Altars on the Jordan & the Rhine
Ecumenism in the Arts conference
Institute for Ecumenical Research
Matthew J. Milliner, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Art History at Wheaton College
“If we take careful note of the statements of the Greeks we shall find they differ
from us more in words than in meaning.” -Thomas Aquinas, De Potentia
“Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.”
-Romans 14:19
Introduction
Nicholas Gerhaert, one of the most significant of all Late Gothic sculptors, was born in
Leiden, but his best work was made in Strasbourg. Fittingly, his self-portrait, with which
many of you may be familiar, is here at the Cathedral Museum. But to see the rest of his
work, one has to travel to the Cloisters Museum in New York City, where Americans
literally transplanted a Spanish monastery to the upper tip of Manhattan island. There one
encounters one of his sumptuously sculpted Virgin and Childs from the 1460s. But
perhaps his most famous piece is located at the
Bode museum of sculpture at the crest of the
museum island in Berlin. The Bode museum
catalog tell us it was probably originally built for
a monastery in this city. But when Strasbourg
turned Protestant, the sculpture was moved east
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of the city to Molsheim, and then landed in the hands of a private collector not far from
here in Danlgolsheim, which is why it is called the Dalgosheim Madonna. It was then
purchased by the Bode Museum.
Though it would be nice if it could be brought back home, the Bode Museum is a good
place for it. Comparison to other sculptures in the museum show just how innovative this
particular Madonna was, with her billowing mantle and hair, her nonchalant expression,
and her child seems either coming out from under or retreating into her mantle. What do
you think about when you see this famous sculpture? The German art historian Horst
Bredekamp in my hearing made a rather striking observation - that this sculpture from the
1460s seems to anticipate iconoclasm – as if Christ is about to saw off the head of the
statue (the edge of the veil does indeed resemble a saw). And indeed it is hard to look at
this amazing piece of statuary, which has holes in the back for the insertion of relics, to
be characteristic of everything the Reformation would have protested – or everything that
the flat, two-dimensional Orthodox icon is not. The Reformation in Strasbourg, as I
understand it, was lest severe. After all, this sculpture managed to get away with itself
intact. But there is no doubt that this image stands in for hundreds of similar Virgins that
would have been destroyed in the course of the Reformation. And though I think there is
a place for a healthy iconoclasm – especially in our image-saturated age - we can still
lament that chisel of Nicholas von Leiden’s visual theology so often gave way to the
hatchet.1 Destruction of such images is to purify one version of the church is, after all,
1
As it happens, I think there is good reason in our image-saturated age to celebrate that iconoclastic
heritage – there are lots of images in our culture that need to be at least rhetorically dismantled. But this is
another topic. See this lecture for more on creative iconoclasm:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL9GwT4_YRZdAibxgltxA2hVbByZWDVqY6&v=GLzqin9upgM
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the antithesis of everything I think we’re trying to do this week in pursuing Ecumenism
and the Arts.
But let’s turn from art history to ecumenical discussions. Perhaps like some of you, I’ve
been wrestling for the last two years with the claims of a veteran of this Institute,
Ephraim Radner – specifically the claims made in his downright paralyzing book, A
Brutal Unity. It has left me wounded – and as we know from Jacob’s encounter, wounds
can be good things. Still, this paper is an attempt to recover from his indictment of
Christian disunity, but only after having taken his accusations as seriously as I can.
Which is to say, I will attempt to chart a path through Radner’s book, not around it. At
the conclusion of A Brutal Unity Radner advises us to read the Old Testament
figuratively, with divided Christianity in mind. The warring tribes of Israel thereby
become figures for divided Christianity. Taking up this suggestion with the Marian statue
of Nicholas Gerhaert and the history of iconoclasm brings to mind Joshua 22. I’m not
fully comfortable with this method of reading, but let’s give it a try anyway. The original
passage reads:
The Israelites heard that the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of
Manasseh had built an altar at the frontier of the land of Canaan, in the region near
the Jordan, on the side that belongs to the Israelites. 12 And when the people of
Israel heard of it, the whole assembly of the Israelites gathered at Shiloh, to make
war against them. (Joshua 22)
Admittedly, this does sound quite familiar. Some of God’s people erect an altar by a
river, and it provokes hostility and suspicion among the rest of God’s people. So, let’s
read it figuratively with Christian disunity and the Strasbourg sculpture in mind, and
switch out the terms.
