Tuesday, December 14, 2021

"Ancient of Days" in Eastern Orthodoxy

The following useful discussion of the “Ancient of Days” in Eastern Orthodoxy comes from “Ancient of Days” on the Orthodox Wiki Website:

 

In Orthodox Hymns

 

In Orthodox Christian hymns, the Ancient of Days is often identified with Jesus Christ.

 

"Thou hast borne incomprehensibly the Ancient of Days as a new Child Who showed us new paths of virtue upon the earth..." Teotokion, 1st Ode of Friday Matins in the 5th tone.

 

"Thou hast borne the Ancient of Days as a new Child unto us..." Theotokion, 8th Ode of Tues. Matins in the 6th tone.

 

"Thou hast surpassed the laws of nature, O pure Daughter, in bringing a new Child upon the earth Who is both the Lawgiver and the Ancient of Days..." Theotokion, 8th Ode, Matins, 5th Sunday of Lent.

 

. . .

 

The Ancient of Days in Iconography

 

In Orthodox Iconography, we find the image of the Ancient of Days used in two ways:

 

1. Often, Jesus Christ is depicted as an old man, to show symbolically that he existed from all eternity, and sometimes as a young man to portray him as he was incarnate. This iconography emerged in the 6th century, mostly in the Eastern Empire.


2. The Father is also often symbolically depicted as the Ancient of Days. We find this on many miraculous icons, including the Kursk Root Icon, the Reigning Icon of the Mother of God (Derzhavnaya icon), and the Sitka Icon, just to name a few.

 

The Council of Moscow in 1667 declared that the Ancient of Days was the Son and not the Father, and that the depiction of the Fathers as the Ancient of Days was forbidden. This is however the same council that anathamatized the Old Rite, and like many of its decrees, this decree has generally been ignored ever since, and this image has been a regular element in Orthodox Iconography, both within Russia, and elsewhere in the Church. The above cited references to the standard "Painters Manual" of Dionysius of Fourna, as well the comments of St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain in "The Rudder" demonstrate that this was an accepted element of Orthodox Iconography. In the second half of the 20th Century, however, a movement to reject this element of Iconography arose from some of the representatives of the Neo-Patristic movement, and so this has become a matter of controversy in more recent times.