ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter I discussed how the use of images in liturgy, particularly in the pre-modern world, encouraged a movement of ascent towards the divine and suggested how such a phenomenology of anagogical worship rested partly upon its capacity to communicate ‘another place’ which worshippers sought. Religious images, as imaginative and beautiful representations of the Christian faith, reminded ritual participants of the implications of the saving power of Christ (and the saints) for their own lives and served more than an illustrative function. They embodied a revelatory expression of faith, which sought to resonate affectively with and strengthen the faith of worshippers, a theme I pursue in more depth in Chapter 6. At the same time, the aesthetic features which surrounded acts of praise and adoration situated worshippers in a boundary space between the known and unknown, the visible acting as a seductive and enticing expression of another invisible place and way of being to which they witnessed. In so doing, ritual spaces, through their judicious use of the material, became the mysterious borderline between two worlds and reminded individuals who they were and the place to which they ultimately belonged. It is worth noting here that for Orthodox Christianity, images actually possess a redemptive presence and carry a power equal to Scripture. As Leonid Ouspensky comments, ‘the icon contains and proclaims the same truth as the Gospel. Like the Gospel and the Cross, it is one of the aspects of divine revelation …’ (quoted in Viladesau 2000: 140; see also Binns 2002: 97-106).