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The Protestants heard that the Catholics had built statue of Mary at the frontier of
the land of Alsace, in the region near the Rhine, on the side that belongs to the
Catholics. And when the Protestants heard of it, the whole assembly of the
Protestant gathered at Strasbourg, to make war against them. (Joshua 22)
Again, I’m uneasy with this way of reading Scripture, even if I admit it has lately made
the Old Testament very exciting to read. But instead of pursuing this reading further now,
I’m going use this as an opening device, and leave everyone in suspense as to what
happens (or at least you’ll be in suspense unless you recall the details of Joshua 22).
What I will do now is engage in a review of present literature that might illuminate ways
to look at this sculpture, and try to widen the path of “Ecumenism and the Arts” that we’ll
be pursuing this week. And so, when you see this beautiful sculpture on the screen again,
you’ll know this lecture is almost over, and we’ll get back to a figurative reading of
Joshua.
Visual Ecumenism
Let me now describe a theological scenario that may ring true for many of you, especially
those involved in ecumenical discussions. Recently at Wheaton College where I teach we
had a conference on the doctrine of divine simplicity that hosted some leading lights of
the American theology scene. I even brought pictures so you can feel like you were
there. Session after session pondered the great doctrine of divine simplicity, and the great
thinkers of the past seemed to materialize via respective thinkers. And so, Thomas
Aquinas was in a way mediated by the prolific American Catholic theologian Matthew
Levering, Gregory of Palamas by an Orthodox scholar at Marquette, Marcus Plested.
Irenaus, in turn, was channeled by the Dean of Saint Vladimir’s Theological Seminary,
the saintly Father John Behr, and Karl Barth was channeled by my colleague at Wheaton,
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Keith Johnson. The papers were delivered over the course of several days, and
discussions ensued – fruitful discussions. There was a curious moment where Plested
explained that Gregory of Palamas much maligned distinction between essence and
energies was, as he put it, “an indivisible divisibility.” And at that point Matthew
Levering looked up almost puzzled and said, “that’s exactly what I and Thomas are
trying to say.” A few hours later there was another moment of convergence. After Keith
Johnson’s deft encapsulation of Karl Barth’s notion of divine simplicity, John Behr
looked across the room and made a hard won statement, with a smile “I agree.” Keith
told me this moment was a highlight of his career.
Maybe I wouldn’t have made so much of that if it wasn’t the first time I had witnessed
such a convergence. A few years earlier at a conference at Princeton Seminary that put
Karl Barth and Thomas Aquinas into conversation, there was a strange moment when the
Thomists and the Barthians, in a discussion of sanctification, came to the fleeting
realization that they were both getting at the same mystery in different ways. Everyone
who was present in the room who
was paying attention had to sense
this convergence. This was not,
mind you, an easy conclusion
reached before hard theological
work, but after long days of labor.
Those familiar with the American
theological scene will be know of the Dominican Thomas Joseph White and the
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“revisionist” Barthian Bruce McCormack. Here is another photo I snapped that conveys
the tone of the conference. The convergences emerged quite clearly.
In the published volume from that conference, Bruce McCormack expressed the
convergences this way: “Rather than seeking a premature ecumenical agreement that
would likely entail the assimilation the teaching of one’s own church to those found in
another, should we not enter dialogue with the expectation that the theology that will
enable us to confess a common faith does not exist yet – and can only come into
existence where representatives of both great communions seek to further develop their
own theologies with questions and concerns of the conversation-partners firmly in mind.”
This future oriented ecumenism is something I first heard from Sarah Hinlicky Wilson,
who argued “that we consider the unified church for which Jesus prayed to lie not in the
past but still in the future.” Such a claim also appears in the first volume of Sarah
Coakley’s theologie totale, where she concludes with an exciting reference to the
“Coming Great Church.”
Still, I’m not sure that McCormack is right that we will come up with a verbal theology
adequate enough to finally fuse the insights of all great thinkers of the past. Perhaps
Radner is closer to the truth when he says right that we need more than “simply… the
pragmatic reception, testing, and readjusting of the information en route to a closer and
closer agreement, as if there were a common ‘rational’ basis for knowledge gathering.”
