Rebengiuc Tudor

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
Date: 17-Aug-2010
I, Tudor Rebengiuc ,
hereby submit this original work as part of the requirements for the degree of:
Master of Science in Architecture
in Architecture
It is entitled:
The Nature of Language in Orthodox Church Architecture:
A Hermeneutical Approach
Student Signature: Tudor Rebengiuc
This work and its defense approved by:

Committee Chair: John Eliot Hancock, MARCH
John Eliot Hancock, MARCH
David Saile, PhD

David Saile, PhD
8/18/2010 1,070
The Nature of Language in Orthodox Church Architecture
A Hermeneutical Approach
A Thesis submitted to the

Division of Research and Advanced Studies
of the University of Cincinnati
In partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of
MASTER of SCIENCE in ARCHITECTURE
In the School of Architecture and Interior Design

of the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning
2010
by
Tudor Rebengiuc
Bachelor of Architecture, “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urban

Planning, Bucharest, Romania, 2000
Committee Members:
John E. Hancock (Chair)
David G. Saile
…
THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE IN ORTHODOX CHURCH ARCHITECTURE
Abstract
In places like Romania, despite massive post-communist building activity, the current practice
of Orthodox Church architecture does not match the quality of its predecessors. This paper
locates the source of these difficulties within the intricate historical legacy of the interaction
between its Byzantine origins and its modern interpretations. As part of the liturgical arts of the
Orthodox Church, the understanding of Orthodox Church architecture is linked with that of the
icon, central to Orthodoxy. This study will not only offer an insight into the importance of
iconic language but will attempt to reveal the particular nature of language as implied in the
Orthodox Church tradition.
The array of present interpretations of the icon and of the Orthodox Church architecture is
dependent to a large extent on a modern, instrumental understanding of language, basic to
western metaphysics, and prevalent in the education system at all levels. Conceived of in an
instrumental way, as a mere tool, the icon loses its original meaning and makes the
understanding and practice of all liturgical arts of lesser value. In order to address this
challenging situation we need to part from any modern interpretation of this building tradition
and to focus instead on the nature of interpretation and above all on language itself.
We can gain a better understanding of the iconic language of the Orthodox Church by drawing
on the hermeneutics of Hans Georg Gadamer. Hermeneutics questions the philosophy of
Abstract iii
language, the nature of historical understanding and the roots of interpretation. Hermeneutics
provides the opportunity to grasp the icon on its own terms, while using a method true to its
nature, bypassing the instrumental framework of western metaphysics, and restoring the basis
on which liturgical arts can attain their full potential once again. A hermeneutical insight into
the iconic language of the Orthodox Church will enrich our horizon of Orthodox liturgical arts,
serving those who want to research, critique, restore, maintain, design, and build this type of
architecture.
Keywords
Orthodox Church Architecture, Byzantium, Hans-Georg Gadamer, hermeneutics,
language, sign, symbol, icon, liturgical arts
Abstract iv
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Dedication
To my wife, Viorica
Dedication vi
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank all my professors at the University of Cincinnati, especially to John E.
Hancock and James Bradford. It is their passion for thinking about architecture that I’ve tried to
emulate in this thesis.
I am grateful to Professor David Saile for his mentoring over the years I have been in the MS
Arch program.
To Ellen Guerrettaz for the help she provided when I most needed it.
To my wife Viorica Popescu, who has convinced me to write and without whose love, help and
support I would be lost.
To my father and mother, who have given me the freedom to find my own path in life, and who
are always there for me.
And finally to my mentor, painter Paul Gherasim, who believes silence is better.
Preface viii
Table of Contents
Abstract ________________________________________________________ iii

Keywords ______________________________________________________ iv
Dedication _____________________________________________________ vi
Acknowledgement _____________________________________________ viii
Table of Contents _______________________________________________ ix
Table of Figures _________________________________________________ xi
1 Introduction ___________________________________________________ 1
1.1 Problem Statement____________________________________________________________ 2
1.2 Background __________________________________________________________________ 4
1.3 Research objectives– scope and limitations ______________________________________ 8
1.4 Thematic Structuring _________________________________________________________ 11
2 The Iconic Language ___________________________________________ 13

2.1 The Key Role of Language in the Elucidation of the Icon _________________________ 14
2.2 The nature of language _______________________________________________________ 16
2.3 The Concepts of Sign, Symbol and Image ______________________________________ 32
2.4 The Iconic Language _________________________________________________________ 46
3 The Hermeneutics of Orthodox Church Architecture ______________ 52

3.1 The Church as an Icon ________________________________________________________ 53
3.2 The Theological Concept of Incarnation ________________________________________ 57
Conclusion- Tradition as Ongoing Conversation ____________________ 64

