CONTEMPLATING RUBLEV'S ICO N

THE AUTHORITY OF THE TRINITY AND THE COMMUNITY OF W O M E N AND M E N IN THE C H U R C H

Christine ChaiLlot
Chrutine Chaiot id a Swidd laywoman who belongd to the Eadtern Orthodox Church (Patriarchate of Condtantiiwple). Through yeard of travelling dhe had met Oriental Orthodox commundied and prelakd in the Mdle Eadt and eLewhere. She aimd to predent the l^e mid dpirduality of the Oriental Orthodox Churched (Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenuin, Syrian Orthodox and Malankara) not only to eciunenidtd and theologiand, but aldo to general readerd, dtudentd, traveerd anpilgrund. Her boob include "Rle ded imaged et vnration ded icdned dand led Eglided orthodoxed orientated" (1995) and "A Short Hidtory of the Orthodox Church in Wedtern Etirope in the 20th century " (2006).

I have been asked to speak to you about the icon of the Trinity by Rublev. You might ask why, and how, one can speak of an icon in the context of the theme of our conference: "Authority and the place of w^omen and men in the church". How^ can w^e conceive of the principle of authority and community through an image? For the Orthodox, icons are a part of spiritual tradition. In church and at home, the faithful pray before the icons that represent the principal hturgical feasts (Easter, Christmas, Pentecost) as well as Christ, the Virgin and all the saints. As the titles of various books on icons tell us, they are "theology in colour" (E. Trubetskoy), "a theology of beauty" (Evdokimov), "w^indow^s onto eternity" (M. Quenot) "pictures of the In^visible" (E. Sendler). It is also said of icons that they are liturgical images, and even the "abode and leaven of unity' (M. Quenot). One of the most popular, and most often-reproduced, icons today in the Orthodox world is that called "of the Trinity", based on the model painted by Andrei Rublev in Russia around 1422-25, now to be found in the Tretiakov Gallery in M.osco'w. We must begin by saying that it does not purport to be a true representation of the Holy Trinity, an icon of Father, 137

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Son and Holy Spirit, because Orthodox theology teaches that the Son alone, who took human flesh, can be represented. As a great contemporary iconographer, the monk Grigoriy Krug, has w^ritten, "The Trinity cannot be represented, but one has to look at this icon (of Rublev s) as the deepest sjmibolic representation."' It depicts three angels, referring to the Old Testament text in Genesis 18 when the Eternal One visited Abraham mysteriously, under the form of three angels. This inspired Abraham's phihxenia a Greek word meaning "love for the stranger", "hospitahty". This image indicates for us a S3nTibolic representation of a trinitanan model and, by extension, the Holy Trinity. This icon of the Trinity in the form of three angels ^vas to become traditional from the time of the Gouncil of Moscow^ in 1551 that commended it as a perfect example of iconographie art. According to Egon Sendler, with this representation by Rublev, "dogmatic elements began to dominate and determine the whole composition [of the Trinity]".^ Rublev painted the three angels w^ith a circular motion to signify their unity and equality, "thus creating a unity to represent the Holy Trinity in its movement of love, as the source of man's salvation".^ This perfect circle is the sign of divine eternity, one God in three perfectly equal persons, as is signified by the three identical sceptres held by the angels. Their gaze and their being interact with no separation, confusion or subordination. They are similar, but they differ in gesture and colour. For the Orthodox, it is this relationship of perfect love that is the model for the ideal relationship of all God's creatures one w^ith another, and w^ithin the church between the different ministries of men and w^omen. According to Paul Evdokimov: "In this icon, Rublev recreated the very rhjrthm of Trinitarian life. He also was able to show^ its united diversity and the movement of love that identifies the Persons w^ithout confusing them.""* It is on this icon as the symbol of love and Trinitarian relationship that w^e shall base our consideration. One brief word about the symbolism of the colours, about ^vhich, according to Michel Quenot, the icon specialist, w^e must speak of the "mystery and not give an exotic interpretation". Red is fire, w^armth, divine love. Blue is the colour of mystery, of divine life. Gold is light, divine abundance.
' ^ ' ^ G. Krug, Carnet.) d'un peintre d'icne.), L'Age d'Homme, Paris, 1983, p.70. E. Sendler, The Icon: Image of the Invbible, Oakwood Publications, Torrance, California 1993, p.74. Ibid, p.74. Paul Evdokimov, L'art de l'icne: the'ologie de la beaut, Desche, 1970, p.207; English edition. The Art of the leon: A Theology of Beauty, Oakwood Publications, California, 1990, p.245.

