Children Ask about Church Life
There are dozens of
children’s questions concerning prayer, icons, and church worship… in general,
everything related to life in the Church. We’ve collected several of these
questions and asked Archpriest Alexander Yelatomtsev, the rector of the Church
of the Nativity of Christ in v. Rozhdestveno, Istra Raion, Moscow Region, and
the spiritual father of Rozhdestvo Orthodox
School, to answer them.
Why
are icons painted in such a cartoonish manner?
You’ve found a very sensitive point in the life
of the Church. Icon painting is a very important way of preaching the Good
News, i.e., spreading the Christian faith. Unfortunately, icons don’t always
reach such a high level of artistic perfection. Often, they are painted to suit
the low taste of the person who orders them. Sometimes, icon painters aren’t
skillful enough. If you look at the
real icons, e.g., Holy Trinity by
Andrei Rublev, icon of the Mother of God of Vladimir, icons from ancient
Athonite monasteries, or Greek mosaics, you won’t find anything cartoonish
about them.
Some icons seem to be too simple, as if they
were painted by a child. Believe me, all true painters were dreaming of being
able to paint like children but not everyone can do it. Only holy and pure
souls are capable of portraying the saints’ faces with such artlessness and
spiritual precision. Sinful
adults are trying to fake that purity and simplicity, and that’s where the
cartoonish icons come from.
Perhaps, you meant that people and animals in
the icons look different than in real life? It’s made for a reason, not because
the painter doesn’t know how to paint “realistic pictures”. An icon reveals the
spiritual world, which is very different from our world. You can’t see it with
human eyes, so a realistic manner of painting doesn’t describe it well. Which
manner is better, then? The one that conveys the most important meanings, and
conveys them symbolically, not literally. This language is the language of icon
painting where nothing is painted aimlessly, where everything has its symbolism:
colors, sizes, and shapes. There isn’t anything cartoon-like in this way of
depicting holy images. If the
icon isn’t realistic, does it mean that it’s cartoon-like?
The
Prayer of Saint Macarius the Great (one of the evening prayers) contains the
following words, “And cause me, uncondemned now, to sleep a dreamless sleep,
and keep Thy servant untroubled by thoughts.” What does a dreamless sleep mean?
Is it wrong to have dreams?
It’s great that you
pay attention to words of holy prayers. The word “dream” has several
meanings. Dreams (i.e., imagination) are beneficial for a child. It is great
for a child to dream about journeys to distant lands, adventures, dangers, and
love. That is how a child (or
even an adult) expands his mind and takes on new roles, experiences
faithfulness and betrayal, weakness and power, and pursues certain goals.
If the goals that you’re after are good, and if
you do your best trying to achieve them, it means that your dreams weren’t in
vain. If they remain abstract
thoughts without good tangible results, then the word “dream” acquires a bad
meaning and turns into an “empty daydreaming”.
The word “dream” in this prayer refers to
memories and thoughts about your sins. Memories of your sins attract your
attention, embarrass you, and smear your soul. The dreams like those can break into your sleep, and
that is why we ask God to keep us free from them.
During
the All-Night Vigil, the priest consecrates five loaves of bread as a way to
remember how Jesus Christ fed people with five loaves of bread and two fishes.
Why don’t we consecrate two fishes, too?
That’s an old tradition. I think I know the
reason for it. Fish was a symbol of our Savior. The Greek word for ‘fish’ is ιχτυς (/ˈɪkθəs/). It has been interpreted as an acronym or acrostic for "Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ".
Greek English
ι Iēsous (Ἰησοῦς), Greek for "Jesus".
χ Christos (Χριστός), Greek for "anointed" (of the Lord).
τ Theou (Θεοῦ), Greek for "God's", the genitive case of Θεóς,
Theos, Greek for "God".
υ (h)yios[10] (Yἱός), Greek for "Son".
ς sōtēr (Σωτήρ),
Greek for "Saviour".
Due to the fact that fish hints at the Savior,
first Christians often used fish symbols in their churches. However, fish is
merely an image, while bread turns into the Body of Christ during the Sacrament
of Eucharist. That was why the Church decided to use the more important object,
namely, bread (five loaves, like it was in the Gospel) during the service. That is, on the eve of a holiday (bread is consecrated
during the All-Night Vigil service on the eve of a holiday), the Church already
prepares us for the Liturgy and reminds us of the heavenly bread.