Bibliography ___________________________________________________ 67
Table of Contents ix
Table of Figures
Page 1: Figure 1 – Interior of Stavropoleos Church, Source: Author, Bucharest, Romania, 2009.
Page 15: Figure 2 – Iconostasis of Stavropoleos Church, Source: Author, Bucharest, Romania,
2009.
Page 29: Figure 3 – Stavropoleos Church, Source: Author, Bucharest, Romania, 2009.
Page 35: Figure 4 – Interior of Stavropoleos Church, Source: Author, Bucharest, Romania, 2009.
Table of Figures xi
“And it came to pass, as they departed from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it
is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one
for Moses, and one for Elias: not knowing what he said.”
Luke 9:33, King James Bible
xii
1 Introduction
Figure 1- Interior of Stavropoleos Church, Bucharest, Romania, 2009
Introduction 1
1.1 Problem Statement
If the well-known Hagia Sophia (the church of Holy Wisdom) in modern Istanbul, and
Byzantine architecture in general, have elicited words as “Heaven on earth” 1 or “Monuments of
unageing intellect” 2, the Post-Byzantine building tradition of Orthodox Churches is largely
ignored and considered to have no theoretical impact or practical significance on the
contemporary architectural environment. Following the resurgence of the institutions and
practices of the Orthodox Church after the fall of communism, many new places of worship are
getting designed and built in Eastern Europe without the benefit of theoretical surveys. Over
two thousand projects for orthodox churches, cathedrals, monasteries, and chapels have been
initiated in Romania alone, but, despite this massive design initiative, comparatively little
literature has been created on the topic. The situation where only a handful of these projects
were deemed as “acceptable” by the National Commission for Approving Religious Architecture
constitutes strong evidence of what the lack of meaningful contemporary interpretations of this
building tradition has led to.
1 Safran, Linda (ed.). Heaven on Earth: Art and the Church in Byzantium. Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1998.
2 Yeats, B. W. “Sailing to Byzantium”. In The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Scribner Paperback Poetry,
Simon & Schuster, New York, 1996.
Introduction 2
The current situation is markedly different from the one during the Byzantine Empire, when
church architecture benefited from a context that allowed it to flourish. Byzantine Architecture
was not merely sharing its name and its historical age with the Byzantine Empire but an entire
cultural ethos, more of a world philosophy. The demise of the Eastern Roman Empire
represented for the tradition of Byzantine architecture and, later, of Orthodox Church
Architecture, the annihilation of its cultural foundation and caused it to ramble across centuries.
This has been further aggravated by the political situation of the Eastern European countries
within the last century, the prevalence of communism with its prohibitive state policy regarding
religion and religious architecture. At present, Orthodox Church architecture strives to exist in
a world with different conceptual roots and, in this struggle to adapt, it borrows concepts that
fail to express its spirituality. This thesis aims to address the state of the contemporary practice
of Orthodox Church design which currently oscillates between formally replicating its well-
known precursor, Byzantine architecture, and elaborating on national characteristics, while
finding content from within a formal practice heavily influenced by the western tradition both
theologically, through Western Christianity, and architecturally, through applying,
unknowingly, the principles of modernist architecture. The main objective of this thesis is to
draw attention to the theoretical background of Orthodox Church architecture and,
subsequently, to suggest directions for its better understanding. This thesis will rely on Hans
Georg Gadamer’s critique of the western metaphysical tradition, in his book, Truth and Method,
and especially on his discussion of the relationship between language and thought.
Introduction 3
At first glance, it seems difficult to talk about Orthodox Church architecture as a whole since the
few theoretical writings that exist are built on the distinctions between different historical
periods or ethnic groups instead of establishing a common ground. The most common
divisions are between the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine periods (before and after 1453, the fall
of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire), or between the national traditions of distinct ethnic
groups that compose the Orthodox “family” today (Greeks, Slavs, Armenians, Ethiopians,
Romanians, etc.) with their distinct “national” architectures. Nevertheless, each of these
entities claims not to be fundamentally separated from the others, and accepts that their
common spiritual heritage overlaps the apparent differences. Each of them is distinct and
autonomous but part of the “Orthodox family”, part of the same tradition.
1.2 Background
Despite an extensive literature on historical Byzantine architecture, there are few studies on
Post-Byzantine Orthodox architecture as a whole. Christos Yannaras, a contemporary Greek
philosopher and theologian, remarks as well on the scarcity of significant studies of this
architecture. In the chapter of his book, The Freedom of Morality, dedicated to “The Ethos of
Liturgical Arts” he writes: “there are to my knowledge no works on the theological view and
interpretation of Orthodox church architecture” 3.
3 Yannaras, Christos. The Freedom of Morality. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood, N.Y., 1984.
Introduction 4
Even the research on Byzantine architecture has traditionally been limited to a chronologically
linear presentation of history. Writers like Cyril Mango (Byzantine Architecture 1976) and
Richard Krautheimer (Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, 1986) limit themselves to
describing the history of major monuments without enquiring into the intellectual context that
has generated them. In his book (Master Builders of Byzantium, 1999), Robert Ousterhout
presented this architecture from the point of view of its builders. Alexei Lidov has recently
introduced a new concept called “hierotopy” that integrates all the liturgical arts into a new
unified vision that attempts to replace the concept of “sacred space.” 4
However, there are some titles that can provide the starting point for a theoretical exploration of
the Orthodox Church tradition in architecture. Hans Buchwald, in his book Form, Style and
Meaning in Byzantine Church Architecture, talks about the relationship between Platonic thought
and Byzantine architecture. Constantine Cavarnos (Byzantine Sacred Art, Byzantine Thought and
Art) builds on the relation of Byzantium with its Hellenistic heritage and on the theological
aspects of Orthodox liturgical art. Christos Yannaras (On the Absence and Unknowability of God –
Heidegger and the Areopagite 5) points to the similarities between Martin Heidegger’s
philosophical thinking and the “apophatic” theological tradition of the Orthodox Church. The
apophatic or negative theology attempts to describe God by negation, by saying what God is not.
Yannaras argues that “apophatic theology” -- central to the orthodox tradition -- is closer to the
4 Lidov, Alexei. Hierotopy- The Creation of Sacred Spaces in Byzantium and Medieval Russia. Indrik, Moscow,
2006, 32.
5 Yannaras, Christos. On the Absence and Unknowability of God – Heidegger and the Areopagite. T & T Clark
International, 2007.
Introduction 5
philosophy of Martin Heidegger than to “modernity” or the “western scholastic and
metaphysical tradition”. Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German philosopher who was
critical of the western metaphysical tradition. In his main work, Being and Time, Heidegger
argues that the western philosophical tradition, starting with Plato, has misunderstood “the
question of being” such as instead of inquiring about the nature of being itself, it has dealt with
different kinds of being in the world.
As first set forth by Heidegger, and later elaborated on by his student Hans-Georg Gadamer,
the western tradition is characterized, among other things, by an increased understanding of the
world as being centered on man (he becomes a subject) and an attempt to simplify factual life
(as in scientific reduction, for example) in order to exert control over it. This objectification of
the world (the understanding of things as instruments) influenced both directly and indirectly
the Orthodox Church through the multiple aspects involved: philosophical, theological, and
architectural. For example, church architecture, although immersed within the domain of the
liturgical arts, is nowadays being “judged”, especially by architects, with the means available to
contemporary architectural discourse which are so much infused, theoretically as well as
visually, with the assumptions of modern architecture.
Recognizing the philosophical foundation of the western tradition as the key source of the
