The truth about the so called “canons” of Iconography; a lie that will not go away.

Shortly after I first began painting icons in 1996 I started to hear mention about the so called canons of iconography. These canons supposedly were the rules by which Holy Iconography operates and which every iconographer alive is beholden to uphold. The canons were supposedly written by Orthodox bishops and were binding upon everyone who worked in iconography. These supposed canons supposedly dictated how icons are to be painted, who may paint them, what materials may be used for painting them, how icons are to look, etc. There are even those who act as if using the word paint to describe the creation of an icon is an act of sacrilege in its own rite, because everyone knows the only acceptable way to describe the process is to say “write an icon.” Those who spoke of the canons spoke with such high regard of these canons as if they were sacred and written by God himself. And yet, surprisingly enough, they were not easily accessible for anyone to read.

With the age of the internet it is fairly easy to find almost any Orthodox canon written. You can easily find the canons of any of the Great Orthodox Councils of Bishops on line. I looked to The Seventh Ecumenical Council which is cited as being the Council which brought an end to Iconoclasm. Yes there are a great number of canons in the Seventh Ecumenical Council supporting the use of Holy Iconography in the Church and even canons anathematizing those who wished to see the destruction and removal of icons from the Church. And yet the Seventh Ecumenical Council does not have one canon written on how icons are to be painted. How could the very council which put an end to Iconoclasm leave out a description of how icons are to be created in their canons?

The next place which I looked was the writings of St. John of Damascus, the great defender of Holy Iconography. Surely the man whose writings form much of the basis for the Church’s defense of iconography from iconoclasm would have much to say about the painting of icons, especially considering that he painted icons himself. Nothing. He is silent on how icons are painted. He goes into great depth to explain how iconography does not break the commandment against graven images and how the commandment against graven images is actually a foreshadowing of Christ and the time when images of Christ would not only be permissable not necessary, but he says nothing of how the icons are to be painted. As I searched, the only canon that I could possibly find that dealt with the painting of icons and was written by any council of bishops came from the Great Council of Moscow in the 16th C, a council which is now viewed as being heretical by Orthodox bishops. This canon only said that icons are to be painted in such a manner that is consistent with the ancient prototypes.

My then parish priest who is now an Orthodox bishop knew of my frustration with this theory of canons of painting iconography and one day during a short discussion he said something very shocking to me. He told me to quit my decade long search for the canons of painting iconography because they simply did not exist. The statement about canons that many Orthodox Christian Priests and laymen alike make is simply nothing but a theologoumena, a pius theological opinion that has no basis in the truth. It is a lie which is told by those who refuse to see the truth. The truth is that the rules and guidelines about how icons are to be painted have been written by iconographers themselves over the two thousand year history of the Church and these guidelines pre-date the Church. The truth is something much more glorious than some lie about canons written by bishops who know nothing about art. The truth is iconographers have kept the style of iconography relatively unchanged for more than two thousand years, while non-sacred art has changed drastically during that time. Iconographers are artists. Artists are naturally curious and rebellious people who love to experiment with new techniques, styles, methods, materials, etc. And yet those same artists have left the style of the icon relatively unchanged for more than two millenia. This is what should be celebrated and praised by priests, bishops and lay Orthodox. Not some silly lie about binding rules that simply don’t exist.