There is so much online concerning this I now turn to CAF for a clear answer.
It concerns a book, A Treasury of Icons, sixth to seventeenth centuries
from the Sinai Peninsula, Greece, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.
it is a beautiful book full of icon art, collections from the Eastern Orthodox world.
My question is…would this be a nice gift for a Roman Rite Catholic priest?
Thank you
Is this the book that I remember from the 1960s or is there by chance an updated and revised edition?
As a priest, I would find it to be a perfectly delightful gift. We who are Roman Rite priests, just like the general population, have various personal tastes and preferences. Some have a greater love for and appreciation of icons, and Eastern art in general, than others of us.
That we are not presently in full communion with those who are of the Orthodox Communion does not detract from the reality that the Churches of the East and West were in full communion in the past and, please God one day soon, will be again.
This book draws upon the treasury that derives from our common patrimony.
The Saints and Fathers of the East, in the sub-apostolic era and then the Patristic period most notably, had such tremendous influence on the development of theology, notably Trinitarian theology and Christology, that it remains at the heart of the essential elements every seminarian studies on the way to priesthood. The Eastern Churches that are in full communion with Rome are assuredly inestimable jewels and treasures of Catholicism; we in the West do well to look often to the East for their unique insights, perspective, and spirituality. They have so much with which to enrich us.
Perhaps, though, you could ask the priest about his thought on icons and his esteem concerning them, before making the gift, as a way of assuring yourself that this book would find a good home with him.