directionless drifting of Orthodox Church architecture within the present day’s conceptual
context is a first step in discussing the influence this exerts upon the building of new Orthodox
churches. To this purpose, I will introduce Gadamer’s account of the historical process whereby
Introduction 6
art as well as language have been separated from the factual life, and abstracted to the point of
becoming devoid of any meaning. His discussion of language as the medium of understanding
and his account of picture, sign, symbol, and icon, as they relate to the concept of art, provide
the theoretical framework that will assist the elucidation of the icon and therefore of Orthodox
Church architecture.
Gadamer (1900-2002) is a German philosopher known for developing the concept of
“philosophical hermeneutics,” anticipated by Martin Heidegger. According to Gadamer,
hermeneutics is the philosophical analysis of what is involved in every act of understanding or
interpretation. In his main work, Truth and Method, he argues that people have a “historically
effected consciousness” (wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewußtsein), meaning they are embedded in the
particular history and culture that shaped them. One such vantage point is called a horizon. A
horizon, however, is not a fixed set of opinions, but one that is continuously changing, as we
test our prejudices against other horizons. Understanding is the “fusion of horizons”, as
opposed to a mere transportation in a horizon alien to us 6. Gadamer points out that
philosophical hermeneutics is far from being solely a question of method, and even further from
being a question of methodology specific to human sciences, as some of his contemporaries took
it to be. Hermeneutics is equally relevant to history as it is to science. 7
6 Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. Second, revised edition. Continuum, London, New York, 300-
305.
7 Gadamer, xx.
Introduction 7
1.3 Research objectives– scope and limitations
As previously declared, this thesis aims to address the state of contemporary Orthodox Church
design by contributing to a richer understanding of its theoretical background. Thus, it aspires
to:
x Identify the source of the confusion that seems to dominate the contemporary practice of
Orthodox Church architecture.
x Elaborate on the theoretical background this practice emerges out of and the manner in
which this background can be better understood.
x Interpret the architecture of Orthodox churches from a different perspective and build
on the implications of this renewed understanding.
The scope of this discussion will be, nonetheless, limited. Since the theological and
philosophical background of Orthodox Church architecture is so complex, withstanding almost
the whole history of western metaphysics and theological thinking, this thesis will be limited to
exploring how the hermeneutical perspective, as formulated by Gadamer, can contribute to a
fruitful interpretation of Orthodox Church architecture.
This study will also disregard the extensive literature on icons and iconography. Although
such literature is very valuable from a theological perspective, most notably that of Russian
theologians like Paul Evdokimov and Leonid Uspensky, it is the concept of the icon as
presented by Gadamer that will take the central place in our discussion of Orthodox Church
architecture.
Introduction 8
This research will use the concept of icon (Greek eikon = image) to talk about the church, both as
a building and as a community. The interpretation of the church within an iconographic system
is not foreign to theology. For example, St. Maximus the Confessor, a seventh century
Orthodox theologian who authored the Mystagogia, or Teaching of the Mysteries, talks about the
church as an icon of God, an icon of the cosmos, an icon of the visible world, an icon of man,
and finally an icon of the soul of the human being.
The concept of icon is central to Orthodox theology because of its relation to the doctrine of
incarnation. The icon is not considered merely a picture of the divinity, but a way of making
present the divinity, hence the Orthodox practice of venerating icons. The Orthodox view is
very similar to Hans Georg Gadamer’s conception of the pictorial image. For Gadamer, an
image is never separated from the object that is represents, but co-exist with the original in a
symbiotic relationship, in which the image is an essential part of what it represents, an
“emanation” of the original. By contrast, the relationship between an original and a copy is a
one-sided relationship, always flowing from the original to the copy and never vice-versa.
Gadamer’s picture ontology is able to explain the sacredness, the irreplaceability of the picture,
which infuses even the modern art consciousness despite its different theoretical background.
Gadamer, however, rejects the modern conception of a picture as a self contained unity, which
is independent of the context that generated it, and that can therefore be hung in a gallery
alongside other pictures, in an indistinct order.
Introduction 9
Gadamer’s rejection of the modern conception of art is part of his larger critique of western
metaphysics, and particularly of the western view of the relationship between language and
thought. For Gadamer, language is the medium whereby any understanding occurs, while the
prevalent conception holds language to be a mere instrument through which thought is
communicated. This instrumental view of language can be traced, according to Gadamer, all
the way back to Plato’s discussion of language in Cratylus, which places the locus of truth
outside of language, into the realm of Ideas, as a way to counteract the Sophist rhetoric.
The relation between the unity and thought and language, or word and object and the Christian
idea of incarnation was noted by Gadamer himself: “There is however an idea that is not Greek
and that does more justice to the nature of language and prevented the forgetfulness of
language in Western thought from being complete. This is the Christian idea of incarnation.” 8
While Plato’s philosophy was an attempt to overcome language and promote the purity of
thought, incarnation is, for Gadamer, a return to the word.
Gadamer clearly differentiates the Christian idea of incarnation from that of embodiment that
corresponds to the religious idea of the migration of souls, pertaining, for example, to the
Platonic and Pythagorean philosophies. Right from the start the Church Fathers tried to explain
incarnation through analogy with the human language. This resulted in an evaluation of the
understanding of language previously established by Greek philosophy. From this new
8 Gadamer, 418.
Introduction 10
interpretation Gadamer retains the idea of discursiveness of thought that agrees with his
emphasis on the unity between thought and language.
Considering Gadamer’s conclusion regarding the discursiveness of thought that he takes on
from the Church Fathers, that helps to validate language, and discourse in particular, as the
locus of truth, we can take the analogy between human language and the doctrine of
incarnation further and interpret the icon as the medium of discourse, as the facilitator of the
dialogue between the believer and divinity. This is a dialogue in which, as Gadamer’s
hermeneutical perspective reveals, neither partner can claim control over what is said or what
emerges out of it, its finality. Thus, it is not only in its capacity as image, which makes present
what it represents, that the icon brings an increase of being, but also through what can be seen
as its linguistic characteristics, its discursiveness and its facilitation of dialogue, through which
the icon actively contributes to believers’ relationship with God. Similarly, it is in this way,
rather than as an object or an instrument, that the Orthodox Church as a building needs to be
understood.
1.4 Thematic Structuring
The introductory chapter of my thesis positions the problem of contemporary Orthodox Church
architecture into the proper theoretical setting by pointing to the context it is arising out of, how
I will go about investigating it, and the anticipated conclusions of this investigation.
Introduction 11
The second chapter has as its overall intent to steadily build on the concept of iconic as the
general framework within which Orthodox Church architecture can be interpreted. The iconic
language will be differentiated from the semiotic language which lies at the basis of western
metaphysics. To this purpose, I will introduce the concepts of picture, sign, symbol, and icon as
presented by Gadamer‘s Truth and Method. This endeavor will have to begin by considering the
concept of language itself for which I will again make use of Gadamer’s account.
Having determined the particularity and importance of the iconic language, in the third chapter, I
will take on the task of showing the specific way in which the iconic language, together with the
concepts of incarnation and tradition, can throw a new light on the understanding of Orthodox
churches.
Introduction 12
2 The Iconic Language
Figure 2- Iconostasis of Stavropoleos Church, Bucharest, Romania, 2009
The Iconic Language 13