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When -we see Christ clothed in blue and red, these two colours symbolize his divinity and his humanity. On this icon, the colours are without shadow, and contrast with the whiteness of the tablecloth on which the chalice and the eucharistie lamb, the divine nourishment of the Church, the Body of Christ, are laid. The colours and the forms create a perfect accord. For some people, the beauty of Rublevs icon "conveys more than theological texts''.^ What can a study of the icon of the Trinity bring us in connection w^ith the notion of the person, of relationship and of authority? What is there that instructs us in the Christian faith? Firstly, that God s very being is love. It is because of the relationship of perfect love among the three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that -we can speak of them as one God. The number three is a perfect number; it unifies and goes beyond separation.^ For Michel Quenot, "Between individualism and collectivism, between person and community, the Trinity opens a third way, which IS the only way out of the inevitable antagonism so clearly demonstrated by the multitude of current domestic, local and international disputes. The Trinity disrupts the closed relationship of the "you-me" construct by introducing a third element: one that opens into the "w^e " of authentic communion, in which each person can flourish. The "I" is no longer affirmed over against the "you"; it is affirmed, rather, through sharing w^ith others by w^elcoming whatever is unique in each other.'' And for Paul Evdokimov, "the Trinitarian principle ... is the unshakeable foundation that unites the individual person and the community". According to this model, the church is called to be a "community of mutual love, a unity in multiplicity" ... "There are three Persons (hypodtaded) in one single nature or essence (oudia) ... They are united not to melt together but to contain each other mutually".^ This is sharing and ^velcoming acceptance. This unity and this communion among the three persons is a very great mystery, but it is also the model that God asks of us that we live in the Christian tradition. The three persons are not artificially united, like cold metaphysical concepts. "In other w^ords, the dogma of the Trinity is not an abstract doctrine", as Ouspensky writes.^ Each person is unique and different. The Father is the source of life, but at the same time the Son and
M. Quenot, The Icon: Window on the Kingdom, Saint Vladimir's Press, New York, 1991, p.31. Paul Evdokimov, op. cit., p.203; Engl. ed. p.244. M. Quenot, Re.nirrectwn and Icon, Saint Vladimir's Press, New York, 1997. Paul Evdokimov, op. cit., p.205; Englis edition p.243. L. Ouspensky, Theobgy of the Icon, Saint Vladimir's Press, New York, 1992, Vol. II, p.399.

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the Spirit exist from all eternity. The Son'" is sent by the Father and, by his incarnation, becomes a human being like us. By his death, the Son makes a gift of himself, and raises us. The Spirit transmits the divine life to the vv^orld. He is the Spirit of life. The Father is revealed by the Son in the Spirit. "It is in his breath (the Spirit's) that the Father descends tow^ards the Son, that the Son receives his Father and that the Word rings out".'' As Saint John Damascene says: "Through the Holy Spirit w^e recognize the Christ, the Son of God, and by the Son ^ve contemplate the Father." Though each person has his own characteristics, there is nevertheless no separation among them, because of the relationship of perfect love that appertains to God. We must once more insist on the fact that this union of the three persons implies no sort of confusion, subordination or domination. In effect, each person keeps his own attributes of Creator, Saviour and Giver of life, to use certain Orthodox theological and liturgical expressions. The Father is not "superior" to the Son or the Spirit, neither the Son to the Father, or any one to the others. The icon of the Trinity is a support that allows those who contemplate it to cast a spiritual bridge over between the model of relationship offered to us by the Holy Trinity, united in love, and the human race. The Holy Trinity is also a model of the unity of the church, being the source of this unity, and it also shows us the path that allows us to rise above all our human individualism and bring to reality Christ s w^ords:
that they all may be one.

