Windows to Heaven.

Introducing Icons to Protestants and Catholics by Elizabeth

Zelensky & Lela Gilbert, Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 2005. 142 pp. ISBN 1-
58743-109-2

Elizabeth Zelensky and Lela Gilbert have written a book intended to be useful to both Protestant and
Catholic believers. As a Protestant and an Eastern European theologian I might have expected some
kind of triumphalistic presentation of icons. This commendation is different. I was a little disappointed
because Romania, a country with a strong Eastern Orthodox majority and a Latin based language, is not
mentioned at all, but you cannot satisfy all readers. However, both the direct message about the
advantage of using icons as a means to approach divinity and the subliminal one which revolves around
the advantage of being an Eastern Orthodox believer come across quite well.

Understandably the two authors do not want to overwhelm the reader by giving a strong and in-depth
theological study of icons, or by exploring the disputes around them. Instead, they prefer to present just
five icons and an altarpiece from an Eastern Orthodox Church. The cover gives an immediate definition
of icons: windows to heaven.

The book is organised into seven chapters with an interesting introduction and a brief but well-written
epilogue. While undermining common prejudices and misconception about icons in western society,
the authors take us on a short but stimulating ride through the history, art and geography of Eastern
Europe, with particular emphasis on Slavic Orthodoxy. The reader receives an impression similar to
that from watching a “Lord of the Rings” movie. Legends, myths and tradition uncover Eastern
Orthodox mysticism encapsulated in the icons of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Taking this bird’s-eye
view approach, which is what the book has to do, allows things flow smoothly and naturally towards
the conclusion, and the authors’ aim of introducing icons to Protestants and Catholics seems to be fairly
well realised. Things are made more complex for Protestants and Catholics who spend their whole lives
in countries where icons are not seen as windows of this kind.

Windows to Heaven does not distinguish between Protestants and Catholics despite the clear
differences between them which most of us are aware of. The book thus cannot be categorised as a
classic polemic. It presents one of the major differences between the Eastern Orthodox tradition on the
one hand and Protestants and Catholics on the other. Generally it makes many good points in favour of
the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The first chapter sets out the basis for the book and tells the reader how, why and where an icon comes
into being. It presents salvation in words and images and makes a connection between Christ’s
incarnation and the meaning and understanding of icons. As the holy text uncovers the miracle of Jesus
Christ’s incarnation, so the holy icons (written by devout iconographers) are a means by which the
iconographer and the worshipper participate in the realm of eternity.

The next chapters deal successively with the most representative icons in the Eastern Orthodox Church:
those of the Holy Trinity, the Mary Theotokos (mother of God) icon, from the Russian town Vladimir,
the icon of the transfiguration of Christ painted by the artist Theophanes, the Dormition of the Virgin
and the Sinai Pantocrator. The seventh chapter presents the altar of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of
St. John the Baptist in Washington D.C. and explains why icons are placed in certain positions in a
church.
All the chapters deserve equal attention, but perhaps the second, which presents Andrei Rubliov’s icon
of the Holy Trinity, is the most intriguing one for me. Andrei Rubliov, a disciple of one of St Sergius’
disciples, created a unique icon of the Holy Trinity and one which might cause some Protestant and
Catholic believers ask questions about the way in which all three of the divine persons are given an
angelic, that is winged, representation.

Despite the impossible task of presenting the flavour of Eastern Orthodoxy in a brief description of just
a few icons, Zelensky and Gilbert touch a sensitive nerve which might be able to make Protestants and
Catholics open up to understand and accept their brothers in Christ despite all dissimilarities over the
centuries.

The authors’ use of italics for personal testimony and the description of the icons resemble the
storyteller’s small voice whisper in a fairy tail. In conjunction with the colours and the explanation of
the Eastern Orthodox tradition this completes the task of a good iconographer: that of writing the
above-mentioned icons. This insertion of Eastern Orthodox colour to support Protestant black and
white evidence sets out to reformulate rigorous and exact Protestant dogma for the digital era of
theology. From an aesthetic point of view this is much better; but are the authors giving us the whole
picture about icons introducing us to the Truth beyond any reasonable doubt?

The authors’ use of theological terms (one among the most frequent being “Christ, the second person of
the Trinity”) displays a basic non-eastern orthodox understanding quite common among Protestants.
From a strict dogmatic point of view statements like “Theotokos …being the first of all creatures” and
“Christ is the first born of all creation…” seem rather out of place in Orthodoxy and need clarification.
Among other negative aspects of the authors’ discourse are such theologically problematic statements
as “the Holy Spirit descended upon the world” instead of upon the church; this would have caused the
universe to become one vast church or temple after Pentecost and is clearly a classic case of confusion
of categories.

However this lack of academic precision and theological nuance deserve to be forgiven in view of the
use of positive, but not aggressive, arguments in favour of icons.

The authors’ commendation of their theme and the quality of reproduction of the five well known
Eastern Orthodox icons could persuade some Protestant and Catholic believers to respond. They could
open the book, read it and perhaps contemplate an icon or two. Or they could look for other icons. The
only question they should ask (from their particular perspective) is whether Elizabeth Zelensky and
Lela Gilbert’s book really opens windows to heaven.