2.1 The Key Role of Language in the Elucidation of the Icon
“…the hermeneutical problem concerns not the correct mastery of language, but
coming to a proper understanding about the subject matter, which takes place in
the medium of language.” 9
As anticipated in the Introduction to this thesis, the understanding of Orthodox Church
architecture, together with all the liturgical arts of Orthodox Christianity, are reliant upon the
understanding of the icon. I further argue in this research that in order to better grasp the
nature of the icon we need to first consider Gadamer’s account of what is involved in the
process of understanding itself and, consequently, to recall the long-obscured, in Gadamer’s
view, nature of language as the medium whereby all understanding takes place. This will be
the main focus of this second chapter. But before that, I will briefly touch upon some issues that
attempt to clarify the direction of this thesis:
x Why do we need to talk about the icon? In what way is elucidating the icon going to
help us understand Orthodox Church architecture?
and
x Why do we need to consider language to understand the icon? How is Gadamer’s
discussion on the nature of language going to guide us toward its understanding?
9 Gadamer, 387.

Etymologically from the Greek eikon (image, likeness, to be like) the icon is an image of God. It
is a central concept in Orthodox theology because of its relation with the doctrine of the
incarnation. It is the incarnation of God that makes imagery possible.
The central place that the icons have in Eastern Orthodox theology was not without challenges.
In two different periods in the history of the Byzantine Empire, icons were banished and
destroyed by order of the emperor. Both times the icon came out victorious, an event that is
marked even today as the “Triumph of Orthodoxy” and is celebrated every year on the first
Sunday in Lent. The Synodikon of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (the text that conveys the
decisions of the ecumenical synod), which refers to and reinstates the veneration of holy icons,
announces: “A yearly thanksgiving is due to God on account of that day when we recovered the
Church of God, with the demonstration of the dogmas of true religion … .” 10
The motivation behind the decision of the Seventh Ecumenical Council revealed the
unsurpassed value of the icon in the Orthodox tradition: “…the very existence of the icon is a
statement of the fundamental faith of the Church: that God truly became man and that
therefore human nature, what we are, can become God. The icon of Christ affirms the
deification of man because it is a picture of the visible, material human body which is God.” 11
10 Synodikon of Orthodoxy. Translated by Archimandrite Ephrem Lash after a translation of the full text
made by Professor Andrew Louth, 2001. http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ephrem/synodikon.htm (accessed on
August 1st, 2010).
11 Perl, Eric. D. “…That Man Might Become God: Central Themes in Byzantine Theology”. In Heaven on
Earth: Art and the Church in Byzantium, by Linda Safran (ed.), 39-57. Pennsylvania State University Press,
1998.