Is this model of relationship in love lived out? How? This is a great question that has been asked of the church since its foundation. In particular, the members of the apostolic church tried to apply this commandment about love for all to the letter, sharing their possessions in the organizing of the newly-born church. But even Christ s disciples quarreled among themselves about w^ho would be first, w^ho would command. The Fathers of the Church constantly wrote commentaries to explain that eccUdiobgy that is, the life of the Church - must be based on the model of communion of Trinitarian love. We w^ould need another w^hole conference to quote them all.
'" In general, the angel in the centre is considered to represent Christ, but other interpretations have been ofFered. " Paul Evdokimov, op. cit, p.214; Engl. ed. p.254.

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This model is profoundly anchored in Orthodox tradition, and those who read the works of contemporary Orthodox theologians such as Bishop John Zizoulas, Vladimir Lossky, Fathers Afanasiev, Dimitru Staniloe and Boris Bobrinskoy will be convinced of this. But our question cannot be answered only by reading books. It is the life of the church, it is our own lives, that alone can give an answer to the question. Our common human weakness clearly often hinders our living according to a model of relationship in love that alone can produce and justify hierarchical order. How^ can these concepts of respect, of otherness, be applied w^ithin the strict framework of well-established hierarchical structure? How can w^e pass from theory to practice? It is evident that, in the "national" churches that constitute the Orthodox Church today, the greater the number of believers, the more cumbersome the inevitable administration and the more difficult the wielding of authority becomes. The necessary loosening-up of these necessary structures can only be brought about within the realm of the spiritual life. When bishops hold themselves at the disposition of, and hsten to, all their flock, men and w^omen, including the humblest and poorest, and in the spirit of the Beatitudes bring them together into their ministry, this way of being permits koinonia (in Greek), dobornodt (in Russian), a word that one could translate as "the community of communion" or full communion. This is the starting-point of a flood of communication, love, mutual help and welcome in the service of others, in the diaconate. I shall give just one example from a contemporary Orthodox situation. In Egypt, Russia and other places, a diaconate for ^vomen is beginning to be reorganized by bishops and priests who, with discernment, are concerned to respect the gifts proper to every woman. Work on the spiritual and social level can be organized with the blessing of the spiritual father, who often has a great admiration for what these women and men do, because it is becoming more and more frequent for an active diaconate for men to develop alongside it. Thus is accomplished the perichorede another Greek word that signifies a "circle of relationship" or "exchange of being", ^^ an ideal relation-

^ Or again, The action and relationship of the three Persons within the Trinity, in which each one can live within the other two in an eternal movement of communion and love", a defmition in M. Zibawis Icne, jenj
et hLitoire, p. 171.

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ship in w^hich each person can live and follow his or her vocation, ministry and service along w^ith the others, becoming personally fulfilled w^ithout confusion w^ith the other, giving him- or herself in humility, according to the model given by the Trinity. As an Orthodox friend w^ho has worked for many years ^vlth the mentally handicapped said to me: "There are very many models of Trinitarian love that are not confined to monasteries, or to be found in the everyday lives of exceptional people, but are also found in the lives of the smallest, the sickest, the most forgotten and the most disadvantaged, w^hen we see their love. In order to follow this path of Love, we must learn to forgive, and pray to God to open our hearts and our eyes." On the occasion of the Assembly of the clergy and laity of the diocese of the Ex;umenical Patriarchate in France, held near Paris in April 1997, Father Andr Borrely, an Orthodox priest from Marseilles, said: "Authentic Christian faith is the faith of the Church in communion (koinonia). The Christian faith is essentially a personal act that we cannot live out authentically except in the Church, that is, in parish life. It is nothing less than the fullness of the apostolic faith to which the parish has the specific vocation of bearing witness ... the parish must be the place in which, patiently and ascetically, we learn to move from division to unity, from egotism to sharing, from hatred to love, from vengeance to forgiveness, from injustice to justice, from violence to peace and from death to life. It IS a sphere of existence in "which a man succeeds in unifying his personal being, w^here prayer and action, adoration and efficiency, contemplation and participation in history, cease to be incompatible ... the parish IS a place of re-birth. The parish is that privileged place in -which, to people pressured by impediments in their love life, weighed down by their professional life, anguished by the fear of unemployment or of sickness, there is given the chance to take breath again by inbreathing the Spirit. In the middle of a large city, it is a place where I am offered the possibility of rooting myself in a reality that transcends this fallen -world, where a humus, a compost, a good and nourishing mother earth, are given to us, making possible the ground for the germination of sharing and forgiveness, the acceptance of the other in his or her otherness that relativizes me, the hospitable w^elcome to the stranger, a disinterested communion -with beings and things, a sense of festivity and of unconfined joy in celebration ... celebration that is a call to a 'liturgy after the Liturgy' that unfolds -within the concrete and tormented history of mankind. We have to come and go between the sanctuary and the world ... the eschatologi142

