{"id":8759,"date":"2000-10-07T19:50:12","date_gmt":"2000-10-07T17:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theologie.whp.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/?p=8759"},"modified":"2025-04-10T11:05:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T09:05:14","slug":"reflection-on-the-marian-icon-hodegetria-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/reflection-on-the-marian-icon-hodegetria-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflection on the Marian Icon „Hodegetria“"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sermon Series on Mary | <\/span>15th Sunday after Trinity | October 1, 2000 | Petra
\nSavvidis |<\/h3>\n

Reflection on the Marian Icon „Hodegetria“ <\/b>Thirteenth Century, Vatopedi Monastery on Athos<\/p>\n

Translation by Theodore N. Thomas<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Grace to you and peace from God, our Father,
\nand from our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. <\/span><\/p>\n

Mother Mary. She holds Jesus tenderly in her
\narms, embracing Him with her hand. He lies supported in the crook of her arm as
\nif in a crib. She bends her head toward Him, her gaze meeting his, yet she
\nlooks beyond Him and into Him. Her mysterious eyes barely betray a smile. The
\nexpression on her face is sweet. And yet there is more. The Child looks up to
\nher, alert, solely focused on His mother. Half-reclining, quietly snuggled in
\nher arm, he nevertheless raises his head. <\/span><\/p>\n

The hands of both regard each other. Both left
\nhands nearly touch at the Child’s side, the mother’s hand supports the Baby,
\nWhose hand holds a scroll. Both right hands appear to be in motion, pointing to
\neach other,one large, one small. <\/span><\/p>\n

Only a few nuances of color distinguish the
\npicture. The faces, the hands and the clothing are in earth-tones, browns
\ntinted with reds and orange.Few details distract from the clear attention that
\nthe picture draws to the two subjects. <\/span><\/p>\n

Lifelike, earthy, and unimposing, the image
\nwould have a harmonic, nearly idyllic, affect on us were it not for certain
\nalien aspects. The mother’s mien is mysterious, betraying a soft melancholy
\nthat does not belong inthis scene. The child’s face is too mature, the shape
\nnot appropriate to hisage, his bearing, his upheld head unnatural. <\/span><\/p>\n

The stylized techniques of the iconographers
\nare foreign to eyes accustomed to western art. They remain aloof. Westerners do
\nnot immediately, spontaneously grasp their meanings. Icons are painted
\naccording to strict conventions which determine the motif, the theme, the
\ncomposition of the picture, and the details. The artist has only limited
\nfreedom with certain details, the palette, and facial expressions. For that
\nreason, every detail is meaningful. <\/span><\/p>\n

This icon is quite old, dated in the 13th
\ncentury. Its provenance is a monastery on Athos. Its motif belongs to the most
\nbroadly disseminated and revered Marian icons, called „Hodegetria,“ after the
\nmonastery Hodegon, in which the icons of this type were first found. Hodegetria
\nmeans „Guide.“ <\/span><\/p>\n

Typical for all icons of this motif is that
\nMary bears the Child on herleft arm while she motions toward Him with her right
\nhand, emphasizing,pointing. Here Mary’s hand is open, held upwards, as if she
\nwere receiving something. While at the same time she directs attention to the
\nChild on her arm. Jesus holds up His hand towards the hand of His mother as if
\nHe intended to touch it. Three fingers are held together in a benedictory
\ngesture. Likethe eyes of both, their hands play off each other. However, the
\neyes remain in the picture, while the hands direct our attention beyond and
\nthus open up the painting. The hands draw the viewer into the picture.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Icons, according to the understanding of the
\nEastern Church, are pictures that direct our attention outwards. They are
\nwindows on heaven, the Gospel painted in colors, preaching pictures which
\nreflect the godly and eternal within our temporal world. <\/span><\/p>\n

Mary directs our attention to the Child: Look
\nhere: Here is He Whom God has sent to save the world. Look here: In this Child
\nGod is potent and present. He is the One Who wasto come, in order to bring
\nfulfillment, righteousness, and God’s heaven to earth. Look here: He is the Son
\nof God, but also my Child, a Gift of God entrusted to me, born of me, protected
\nunder my arm. This is precisely what icons do. They want to direct our
\nattention to Christ, to God’s living Presence. <\/span><\/p>\n

And this is precisely what sermons do when they
\nproclaim using words. Theypaint the Gospel before our eyes, they open up the
\nold familiar message for the present day. Look here: It is He about Whom I
\nspeak. I place Christ before your eyes. Through Him, heaven is open for us. In
\nHim God has won for us clear vision and glowing colors. <\/span><\/p>\n