And as Wilson points out, even when agreement is reached, “churches have found it
convenient to call into question the nature of the agreement anyway.” I’d like to therefore
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suggest this afternoon that the “yet unseen ground of reconciliation” called for by Father
Thomas Joseph white in the same Barth/Thomas conference volume is literally unseen,
and it has been with us for some time. It is not some forgotten theological genius who can
fuse all our insights once and for all – but it is the forgotten theological genius of art as a
mode of theological discourse. It has been overlooked because for so long the arts have
not been taken seriously as loci of theological activity, let alone as one of the places
where the Spirit unexpectedly appears. But when we see art that way, the recent
ecumenical movement looks a lot different; and while our ecumenical failures are
certainly not erased, they are mitigated. In short, when it comes to the field of art and
architectural history (which is where I spend most of my time), those fleeting moments of
convergence I witnessed at two theology conferences are more of a daily occurrence than
an occasional breakthrough. I have lots of examples of this phenomenon – and we will
see many this week. But instead of launching into an extended list (which I’ve done in a
different venue), it might be best to start out with some warnings. Because the via
negativa is so fruitful in theology, let me then begin by taking an apophatic approach.
That is to say, let me start by saying what I hope Ecumenism and the Arts does NOT
mean by pointing out four different pitfalls on this potentially promising path.
1. Giving Art Too Little
First, by turning to artistic ways that the churches have been unified, we are not giving up
on serious theological work. This is not a coffee break from serious verbal theological
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discussion.2 Instead, it is to give attention to the unique capacities of art to convey
meaning, and to attune ourselves to that capacity without having to translate it
immediately back into verbal modes of discourse. The field of theology and art has been
busy for the last decades pointing out that art can function theologically, and we want to
take advantage of those labors. That said, there is a risk here that is nicely illustrated by
taking three recent and very fruitful works in the field of theological aesthetics. Cecelia
Gonzalez Andrieu’s A Bridge to Wonder aims to pursue a specifically Latina Catholic
approach to theology and art. Bill Dyrness, a Reformed thinker, calls for a “Search for a
Protestant Aesthetics.” And deeply learned C.A. Tsakaridou seeks an especially
Orthodox approach that she distinguished from Protestant and Catholic ones. In short, the
theology and art conversation has been confessionalized – and to that extent it may still
be shaped by verbal theology. I am not suggesting that such publications are not
worthwhile. Not in the least. But I am saying that if we seek to approach “Ecumenism
and the Arts” in a distinctly Catholic, Orthodox, or Lutheran or Pentecostal way, we may
be pre-determining the results, and possibly shutting down avenues of disclosure. What
if theological aesthetics transcends our divisions?
What is more, verbal theology has in many places pointed to the need for a new kind of
approach. If, as D. Stephen Long points out in his recent study, the theological friendship
of Balthasar and Barth uncovered a rätselhafte Riss (puzzling crack or enigmatic cleft)
between the church that could not be bridged, Ecumenism and the Arts is one way of
inhabiting that crack. Long concludes his fantastic study with these words, “Our divisions
Jeremy Begbie refers to this error as theological imperialism “where theology swells its chest and [music]
is stifled… Out of concern for doctrinal orthodoxy, music is not given room to be itself, not allowed to
glorify God in its own way” (Resounding Truth, 22).
2
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should never be rendered intelligible, and we should never be satisfied with them. They
are, and always will be, like evil itself, puzzling, enigmatic and absurd.” This strikes me
as an invitation to be less intelligible, in the verbal sense, and to explore what Jacques
Maritain calls the “pre-cognitive” domain of the aesthetic knowledge, and to see what it
might contribute to ecclesiology. And so we are still doing theology by exploring in this
direction, but doing it in a unique way.
2. Giving Art too much
But nor can Ecumenism and the Arts be an excuse to indulge in any given fancy. The
risk of error is as serious here as they are in any theological discussion.3 To turn
ecumenism and the arts into a chance for the faltering religion of “Art” (what’s left of it)
to colonize Christianity would be a disaster. This has already been tried by the greatest
minds in Europe, and I doubt we could do much better. Hans Urs von Balthasar
famously identified this risk of aesthetical theology (where feeling rules) as oppose to
theological aesthetics (where God’s revelation is in control), and what we are after (I
hope) is the latter. The surface aesthetics of the Enlightenment sought to escape deeper
theological claims. But Ecumenism and the Arts, as I understand it, should point not to
something merely ephemeral or decorative, but foundational. It is interesting that Karl
Barth describes his famous discovery of Anselm, that grounded theology in faith as the
“aesthetics of theological knowledge,” not utilitas but pulchritudo (beauty).4 Can
Begbie calls this risk theological aestheticism, where art becomes a “new theological master, supposedly
giving us supreme access to God or perhaps to some [undefined] “spiritual” realm.”
