#archetype and icon

The Orthodox icon is analysed from the perspective of the theology of the divine presence, following the thought of Pavel Evdokimov, Boris Bobrinskoy, Michel Quenot, Leonid Uspensky and Pavel Florensky, with an emphasis on the distinction between the icon and the religious painting, on the Christological foundation of the icon, and on Florensky’s triad of ‘face–image–mask’, through which humankind is called to bear the likeness of God.

The text is a festive homily dedicated to the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, attributed to the patristic tradition, in which the Wood of the Cross is glorified as the antithesis of the wood of Paradise: a source of life in place of death, of incorruption in place of corruption. The author cites Old Testament prefigurations of the Cross — Moses’ staff, Noah’s ark, Abraham’s sacrifice — and argues, against iconoclasm, that the veneration of the icon of Christ stems from the same logic as the veneration of the image of the Cross. The homily concludes with a doxology addressed directly to the Cross, invoked as the protector of hierarchs, kings, monks and laypeople.