that will bear great fruit throughout the world. The cloth calls to mind a 10th century vision of the Mother of God near Constantinople, in which Mary removed her veil and held it over the city of Blachernae and its people as a sign of her protection from invading armies.
Mary is identified as the Theotokos (“God-Bearer” or Mother of God) with Greek initials (MP ΘY), like Our Lady of the Sign behind the altar.
Again, the other figures are not named, though we can identify St. Peter and St. Paul by their centrality and appearance—they look very much like the named images of Peter and Paul in the dome.
St. Paul’s presence underscores that this is not a strictly biblical image. Paul would not have been present in the upper room; he underwent his conversion later, on the road to Damascus to arrest the followers of Jesus and bring them back to Jerusalem in chains. Traditionally, however, Peter and Paul are portrayed together as the chief Apostles in the early Church.
The other 10 apostles are not identified clearly and do not bear a one-to-one correspondence with the named images in the dome.
Again we see paradisical growth surrounding the scene, as heaven invades the earth. The Kingdom of God is at hand!

Learn More

For more about the Prosopon School of Iconology, its founder, and iconography in general, visit prosoponschool.org.