Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the relationship between iconicity, tradition, and eschatology through an examination of iconographic types and their variants in specific icons. It identifies two opposing tendencies in Christian eschatology. The book also explores the relationship between the ascetical body, theophany, and iconography in the sixth century Sinai mosaics of the Transfiguration and Moses at the Burning Bush, seen as the Ladder's theological and liturgical extension. It examines hymnographic precedents to the King of Glory in the works of Romanos Melodos, George of Nico-media, and Symeon Metaphrastes. The book addresses perichoretic analogies between poetic and iconographic forms of visuality that impart carnal qualities on icons, undermine their two-dimensionality, and open their interior space to visceral and imaginational transformation. It also examines the impact of ethnicity, modernism, and eschatology on the Byzantine icon through the work of Fotis Kontoglou.