4
Fides quarens intellectum: Anselms Beweis der Existenz Gottes im Zusammerenhang seines theologischen
Programms (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1931). According to Stephen Long, Barth’s shift meant “theology begins
with an aesthetic knowledge that seeks to express the form and tone of the glory of God revealed in Christ”
(275).
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identifying this deeper, thoroughly Christian, pre-cognitive awareness lead where our
verbal confessions cannot? Balthasar and Barth’s lifelong friendship did not end in
agreement, but they did BOTH have Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece (just
down the river!) hanging by their desks (Balthasar’s, incidentally, was a gift from Barth).
What if Ecumenism and the Arts can identify a pathway that the Holy Spirit has
employed in spite of our failures to reach confessional agreement? This I hope lends a
certain urgency to our gathering this week.
3. Words still matter, but in a different way
Still, all of this runs the risk of disparaging words. After all, I’m using them now, and it
is with words that we hope to arrive at some of the insights we’ll approach this week.
Nevertheless, words can be used kenotically – that is to say, words can empty themselves
and reveal their limitations. Maybe we have done a violence to words by forcing them
into constructed harmonizations. Theologians of serious stature have suggested as much.
Thomas Aquinas’ pointed out that divisions between Greeks and Latins arise from the
“inability of the Greek language to distinguish properly between ‘cause’ and ‘principle’”
(both are translated in Greek as arche). Conversely, Theophylact’s of Ochrid complained
that the Latins err due to the incapacities of the Latin language to distinguish between
eternal procession and temporal mission.5 More recently, In The Pillar and Ground of
the Truth, Pavel Florensky argues for a “de-logicized Pneumatic inchorence,” for a
“deliberate dismantling of the logical articulation of such phenomena.”6 It would be
5
Could the rift among Barthians in the American theological scene be so illuminated as well?!
But interestingly enough, when Florensky went to art history, he just fell into the old confessional
grooves, dismissing print culture as Protestant, sculpture as Catholic, and the icon as Orthodox. Florensky
then showed the path but he didn’t walk it himself.
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laughable to think that Florensky – a most rigorous theologian and glorious martyr suggested this because he was unorthodox. He suggested this because the activity of the
Holy Spirit, he believed, had not yet been fully revealed. Rusty Reno admits that “any
progress toward Christian unity will undermine and diminish the sophisticated
theological systems born in the polemical centuries that followed the Reformation,” and
so – I would suggest - perhaps we need to leave the systems aside for a time to make
progress.7 To defer to images as a theological datum is not therefore to give up on verbal
formulations, but to acknowledge their limitations, to admit that verbal precision has been
over-employed.8 It is not to forget that Jesus is Logos, but to remember that the same
New Testament names him eikon as well. 9
4. Doing it Ourselves
Finally, and most importantly, God help us if this is a way of rolling up our sleeves and
getting the ecumenical job done by ourselves. As Balthasar put it, “Unity can only be the
grace of the Church’s Founder; this is no human product.”10 Ecumenical discussions are
choc filled with warnings that this is the work of the Spirit, not our own. But what we
7
This is not, incidentally, to suggest that images will seal the deal and can take over from this point
forward. The hopes of “true dogmatic union” (Plested 134) in verbal agreement may need to be later
revisited.
8
Radner says that the “one mind” of which Paul speaks in Philippians “cannot refer to such unified
agreement. Rather, oneness of mind is received through having the ‘mind of Christ,’ which is that of the
one who gave up the form of God for that of a slave and emptied himself into death.” (446) I’m not fully
sure what he means – but we do have to rethink the way we agree for the “substance of such ‘agreement’
has never been well defined.”
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There is so much more to say here. Edmund Husserl’s Sujet is defined as: “Forms of non-propositional
meaning that induces visually affected cognition.” In his work on the image, Thomas Pfau has suggested
that “images will give rise to a knowledge that transcends the matrix for cognition established by modern
epistemology…” What if, I am wondering, images transcends modern ecclesiology as well?
10
Balthasar continues, “Church history is at a growing disintegration of ecclesial unity, without any
corresponding movement to return to visible unity… However much one strives, today more explicitly than
ever, for an ecumenical movement for such a return, it is of an almost supernatural difficulty, because the
reference point for the sought after unity can no longer be sought in common.”
