Designing an Image of Everything

The Cosmic Mountain

For many years now I have been studying the traditions of iconology, the sacred visual language which has developed in the Church.  Long before becoming an icon carver, the pattern of my thinking had already been built through meditation on the images of both the Christian East and the medieval West.  Although I am mostly…

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Iconography Shows us the Pattern of Reality

In November, I was asked to speak at St. Tikhon’s Seminary for the annual meeting of the Orthodox Inter-Seminary Movement (OISM).  It was my first time at the monastery and school, and I was quite humbled to participate in such an event.  It was also an honour to speak of Christian Symbolism in the last…

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Understanding the Icons of Holy Week

During Holy Week, the Orthodox faithful will see several icons in the center of the church being commemorated. Although we are used to interpret icons as stand alone objects, I have found that it is sometimes best to see the language of icons as an inter-connected web of elements which speak to each other across different icons types. 

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