TIL eastern Catholics have icons rather than statues in their churches

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Really interesting. Their churches are also very beautiful.
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Amazing works of art… I have a few on my holy card wall
 
Curious11 said:
Really interesting. Their churches are also very beautiful.

TIL=today I learned
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Like Latin rite churches, the amount and type of images really varies from church building to church building.

Near my previous domicile, the Greek Catholic church across the street from the Lithuanian Bingo hal in Pittsburghl had a statue of Jesus in their church yard. The practice of eschewing statues isn’t universal by any stretch of the word.
 
Augustinian said:
Like Latin rite churches, the amount and type of images really varies from church building to church building.
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True. However, there is a strong tradition of iconography in Eastern Christianity, and whatver traditionof statutes there is, is largely limited to churches in regions that also have a dominant Western Christian presence. I am not sure that I would say that there is a tradition of eschewing statues.
 
This is the Melkite church I attend.
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Interesting. Seems the Byzantine world, after awhile, “went oriental” in décor; adopting a lot from Persia, with a lot of mystical, other-worldly images in the eyes of which one is supposed to sort of get lost in eternity. Latins tended to “stay Roman” with a certain plainness and literalness. If one looks at drawings of the Roman Forum or anything Roman, really, there’s little to distinguish the secular use of architecture and imagery from the sacred.

The East is east and the West is west, etc.
 
This is a small Byzantine church in the U.S. I really like it. I also like the hymn. It’s a Ruthenian hymn and the parish is Ruthenian. Play it. I think you’ll like it.
 
An icon is a prayer; in reverencing one, we seek to join that prayer.

Having those, a statute is, well, just a stature.

Icons are “written”, not painted, and are not art–beautiful though they may be. They are loaded with meaning, and are used for instruction, which is particularly useful with an illiterate audience.
 
😵 There’s a lot going on in these photos. Too much visual stimulation for me.
 
Syro Malabar Sanctuary Architecture:
Icons were incorporated into our sanctuaries through Latinization.

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The Byzantine Empire’s capital was Constantinople, which is modern-day Turkey, and is almost 900 miles east of Rome… so I can definitely see how they would have eastern influences. You can see how the Byzantine art has been influenced by the styles of the Fayum mummy portraits that you find in Egypt.


One of the reasons why early Christian art initially skewed more towards the paintings rather than statuary was because statuary was so important to pagan worship. So by favoring two-dimensional art in their catacombs, for example, it served as a visual distinguishment between Christian and pagan art.

Also interesting is how the Russians initially imported Byzantine artists from Constantinople to introduce the art of iconography to them, but over the centuries, the two different cultures began producing distinct kinds of imagery. Generally speaking, there are four styles of icons: the Greek, the Russian, the Coptic, and the Arabic.
 
Technically speaking yes but the Byzantine rite didn’t affect the East Syriac Christians in India only the Latin Rite did after the Portuguese reformation (Latinization) policy.
 
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