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can do is point out that maybe the Spirit has been more active than we had thought in
bringing - pursuing avenues that were less closed to his workings. Nor is this to avoid the
theme of repentance. Instead, it is simply to agree again with Wilson who suggests:
“After repentance, new paths toward unity, presently invisible to us, will appear.” Even if
none of us have adequately repented (and who of us have?) – might we ask if God is
nevertheless showing us one of “these new paths toward unity”? Perhaps turning to
aesthetic forms of unity that can be more easily “agreed” upon or inhabited is,
furthermore, is actually a form of repentance. It is an attempt to redress the wounds that
have been brought on through our potentially idolatrous trust in words.
And do we really have any other choice that to seek a new path forward? While some
retrospective ecumenical discussion call for proceeding as usual, don’t we need to try
something different? Willem Visser ‘t Hooft originally claimed that WCC is “either a
Christocentric movement or it is nothing at all,” sadly has become not a warning, but a
prophecy. It is interesting that the worries that there the WCC was “communist” has
since been verified – there were KGB agents at the highest level. William Abraham
bluntly declares “ecumenism is now braindead… the best and brightest in the younger
leadership of the church have abandoned the ecumenical seas and gone sailing in other
waters.”11 Joseph Small even refers to the “death spiral of ecumenical councils, the
abstract seclusion of ecumenical dialogues.” But as I mentioned, none of these dim
prognoses are as hard hitting as Radner, who cuts off all our escape routes. We can’t say,
The Princeton Proposal for Christian unity that chronicles where discussions are today is grim. “Great
divisions remain, and few see a way forward.” “The ecumenical train is stalling or has even run off the
tracks.” Brian Daley puts it, there is “a kind of spiritual and mental exhaustion in the face of the difficulties
that prevent real communion among the churches, and a willingness to settle simply for practical
cooperation in external programs.”
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12
“don’t worry, we’re all one anyway,” because our divisions have implicated us in the
horrific violence of Rwanda and the Holocaust. Our foolish trust in conciliar processes or
vague spiritual unity have blinded us to the reality of Christian disunity. But despite the
hopelessness that one can come way with from reading and rereading A Brutal Unity,
Radner does offer one very concrete way ahead – and that might be where the Spirit is at
work. Thankfully, that’s what we’re here this week to pursue.
Visual Ecumenism
The one fragment of hope in that otherwise dark book, a fragment that he clings to all the
more tightly in the discussions that have followed is, is architectural. Radner speaks of a
German architectural curiosity - where
Protestant and Catholic churches met under
the same roof. Not very far from us, at the
earliest Simultankirche in Biberach,
Germany, Charles V insisted that Catholics
had the right to worship, and so they did –
but in the same church with Lutherans. A
lack of resources made this coinhabitation a necessity. Here is the beautifully decorated
Lutheran nave, and here is the Catholic choir, equally gorgeous. The clock let them know
when it was to make the switch. Radner rightly point out that “this arrangement dates
from the 16th century here, and did not await some avant-garde ecumenical endeavor of
the late 20th century increasingly difficult to sustain in the contemporary climate of
ecumenical disarray.” Maybe most interestingly, is the church has both a Protestant and
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Catholic Mary. In the follow up discussion to A Brutal Unity, Radner further explains
why he found this so helpful: “Over time, initial antagonism, separate entrances, and the
rest began to soften… changes overcame rooted hostilities…” Lamenting the American
practice of building new congregations to literally petrify divisions, Radner concludes,
“Divided Christians should be forced to worship in the same buildings, one after the
other; to look at each other’s faces as we pass by, on the way to and from our separated
Eucharist and self-distinguishing sermon; to listen to the trailing verses of the hymns we
are not a part of – and slowly to learn to curse the strange powers of our hearts that made
us enemies in our own families.”
SPEAKER’S NOTE: One of the surprises of this conference was that not
only was the Lutheran pastor of this church present for the talk, but many
more examples of this phenomenon in Alsace were presented!
