Gazing on God : Trinity, church and salvation in Orthodox thought and iconography /
Andreas Andreopoulos.
- 1 online resource (158 pages) : illustrations.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 155-158).
Introduction: the perspective -- Faith and experience -- Logos -- Christ and the Trinity -- Time, space and eternity in the liturgy -- Icons: the way to the gaze of God -- The crucifixion -- The descent into Hades -- The protection of the Theotokos -- The life-giving fountain -- The burning bush -- The Bogolubskaya -- The all-seeing eye of God -- After the icon exhibition -- Towards a meta-linguistic theological methodology.
An exposition of Orthodox systematic theology, Gazing on God is written from the point of view of the experience of the faithful, drawing on traditional icons and liturgy. By tracing the depth of some key Christian concepts -- salvation, Logos, the Trinity -- Andreas Andreopoulos provides a framework for the theology of experience. In the following chapters seven select icons are analyzed, in order to demonstrate the theological ideas and themes that may be revealed by studying Christianity through iconography. The analysis touches on topics such as time (the eternity of God, 'flat' liturgical time), space, the Church as the Body of Christ, and the Trinity. Gazing on God offers to all Christian traditions a demonstration that, while our understanding of the development of Christian views and attitudes is guided by the history of theological ideas, Christianity includes from the beginning a strong dimension of meta-linguistic knowledge, which is expressed in its liturgy, as well as in its symbolism.