Although resilient as one of the pillars of Orthodox spirituality, the ordinary understanding of
the icon is sometimes surrounded by confusion, being infused by the instrumentalism
characteristic of the modern world. Gadamer’s hermeneutical account of the image as well as
his emphasis on the ontological value of language as the locus of truth comes to validate and
reinforce the understanding of icons in Byzantium and subsequently in the Orthodox Christian
world.
2.2 The nature of language
“Let us, therefore, turn our attention to the Greeks, who did not have a word for
what we call language, when the all-embracing unity of the word and thing
became problematical for them and hence worthy of attention. We will also
consider Christian thought in the Middle Ages, which, because of its interest in
dogmatic theology, rethought the mystery of this unity.” 12
To this day, the heritage of ancient Greek language and thought is acknowledged to be an
essential part both of the western world as well as of Byzantium (or the Eastern Roman
Empire). At a closer look, all Latin-based European languages, to which we can add the English
language, make us think, more or less, within a simplified framework of the Greek language.
The translation from Greek to Latin was not, however, flawless. If Gadamer and hermeneutics
insists on making explicit the history behind the concepts we take for granted today, it is also
because the process of Latinization of Greek terms has obscured the roots of our thinking.
12 Gadamer, 405-406.

Contemporary architects, for example, frequently use terms like “space”, “form”, or “matter”
without giving any thought to the often problematic histories behind them.
In this large historical and philosophical context, the place of what we call today “the Byzantine
tradition” (which includes the Orthodox Churches) needs to be clarified. These two European
traditions, western and eastern, are so close to each other, and their history so intertwined, that
most of the time we are inclined to think that we can apply without reservations western
European concepts and methods in understanding the other. For example most of the modern
commentaries on the liturgical arts of the Orthodox Church still use Kantian terminology to
understand and describe it. In a way this historical process is inevitable, but this doesn’t mean
that western categories can give a range of interpretations of these arts capable of nurturing a
level of quality (in interpretation or in design) worthy of its heritage. And if tradition is so
important for the Orthodox Churches a way of understanding it capable of sustaining that
quality is needed. Without the presumption, however, that hermeneutics is the correct way to
understand the architecture of Orthodox churches, that its creators had a hermeneutical
understanding of it, or that hermeneutics would even work in interpreting its long history, I
hope in this study to show that hermeneutics can do better in recapturing a tradition that seems
to have been lost during its journey to the present.
In preparation for the exposure of the ontological value of language that Gadamer carries out in
the third chapter of Truth and Method, he first discusses the act of understanding. According to
Gadamer, any understanding has a question-and-answer structure. That is, in any attempt to

