By Erin Miller

Editor in chief

Imagine if someone picked up a Bible and started to tear out the pages, one at a time.

If that is disconcerting, Festival of Faith and Writing speaker Frederica Mathewes-Green would like to know why.

``You know it's mere earthly matter,'' she said.

For Mathewes-Green and many other Orthodox Christians, the same reverence given to the Bible is given to icons and that was her topic of discussion Saturday afternoon. Mathewes-Green showed 15 different icons, describing the significance and meaning of each. For an audience mostly unfamiliar with icons and their purpose, the history lesson caught their interest.

``Icons are windows into heaven,'' she said. ``They were painted in a time when most people were illiterate. This was the picture Bible.''

In the seventh and eighth centuries, long after many icons had been made, the growth of Islam and the continued growth Judaism caused many Christians to question the use of icons in the church.

``In the early 700s a concern arose,'' Mathewes-Green said. ``These might be idols. Judaism and Islam both said images were idolatrous. Icons were images.''

In looking at some of the more important and well-known icons, Mathewes-Green started with what she called the ``three greatest hits'' of icons - three icons everyone in the audience was likely to have seen.

The first was the Christ of Sinai, one of the earliest surviving icons. The icon was made in about 550 for a monastery near Constantinople. The painting's appearance is differed than the flat, glowing appearance normally associated with icons.

``It's not extremely stylized,'' she said. ``It looks like Roman or Egyptian funerary portraits.''

Other characteristics more typical of icons, such as a reverse perspective, causing the illusion of the figure coming out of the painting to the viewer are seen in the painting. The effect of this technique, she said, is ``heaven invading earth.'' In this particular icon, special importance was given to the eyes.

``The eyes are trying to communicate to us ... judgment and mercy,'' Mathewes-Green said. ``It's sequential as we talk about it. It's simultaneous when we do it. Judgment is a diagnosis but also merciful, because then you know [about the problem]. It is the surgeon saying, `You will be healed, I know it.' You need the diagnosis to be healed.''

The second icon Mathewes-Green showed was Andre Rublev's trinity. Painted in 1411, it is one of the few icons whose painter is known. The scene depicted is from Genesis 18, and shows the trinity seated at a table, with Christ and the Holy Spirit facing God the father.

``This is the only legitimate way to depict the trinity,'' she said. ``God hasn't revealed what it looks like in heaven. You don't make stuff up. You don't speculate.''

The third icon discussed was the Virgin of Vladimir, painted in 1164. Behind this particular icon is a legend that gives the origin of the icon much farther back in history. The icon may have been painted by St. Luke on a table in Mary's home when he went to interview her about her life and the life of Christ. The particular style of the icon is ``tenderness'' or ``sweet kissing,'' because in this icon, Jesus is reaching up to Mary, kissing her cheek.

Mary plays an important role in Orthodox Christianity, Mathewes-Green said, but as a woman who is revered, not worshiped.

``Mary is not a demigod, but she is a prime example of how to live,'' Mathewes-Green said. ``When she understood what God was calling her to do, she did it.''

Although this and many other icons treat famous Biblical figures and saints with reverence, the purpose of the icon is to point back to Christ.

``Every icon is an icon of Christ,'' Mathewes-Green said. ``If it's a saint, it's to show what God can do with ordinary people.''

Mathewes-Green showed several others versions of depicting Mary and Christ, including a style called ``directress,'' in which Mary's hand points toward Christ, and one in which Mary is shown with Jesus following his crucifixion.

She also showed other styles of icon, including a Coptic icon of St. Mark, who brought Christianity to Egypt, a Russian icon, and one she believed to be an Ethiopian icon of St. George.

Each tradition has distinct ways of depicting scenes in icons. Coptic icons feature rounded faces, while Ethiopian icons tend to have more texture and seem rough.

For Mathewes-Green, appreciation of icons came much later than she would have liked. Only when she attended an art exhibit about icons and encountered a two-sided icon with Mary and Christ on the front and Christ crucified on the back did she start to understand the power and beauty others found in icons.

``I just couldn't move,'' she said. ``There was a sense of a presence and power [in] the paradox of this image - tranquility and brokenness - always kingly.''

That icon was ``The King of Glory,'' and that day her feelings about icons changed drastically.

``I know I want glory,'' she said. ``I think most of us do. I have to keep looking at this to remind myself what glory is.''