The colors of the icon describe that. The dark
\nbrown robe is accented with purple, representing earth and heaven, the human
\nand the divine. The orange appears where light and matter conjoin. The colors
\ngrow lighter toward the top, especially in the halo which envelopes Mary’s head
\nin golden yellow, and place the entire picture in the reflection of God’s
\nlight. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Protestant churches have cast a shadow over
\nMary. During theReformation a deep skepticism erupted against the veneration of
\nthe saints and their statues. They disappeared. The danger of abuse, that
\nstatues and pictures could distract human sentiment from „Christ alone,“ the
\ndogma that made the Reformation so strong, militated against Mary as well. Too
\nmany statues and icons had been made of her, too many legends had arisen,
\nlegends alien to the Biblical foundations. Too many Marian dogmas followed
\nlater: Mary the sinless, Mary the eternal virgin. She was no longer
\nrecognizable as a woman of flesh and blood, and was thus rendered impotent and
\nstylized into a counter-Eve. The sectarian debates over Mary endure to the
\npresent day. <\/span><\/p>\n

But the rediscovery of Mary among Protestants
\nis imminent. A stereotypes fall, Mary the woman is again enjoying recognition.
\nShe is our sister inthe faith, who incarnates the feminine dimension of union
\nwith God. With her compassionate and courageous heart trod with decisiveness
\nand good hope the path which God showed her. Thus she is herself the guide
\nwhen, in this icon, she opens her hand to receive while simultaneously she
\ninvites us in and points to her Child, saying, „Look here: this is my Child,
\nWho is a human being and the Son of God at the same time. Look to him. Turn to
\nHim alone. Hold Him in your heart and let Him grow in you.“ This, her
\nunmistakable proclamation, is thoroughly evangelical, holding „Christ alone“
\nbefore our eyes. <\/span><\/p>\n

Icons proclaim their messages with great
\neconomy of detail. They want us to study them in all their subtleties.
\nConsequently, in this icon, Mary’s fingers call us to examine the work more
\nclosely. <\/span><\/p>\n

Her hand draws our attention to the Child on
\nher arm Who is so unusually young and simultaneously old, carried like a baby
\nand yet somewhat adult. The scroll in His left hand indicates that Christ is
\nthe living Word of God. With His right hand He blesses Mary, His mother, who
\nholds Him though He has already outgrown her. The face looks to mature for His
\ntiny body. Jesus is presented as a child-sage. The entire bridge that He
\ncrossed lies in this image, between Beginning and End, between life and death.
\nIn this moment of His infant security, we already see the coming Passion: the
\nhalf-reclining position, the crossed legs, and the naked feet that stick out
\nfrom under the robe. They belong to the iconographers‘ representations of
\nJesus‘ suffering. At first glance this scene of mother and child appears to be
\nfamiliar and gentle, but closer examination reveals the entire content of the
\nGospel. Mary’s hand draws us to consider the entire Christ: the Son of Man,
\nborn of woman and held by her, and still the Son of God, in whom time and
\neternity, heaven and earth meet. Her hand shows us the cross that He carried so
\nthat we could experience reconciliation. It draws our attention to His living
\npresence as the Word of God that, in our midst, awaits its proclamation.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Mary the guide. We are gradually discovering
\nthis icon and its message. As foreign as it first appears to us, as distant as
\nthis Mary may seem to us, what we find at the beckoning of her hand is
\nnevertheless familiar and evangelical. The Bible verse for the coming week
\ncould serve as a title for this icon: „Cast your burdens upon Him, for He cares
\nfor you.“ In God’s son alone is our salvation. Mary shows us this, the message
\nthat we must constantly preach. In the course of church history Mary has worn
\nmany faces. In the Bible she meets us as a woman who was moved by God, who with
\ncomplete trust in Him and His future let her life be changed, who in joy and
\npain remained bound to Him. And she meets us as a mother who had to learn so
\nearly that That Which God had entrusted to her did not belong to her alone, but
\nto all people. <\/span><\/p>\n

Mary the guide. If we allow God to take us on
\nthat same journey with her, then we also will not withhold Christ from the
\nworld, but we will unmistakably, clearly, and lovingly point Him out, looking
\ninto his eyes, turning toward him with open hands so that we can receive what
\nHe gives, and passing it on. May God give us the courage and faith for that!
\nAnd may the right hand of the Child, raised to pronounce a benediction, touch
\nus, too. <\/span><\/p>\n

Amen<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Dr. Petra Savvidis, Immermannstr. 22, 58453
\nWitten
\ne-mail savv@ngi.de<\/a> <\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Translation by Prof. Dr. Theodore N.
\nThomas
\nMilligan College, Tennessee
\nUSA 37601
\ne-mail: tnthomas@milligan.edu<\/a><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Sermon Series on Mary | 15th Sunday after Trinity | October 1, 2000 | Petra Savvidis | Reflection on the Marian Icon „Hodegetria“ Thirteenth Century, Vatopedi Monastery on Athos Translation by Theodore N. Thomas Grace to you and peace from God, our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Mother Mary. She holds Jesus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8543,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[727,157,108,349,907,1322,109,126],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-8759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archiv","category-beitragende","category-current","category-kasus","category-pr-maria","category-petra-savvidis","category-predigten","category-predigtreihen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8759"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22596,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8759\/revisions\/22596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8759"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=8759"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=8759"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=8759"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=8759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}