understand, one must inquire into the background of what is said. Furthermore, we
understand what is said only by “acquiring the horizon of the question” that what is said is an
answer to, “a horizon that, as such, necessarily includes other possible answers.” 13 Moreover, in
Gadamer’s view, the words and concepts we use are historically conditioned and they prejudice
our understanding and interpretation. So we should not immediately assume their
straightforwardness, but rather enquire into their origin and history. This going behind the text
is neither a mere reconstruction of the author’s intentions nor a repetition of the process
whereby the text came into being. Consequently, the meaning exceeds the statement that we
initially sought to understand, as well as the intentions of the author. Additionally, the
reconstructed question cannot belong to its original historical horizon, but rather to the
questioner’s historical horizon. “Anticipating an answer itself presupposes that the questioner
is part of the tradition and regards himself as addressed by it.” 14
Following the elucidation of what is involved in the process of understanding, whether
understanding of texts or coming to an understanding in a conversation, Gadamer goes on to
identify language as the form by which the understanding of the subject matter happens. For
the understanding is not afterwards put into words, but “rather, the way understanding occurs
[…] is the coming-into-language of the thing itself.” 15 Thus, language is not an instrument we
use to control a conversation with, as it is regarded in modern times. Gadamer arrives at these
13 Gadamer, 363.
14 Gadamer, 370.
15 Gadamer, 370-371.

conclusions by first starting to inquire into the origin and history of language as the word and
the concept that it itself is. Gadamer discusses the transition from unconsciousness of language
in the case of the ancient Greeks, manifested also through the fact that they apparently had no
word for what we now call language, to the consciousness of language in modern times. This
process refers to language becoming an object of reflection, while unconsciousness of language
continues to be the common modality of speech.
According to Gadamer, in the earliest times the unity between the word and the thing that it
designated was unquestionable. The word was thought to belong to the being of the thing that
it referred to. It was mainly understood as a name, more precisely as a proper name, and the
name was thought of as being a name because it belonged to its bearer, the rightness of the
name being confirmed when someone answered to it. And so, Gadamer sees the beginning of
Greek philosophy from the moment that this unity was disturbed and the word was reduced to
being “only a name”. This is precisely, in Gadamer’s words, “the breakthrough of philosophical
inquiry into the territory over which the name had undisputed rule.” In Gadamer’s view, this
insight sidetracked the subsequent debates on the nature of language: instead of presenting the
thing that it named, the word was left with pointing to it, substituting for it, more in the manner
of signs and symbols. The fact that the word was even imagined as possibly being altered at
will raised even more doubt as to its capacity to “represent true being.” This raised questions as
to the rightness of names and the rightness of words, issues that are discussed in Plato’s
dialogue Cratylus so thoroughly that the dialogue has become the reference for all further
discussions on the issue of language.

In analyzing the relationship between the word and the object, Plato’s Cratylus starts with an
account of the theories of language prevalent at the time. The “conventionalist theory”,
wherein meaning of language is reached by agreement and practice, is defended by
Hermogenes while the “phusei [by nature] theory”, wherein there is a “natural agreement
between word and object that is described by the idea of correctness (orthotes)” is highly praised
by Cratylus. According to Gadamer, both these interpretations of language start “too late”,
namely “from the existence and instrumentality of words, and regard the subject matter as
something we know about previously from an independent source.”16 While trying to show
both these positions as being untenable, Plato’s intention is, in Gadamer’s view, “to
demonstrate that no truth (aletheia ton onton) can be attained in language -- in language’s claim
to correctness (orthotes ton onomaton) -- and that without words (aneu ton onomaton) being must
be known purely from itself (auta ex heauton).” 17 So, rather than discussing the relationship
between the word and the object, Plato moves the discussion to the question of how we can
know being. As Gadamer conveys, Plato concludes that thought is independent not only from
words but from language in general, that the true objects of thought are the “ideas” and
language is only the instrument of externalization of this wordless logos, “the stream that flows
from this thought and sounds out through the mouth.” 18 According to Gadamer, Plato’s
conclusion further expands the gap between language and being, for it still shares the
16 Gadamer, 407.
17 Gadamer, 407.
18 Plato in Gadamer, 408.

presupposition common to both theories previously presented, the priority of knowledge to
language. This presupposition is, in Gadamer’s view, what links Cratylus to modern
instrumentalism.
While Gadamer agrees that “it is not the word that opens up the truth”, that the truth is not to be
found in a dictionary, he sees Plato’s additional inference, namely the idea that thought is
independent from language, as flawed. In Plato’s view, Gadamer reckons, language is only an
instrument, “a tool, an image that is constructed and judged in terms of the original, the objects
themselves.” 19 And since these objects are to be known independently and prior to their
naming and a name is to be given to them, Plato does not leave the sphere of the ‘correctness of
names’ as intended, and still retains resemblance (homoion) as the criterion for their correctness.
Consequently, in Gadamer’s opinion, the discussion concerning the “correctness of names” that
develops in Cratylus acquires a particular importance regardless of Plato’s intentions. For
considered in their full weight the two theories alone can provide valuable insights into the
nature of language.
The advocates of the so called conventionalist theory saw agreement and practice as the only
source for the meaning of language and consequently for the meaning of words. In disputing
this theory Socrates started with the distinction between true and false logos and he inferred
from here that the same truth values could be applied to words, “thus relating naming […] to
19 Gadamer, 408.