What rules must a priest follow?
There are a whole
lot of rules for priests. Speaking of external, formal rules, it’s
hard to list them all: a priest must obey his bishop (that is, his
ecclesiastical superior), manage his parish, build or repair a church, lead
church worship diligently, etc. There are many rules of proper Christian
conduct, which a priest must follow much more strictly than a lay person. For
example, if a layman’s wife dies, church canons allow him to marry again. But a
priest cannot re-marry. If he marries again, he will lose his priesthood
because he is obliged to maintain the sanctity of marriage. According to Jesus Christ, one can have only one
marriage in his/her life.
The external rules are rooted in internal rules.
A priest must stick to the following
three internal rules:
Love God
Love the Church
Love his flock.
I’d like to underline the fact that a priest
must love his flock and not himself, so that God wouldn’t tell him in the end
of his earthly journey, “You’ve tended to yourself well, but you’ve abandoned
my sheep!” That is why a priest has to be very strict towards himself and
compassionate towards everyone else. Again, compassion must not lead people to
forget that the path to God is narrow and steep. The priest must walk up this path first so that it
could be easier for other people to follow him.
Is it allowed to make small figurines out of
church candles? Is it bad?
You can make the
figurines but not out of whole candles: use stumps, that is, candle-ends. Candles
were meant as an offering unto God, and that is what they should be used for. If you’re tired of standing and praying, you can make
figurines—at least, it’s better than running around the church or chatting, but
even if you make wax figurines, you should repeat to yourself, “Lord have
mercy!”
Is it possible to pray without icons?
Yes, it is possible
but it requires extra effort.
An icon
is a window into the invisible world where God and his saints dwell. Looking
through that window makes it more convenient to contact them. It is
especially true if that window is good and transparent, that is, if you can
clearly see through it and the faces of the saints really shine with spiritual
beauty and purity.
If you don’t have this window, you have to get
by looking at God “through the wall.” You will have to imagine that you stand
before him and exert your mental capacities to get into the invisible world. It
is harder but it’s a very useful experience, too. You should imagine God like they paint him on icons or
stand before him as the Unfathomable and Unknowable One, while at the same time
the Good One who listens to our prayers.
Afterword for Adults
What can be simpler
than children’s questions, right? Isn’t it easy for us adults to
show how informed we are and to open our uneducated kids’ eyes to something
that we already know?
It turns out, things work differently. If an adult is able to follow his own flow of words,
his own explanations, he will notice that complex words are useless but it is
not always feasible to explain complex concepts in plain and concise words.
Additionally, a child’s question may contain
something that he or she doesn’t say, something that remains beyond the scope
of his question, something that he or she hasn’t yet formulated well enough or
is afraid to ask, and you have to guess what the real question is. Sometimes you can’t respond to the real question but
it’s vital that you understand what it is.
The question that impressed me the most in our
today’s set of questions was the question about icons. The question was simple
but straightforward, “Why are icons painted in such a cartoonish manner?” The
author of that question is a 14-year-old teen, at which age people tend to react
strongly to everything lifeless, inauthentic, and artificial. Cartoonish means
fake, far-fetched, and unnatural. Cartoonish icons don’t meet the teenager’s
demand to see the real truth. One doesn’t actually feel inspired to believe
them and pray in front of them. In that
sense, the realistic icons painted in the academic style can easily be seen as
cartoonish because they represent only earthly truth but do not show the
spiritual truth.
That spiritual
truth is conveyed only with a language of symbols. Nevertheless, even that
symbolic language can turn out to be a fake if you use it “not for real”: if
you utilize known expressions and methods and don’t live according to them.
We
always seem to fall prey to this “cartoon” when we talk about God in oversimplified
baby terms. We live in that fictional world when we pray to a God the Father
with a long and dense white beard looking at us from the clouds. We might even
remind ourselves that no one has ever seen God the Father, and this is an
iconographic symbol. It won’t suffice for a teenager, though. He
needs an honest icon, spiritual truth, and discovered mystery.
There is something fake about our adult faith
and our everyday Orthodox practices. That was why the simple question about
icons stirred me up. I wish us all to demonstrate the real faith and true,
highly spiritual Orthodoxy to our children.
By Archpriest Alexander Elatomzev
Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds
Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds
Source: https://foma.ru/deti-sprashivayut-o-tserkovnoy-zhizni.html