\By following this isolated shaft of light in his otherwise dark account, things get brighter
indeed. For as it happens, the Simultankriche are more than isolated instances. No one
giving serious consideration to the architecture of Crete can ignore the reality of doublenave churches. Now today, both naves are used by the Orthodox church because, but in
its original construction, what possible
reason could there be for this other than to
serve both the Catholic and Orthodox
population of the same island? I was
surprised to find this to be a controversial
assertion among some Greek art historians,
but the evidence can’t be ignored. The Greek scholar Olga Gratziou has admitted that
“from the mid-fifteenth century on, the practice of celebrating both rites within the same,
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usually Greek, church became widespread.” Here is a case of willed ecumenism that did
not take the form of a meeting of theologians. If such convergences can do theological
work, do further complicate the eristology (study of division) mapped by Radner?
Violence
But as I said, my hope is to take Radner seriously, to drink his message to the dregs - and
I therefore must admit we’re at risk here of glossing over some serious difficulties. As he
puts it, “Christian division… enacted disagreement with physical consequences,
represents one of the most blatant yet intractable problems facing the Christian life and
speech within the world….” The failure of the church to deal with her own division is
“rampant and extensive. Indeed, she has fixated upon such division, and stoked it, ever
and again.” Can this really be patched over by supplementing his account with a few
more moments of fleeting harmony than he himself suggests? Who is to say that the
examples I’ve thus far offered, and the ones we will be hearing about this week, are not
tantamount to mere “conciliar agreement” that fail to genuinely witness to unity in Christ.
Well, to test that, I let’s conclude by going to one of the most egregious cases of
Christian violence I know of – an epoch that is avoided even by Radner himself, namely,
the Crusades. If we can find visual ecumenism emerging from here – perhaps the case
for its legitimacy will be strengthened.
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Radner places blame for the “catastrophic indolence” of divided Christianity on the
shoulders of Epiphanius of Salamis, who made a catalogue of heresies, one that
especially blamed the Jews. And so, let’s go to Salamis on the island of Cyprus for a
moment. Here is an image I took on my visit. And as I pondered the ruins of that once
great city that Paul would have visited, I looked out on those shores and thought about
what it would have been like to experience an Islamic conquest. A conquest that, Radner
claims rather convincingly, by the failure of Christians to maintain unity in the face of the
Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. These are sobering thoughts indeed.
But of course, Christians fought back, and in so doing, ended up fighting each other. An
equally devastating event for Cyprus came far later. I am speaking of the conquest of
Cyprus in 1192 by Western Christians in the midst of the third crusade. King Richard the
Lionheart of England turned the island into a cash cow to generate funds for his Holy
Land campaign, and so he conquering it, and sold it to the Knights Templar, who had a
miserable and bloody experience on the island. The Orthodox islanders revolted against
them. The Templars retreated to a castle in Nicosia, the island’s most populated center,
only to reemerge and slaughter the population on Easter day, 1192. The sack of
Constantinople in 1204 was a horrible event, but at least it didn’t happen on Easter. The
frustrated Templars then gave the island back to Richard, who in turn sold it to Guy de
Lusignan, a Frenchman. That, by the way, is why there are Gothic churches on Cyprus.
French Gothic architecture on an Orthodox
island – Strasbourg in Cyprus - another
happy case of visual ecumenism? No, as
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we’ve just seen, this is a result of horrible Christian violence. Might it be God’s judgment
on Christian indolence that it has now become a mosque?
Well, I might have just undone my argument – and I come close to that simply to make it
clear that I really have agonized over Radner’s devastating claims. But I have good news
as well. It’s one of the most amazing tales of art history I know, and I’m excited to share
it with you. Following the slaughter of his co-religionists in Nicosia by the Knights
Templar, one Byzantine painter, Theodore Apsevdis, retreated into the mountains. And
there he obtained a commission to re-paint a monastery church at a village called
Lagoudera. Believe it or not we can date this program to precisely 1192, after the
slaughter of the Orthodox population on Easter morning. Now this artist had witnessed
horrific inter-Christian violence. For all we know, members of his family may have been
killed. And so when he painted
the Virgin, he altered something
and gave us the first instance of
the Virgin of the Passion. He
reached into his iconographic
repertoire to give us a mourning
Virgin Mary – with angels
above her bearing the instruments of the Passion, and a Christ child who is fearful.
Apsevdis gave us a visual, mournful response to a horrible instance of Christian violence.