the revelation of being (ousia) that takes place in speech.” 20 This is in understandable
disagreement to the conventionalist theory, which refused to recognize words as having any
cognitive value. Despite the obvious flaw of Socrates’ argument, his inference “from the truth
of speech to that of the word”, which Gadamer points to, this gives him the opportunity to
explore the phusei theory as an alternative.
As far as this second theory is concerned, it is to some degree refuted by Socrates as well. He
first remarks on the possibility that, in this case, where the correctness is understood as the
word’s adequacy to the object, although the word is only to some degree adequate and
consequently only to some degree correct, since it still conveys the outline of the object the word
is still usable. Socrates further counters this theory by mentioning the circumstances of the
names for numbers, where we cannot speak of similarity between name and object. So far, both
theories presented have failed to satisfy simultaneously our perception of the factual variability
and relative arbitrariness of words and our sense that certain words are right and others not. In
the attempt to resolve its shortcomings, each theory employs the aid of the other. And the
insufficiency of both theories points, in Gadamer’s analysis, to the inseparable nature of the
word and the object.
Following the abandonment of the similarity principle as a general rule, due to its inadequacy
in the case of numbers, Plato goes on to admit that convention is the one that “operates in
20 Gadamer, 409.

practical usage and alone constitutes the correctness of words” 21, although the similarity
principle is still to be regarded as valid and used whenever appropriate. The return to
convention in regard to the naming of things implies once more that “words have no real
cognitive significance of their own.” 22 This insight has consequences that go beyond the
apparent topic of Plato’s dialogue, the words and the question of their correctness, to the
knowledge of objects, which is, in Gadamer’s opinion, Plato’s concern. Despite Plato’s
conciliatory conclusions regarding the coexisting of the two theories in the process of the
naming of things, we can sense that Plato retains a preference for the resemblance theory since
in his view the original and the copy is the standard model of knowledge. Plato does not
endorse any of the two theories but he can’t fundamentally reject them either for, in introducing
his theory of the ideas, he does not part from their common presupposition, the priority of
knowledge over language, which, in Gadamer’s view, links the Cratylus to modern
instrumentalism. 23 In his book, Gadamer’s Hermeneutics: A reading of Truth and Method, Joel C.
Weinsheimer joins Gadamer’s interpretation of Plato’s dialogue and his theory of Ideas and says:
“In this way Plato hoped to preserve that knowledge from the doubts cast on it by the verbal
paradoxes and linguistic aporias typical of the sophists. To obviate these problems it was
necessary to obviate words.” 24 In his critique of the correctness of words in Cratylus, Plato
attempts to direct the attention away from language as the possible locus of truth and instead
introduce the notion of a non-linguistic thought.
21 Gadamer, 410.
22 Gadamer, 410.
23 Weinsheimer, Joel C. Gadamer’s Hermeneutics: A Reading of Truth and Method. Yale University Press, New
Haven and London, 1985, 230.

24 Weinsheimer, 230.

Refuting the two theories so swiftly and settling with such ease inside the cognitive framework
of “the original and the copy”, however, has sidetracked the discussion about the nature of
language. Socrates’ argument against Cratylus regarding the varying degrees of the correctness
of the word obscures, in Gadamer’s view, a number of valuable insights. First of all, if the word
were a mere tool that “we construct in order to deal with the object in terms of instruction and
differentiation, and so an entity that can be more or less adequate to and in accord with its
being” 25, this dealing with the object has the character of a representation. For the name to be
correct, to perform its function, it needs to make the object apparent. But we are not talking
about an imitative representation that is concerned with “the visual or aural appearance of
something” 26; rather, it is the being of the thing that it is to be brought to presence, revealed. So,
according to Gadamer, we shouldn’t necessarily speak of a relation of original and copy in the
case of words, since, unlike the case of mere imitation, where the copy is a different thing that,
through its similarity, points to the original, there is no ontological gap between the word and
its meaning. Gadamer agrees with Cratylus that the question of the degree of similarity is not
appropriately applied to words since “inasmuch as a word is a word, it must be ‘correct’, it
must fit correctly.” Therefore, we can talk about an “absolute perfection of the word”. 27
Eventually, Socrates joins Cratylus in admitting that “words, unlike pictures (zoa), can be not
only correct, but true (alethe).” 28 Unlike copies that, due to their varying degree of resemblance,
25 Gadamer, 410.
26 Gadamer, 410.
27 Gadamer, 411.
28 Gadamer, 411.