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cal perspective (of the kingdom) must protect Christians from the incessantly-rene-wed temptation to treat people as 'things , to stiffen, to immobilize, to crystallize and, finally, to absolutize that which appertains to the provisory, necessary though it may seem ... A communion that is union without confusion, the unity in Christ of persons in diversity, that is upheld and inspired by the Holy Spirit ... Christ is offered by His Father to every human being. It is therefore essential that the T should not trammel this communication."'^ The Reformed churches could be reckoned to be freer in comparison with the stronger hierarchical structure of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The risk of adding little structures of power and authority is, however, always possible. This show^s clearly that the problem lies, not so much in the structural and hierarchical forms of the church but in the w^ay in w^hich they are lived, and above all in the spirit in which they are lived in truth. If we return to our model of perfect love and relationship given us by the Holy Trinity, this can only live, develop and flourish by the grace of the Holy Spirit, w^ho is ever mysteriously united to the Father and the Son. Each person lives for the others, and gives himself totally to the others, w^ith infinite compassion. For us humans and Christians, it is not a question of "calculating" or of w^anting simply to "organize" the church, but of all becoming a part of this flood of trinitarian love that is the source and accomplishment of our interior liberation, of our sanctification and of our salvation, by allowing the divine energies to penetrate us. "That all may be one": this is the model given by the Trinity, the source of our faith to be put into practice. This demands that every creature becomes a person in communion, no longer simply an individual, and participates in making our world an unending eucharist''' by the gift of self to others, because the vocation of all humanity is to live, in the image of the divine life, a perfect relationship of love, for a creation renew^ed and transfigured.'^ According to Ouspensky, "the know^ledge of the Trinity is a living experience."'^
" Sen'ice orthodoxe de pre.ide 219, Paris, June 1997, pp.29-32. * ' * Eucharut - thanksgiving and communion -with others. '* "One of the dtartzi (old men, iiscetics) of the monastery became my spiritual father; he led me back to Him who alone can make of me a new creature". Bishop George Khodr; Et dije dijaij le.) ehemin.) de l'enfanee (And if I should recount the paths of childhood). Le Cerf, Paris, 1997, p. 169. ' Theology of the Icon, 1992, vol. II, p.399.

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In conclusion, one could say that, within the Holy Trinity, there is no conception of authority as the world understands it, but rather an authority of love and of sharing, a supreme peace, a celestial repose; "The vision ... is an anticipation of the kingdom ..." where "everything is grace".''' "In today s world, assaulted and saturated as it is with empty and all too often harmful images, the Life-bearing icon traces a luminous path way, as a silent and faithful guide towards the kingdom of God ."'^ If we contemplate the icon of the Trinity at length, w^ith the eyes of faith and of Tradition, it can help us to begin to meditate on the concept that is both present to us and yet endlessly to be discovered, of the mystery of love and of relationship. This is what I invite you to do.

" Paul Evdokimov, op. cit., pp.208, 216; Engl. ed. p.256. '^ M. Quenot, Resurrection and Icon, p.88.

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