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And it did not stop there. To say this icon type became popular would be a dramatic
understatement. The icon, as we say, struck a chord. After it spawned many versions in
the Mediterranean in the following century, it was transferred to Europe. There was a
huge infusion of this Byzantine type into Western Europe – even Michelangelo had a
version of it. The popularity intensified as the Byzantine Empire came to its end. And
what I am about to say may seem a stretch – but it is a deeply compelling argument that I
can make available to anyone who is interested. But the German art historian Johannes
Tripps has made the case that THIS theme is what is behind Nicholas Gerhaert’s
Dangolsheim Madonna. There are a sufficient amount of prints and other examples to
show that this theme was sweeping through the upper Rhine at just this time,12 and they
can be traced back to the Byzantine Virgin of the Passion. The veil would have called to
mind the Passion for medieval Strasbourg audiences, just as the angels do in the
Madonna. Notice how they both hold the foot which will be pierced.
We began by calling to mind the suspicion with which Protestant Christians have looked
upon Catholic altarpieces. We could have simply pointed out that there were many
Protestants, mostly Lutherans, who left such statues untouched (that is the thrust of
Bridget Heal’s fascinating book. But I have attempted to add another dimension here, to
say that the Orthodox, who presumably would dismiss such sumptuous statuary, may
have actually inspired it. Moreover, this inspiration is the result of the very Christian
violence with which Radner rightfully insists we have to reckon.
Tripps says: “Consequently a greater demand must have existed for devotional images with the theme of
the child fleeing ‘under the cloak’ or the ‘veil’ of his mother, otherwise the enterprising Israel van
Meckenem would not have imitated the same template from E.S. a second time.”
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A Brutal Unity claims that Christian division is what spawned the liberal state, a
providential turn for which we should be grateful. And I have to admit here that the
secular museum functioned similarly to the liberal state. In the wake of Christian
tendency to destroy images, the culture of the art emerged to take care of images like this,
and I am grateful for the museum doing so. But I
would not want to overplay that importance either,
for the icon born of Christian violence, after
inspiriting this sculpture, had a long career ahead
beyond the museum. It was revived in its original
form shortly after its translated appearance at
Strasbourg, where it became a chief way the
Eastern aesthetics informed Catholic Rome.
Consider, for example, this image from an Italian
devotional image for the icon from 1953, showing
the Pope and Patriarch united under her
sponsorship.13
If A Brutal Unity may have been a necessary Good Friday in the ecumenical discussion,
but the church year doesn’t stop there. Christian violence cannot and does not have the
last word. That has to go to Scripture, where “God works all things [even Christian
violence] together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.” And
speaking of Scripture, to which we now return, let’s finish Joshua 22. As you’ll recall,
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And because the image, when its origins are fully understood, directly addresses the doctrine of election,
and so – as I’ve argued elsewhere - we could include Protestants in this reconciliation as well.
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the people of Israel were about to declare war on the Reubenites, the Gadites and the
half-tribe of Manasseh because they made an alter on the wrong side of the Jordan. But
the builders of this altar defend themselves:
If it was in rebellion or in breach of faith toward the Lord, do not spare us
today… 24 No! We did it from fear that in time to come your children might say to
our children, “What have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel? ….
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Therefore we said, “Let us now build an altar, not for burnt offering, nor for
sacrifice, 27 but to be a witness between us and you, and between the generations
after us, that we do perform the service of the Lord…”
And Israel was convinced, just as I hope most Protestants today would be convinced of
the legitimacy and beauty of Gerhaert’s Strasbourg sculpture. What is more, the people
of Israel left it there the altar there as a testimony of peace between the tribes.
33
The report pleased the Israelites; and the Israelites blessed God and spoke no
more of making war against them, to destroy the land where the Reubenites and
the Gadites were settled. 34 The Reubenites and the Gadites called the altar
Witness;[d] “For,” said they, “it is a witness between us that the LORD is God.”
I would not have expected such a conclusion from the R-rated book of Joshua, but thanks
be to God, that’s how it reads. Just so, I would not have expected one of the world’s most
popular UNIFYING icons to emerge from a horrific instance of Christian violence, but
thanks be to God, that seems to be what happened, and it’s happening still. I look
forward to hearing this week about other “altars of witness,” whatever they may be!
SPEAKER’S NOTE: Another remarkable “altar of witness” that conference
participants experienced was the piece of art that hung in the St. Thomas
church in Strasbourg where we worshipped together each morning. The
fragmented, yet still unified, pieces of Christ’s robe that hung above us
seemed to contrast with the “seamless robe” that of Christ preserved not far
away in Trier, which has sometimes been used as a means of ruling out other
members of Christ’s body by churches that claim to be the undivided whole.
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