Every Icon Is the Icon of Christ

On July 25, we celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of the conclusion of the first ecumenical council in history. Convoked in Nicaea in 325 by the Emperor Constantine, it played a crucial role in defining the Trinitarian doctrine: one God in three co-equal Hypostases (Persons). Along with the Council of Constantinople in 381, it gave the Church her “Symbol” or profession of faith, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. On this occasion, we recommend contemplating the mystery of the Holy Trinity by examining the remarkable icon that adorns the cover of this issue of MAGNIFICAT.

Produced in the 15th century in Novgorod (124 miles south of Saint Petersburg), this icon is entitled The Holy Trinity (Svyataya Troitsa in Old Slavonic). It depicts as a theophany (manifestation of God) Abraham’s hospitality, related in the Book of Genesis (18:1-10; see pages 302-303). Abraham and Sarah in the foreground serve their three guests, who are seated at table beneath the oak of Mamre (today Hebron in Israel). Having revealed that they were sent by God to announce that Abraham and Sarah, despite their advanced age, will bring into the world the son of the promise (Isaac), they are depicted as angels, with wings.

The Fathers of the Church, meditating on this episode from Genesis, also saw in it a veiled revelation of the mystery of the Trinity, one God in three Persons. The first three words of the account are: The Lord/ appeared/ to him, and thus they designate the one God. Then the account in fact enumerates three visitors, but when Abraham addresses them, he speaks to them in the singular: My Lord…. Nevertheless he asks Sarah to prepare three wheaten cakes, which the visitors (in the plural) eat. Then they ask to see Sarah. But when they speak again, the account returns to the singular: The Lord said…. And throughout the following conversation, the traveler is called the Lord [God]. Finally, the account concludes in the plural: The men set out from there.

Inspired by the meditations of the Fathers of the Church, early Christian artists, and then iconographers, have been fond of suggesting the Trinity by depicting the hospitality of Abraham; they go so far as to show the Trinity at work in salvation history, from the creation of the world to the new and eternal covenant, via the covenant with Abraham. We will “read” this icon by reviewing the stages of the Trinitarian manifestations in human history.

In the foreground, Abraham serves three bread-rolls, the first sign of the Trinity, and Sarah serves the bloody flesh of the young animal that has been sacrificed, prefiguring the sacrifice of Isaac, then of Christ. The three visitors are seated at table; they wear the same clothes (although arranged differently, in personalized ways), hold in their left hand the same rod-scepter of omnipotence (the merilo), and with their right hand bless the table in the same gesture. Their faces show the same features and the same expressions. There is no better way the artist can suggest they represent one God in three equal Persons. The posture of the three Persons, however, suggests their perichoresis (unifying relations of love): the figure of the Holy Spirit (to the viewer’s right) and the figure of the only-begotten Son (in the center) are turned toward the figure of the Father (to our left).

In the background, looming over the figure of the Holy Spirit and leaning toward the representation of the Trinity, the “high mountains” testify that the scene is indeed a theophany. They also proclaim the future theophanies on Sinai and Mount Tabor. In the center, the tree is the oak of Mamre. It recalls the paradisiacal tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and being situated behind the figure of the Son—the Savior who is to come—it announces the tree of the cross. Now, to our left, directly over the figure of the Father, we see Abraham’s dwelling place, depicted as a house. It prefigures the Temple in Jerusalem (in my Father’s house, Jesus will say), then the Church of Christ, and finally heaven: In my Father’s house there are many mansions (Jn 14:2, Douay-Rheims).

At the center of the picture, the table of hospitality has pride of place. It suggests the altar of the Old Covenant sacrifices, then the Eucharistic altar of the New and eternal Covenant. For this purpose, the iconographer shows the little window of the confessio, where the early Christians would place the relics of a Confessor of the faith (a martyr). The Son stands at the altar, on which a vessel filled with wine evokes the Last Supper and the Sacrifice of the Mass. And, indeed, when the fullness of time has arrived, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity will become man, and then, as proof of his unsurpassable love, he will freely become once and for all the One who offers and the One who is offered.

Pierre-Marie Dumont
The Holy Trinity, Novgorod School, 15th c., Museum of Art, Novgorod, Russia. © Bridgeman Images.