The “Hesycastic” Mandorla: Apophatic Art and Hesychast Theology

Abstract

In this study we will try to present the iconographic tradition as a form of visual theology, though it is difficult to conceptualize what it like to be in the immediate presence of God. The Transfiguration is one of the keys that can unlock the mystery of our eschatological fate, glorified body and the participation in the energies of God. All the ascetics who had the experience of the uncreated light or were transfigured themselves describe it in very similar way and connect it with the Transfiguration of Christ. It is only in later hesychasm that we are assured theologically that these experiences were in the body. Within this context, liturgical art and aesthetics differ from secular aesthetics, as being beyond the five senses and beyond the art itself. The Fathers, from Origen to John of Damascus, refer to Christ as the visible image and consubstantial icon of the Father. Icons were anything more than vessels of the grace of God and suggest the real presence of the grace of the depicted person. In the Old Testament, God denied the wish of anyone who asked to see him directly. The desire to see God was impossible before the Incarnation of Christ. The mosaic of the Transfiguration in St Catherine Monastery on Mount Sinai shows a completely glorified Christ with eight rays emanating from his body and introduces the luminous mandorla, a symbol that symbolizes the glory of God. The mandorla of the Sinai mosaic is oval, whereas the mandorla of the Rabbula Gospels is round. These two types express the glory of God in different way, highlighting the correspondence between theological concepts and the visual language. Mandorla expresses visually the Jewish concept of kabod, that connoted a more physical, concrete presence than the abstract meaning of δόξα. Certain scholars separate two main meanings of kabod: shekinah (from shakan, "to live in a tent" or simply "to dwell") and yeqara (from yqr, the