seem more or less correct when confronted with the appearance of the object, their being is
wholly absorbed by their meaning. But despite this concession, Socrates knows that the
revelation that takes place in speech is different from the meaning of the words and that the
meaning of words is not identical with the objects named. Disregarding these essential
differentiations we can be mislead to believe, as Cratylus does, that “in the word we have the
object”, that is, to regard the word as the gate to knowledge. Conversely, using the same kind
of inference as the one from the truth of logos to the truth of words, Socrates compels Cratylus
to admit that the truth of an utterance must be built out of the truth of words and that letters as
the elements of the word must share the same resemblance to the object that the word does.
But, according to Gadamer, “in all this the point is missed that the truth of objects resides in
speech, which means, ultimately, in the content of a unified meaning concerning objects and not
in the individual words -- not even in the stock of words of an entire language. It is this error
that enables Socrates to refute the objections of Cratylus, which are so apt in relation to the truth
of the word, i.e. to its significance.” 29
Referring to Gadamer’s position concerning Socrates’ argument and conclusion, Weinsheimer
reinforces the idea that the locus of truth is neither the word per se, nor is it some place outside
of language, but the organization of different words into discourse:
“Gadamer concurs that truth is not to be found in individual words or even in all
words in a language, but for him this admission does not require the
abandonment of language as the locus of truth in favor of a wordless logos. As
letters first become meaningful when they are linked in words, so words first
29 Gadamer, 412.

become capable of being true when they are organized in discourse. There can be
no decomposition of veridical units into their elements because truth can occur
only when a certain level of organization has been reached. Socrates is right,
then, that there is no truth in individual words, but that is not because truth
exists somewhere outside language but rather because truth belongs to
discourse. That truth is not to be found in a dictionary says nothing against its
presence in language, for language is not to be found there either but instead in
speaking and writing.” 30
Thus, we conclude that Socrates, in his attempt to establish how we can know things, is parting
from words as the possible provider of understanding and settles in a non-linguistic
investigation of the things themselves. As a result, in this equation expression is secondary, as
language, in all its forms, is only the means of externalization of whatever happens
independently in the mind. Gadamer concludes that Plato’s dialogue aims at illustrating the
sphere of the noetic as best represented by the number as a “pure structure of intelligibility, an
“ens rationis”, a fact that “influences all further thinking about language” for “if the sphere of
the logos represents the sphere of the noetic in the variety of its associations, then the word, just
like the number, becomes the mere sign of a being that is well-defined and hence pre-known.” 31
Weinsheimer comments on the emergence of the idea of the word as sign as opposed to the
word as copy: “if logos is best represented in the rational sequence of numbers, then (Socrates
implies) words best serve their purpose when they function like numbers, pure signs. A copy
(the basis of similarity theory) exists in its own right even when the original is absent or no
longer exists at all; by means of its own characteristics a copy resembles its original. But by
contrast to the copy, the purity of a pure sign consists in the fact that ideally it points or refers
31 Gadamer, 413.

without existing. It means without being. Or if it must have some existence in order to signify at
all, then a sign’s purity means that its specific characteristics do not matter. They can be varied
at will, as accords with the conventionalist theory.” 32
Earlier in Truth and Method, Gadamer places the essence of the picture midway between the sign
and the symbol, that is, between the pure indication of the sign and the pure representation of
the symbol. If we were to summarize Gadamer’s account of the differences and similarities
between sign and image or copy we see that:
1. The being of a sign is fully absorbed by its representational function. It does not
establish a content of its own that contributes to its function of pointing but rather, it is
the object indicated that it gains its signifying function from. Thus, in the case of the
sign, “the difference between its being and its significance is an absolute one”.
2. While the copy shares the same conflict between its being and its significance this is
resolved within it through the resemblance between its content and the represented
object. Unlike the sign, the copy has a content of its own that its signifying function is
derived from. It is from its content and through this similarity that the object copied is
represented.
According to Gadamer “the legitimate question whether the word is nothing but a ‘pure sign‘
or instead something like a ’copy‘ or an ’image‘ is thoroughly discredited by the Cratylus. Since
there the argument that the word is a copy is derived ad absurdum, the only alternative seems

to be that it is a sign. Although it is not especially emphasized, this consequence results from
the negative discussion of the Cratylus and is sealed by knowledge being banished to the
intelligible sphere.” 33 As a result of replacing the concept of image (eikon) with that of the sign
(semeion) language is reduced to its pointing characteristic. Thus, it becomes a system of signs
of a mathematical type where the place of words within it is rigorously controlled and their
significance is precisely defined. In this well-devised system where the word is to have a
clearly defined meaning, the variety of connotations that words have in their use is seen rather
as a handicap, an impediment to their usefulness.
As Gadamer points out, this view of language fueled the attempts made during the
Enlightenment period to devise a universal language. Although artificial and untenable in its
concrete form, the idea of a universal language has surprisingly not been discredited as an
ideal. Weinsheimer also identifies the transition from iconic language to symbolic language as
the source for the instrumental view that lies at the base of universal language schemes that
started with modernity: “The epoch-making decision about language implied in the transition
from language as eikon to language as semeion in the Cratylus leads to the universal language
schemes of the seventeenth and eighteen centuries and also to the more ambitious construction
of artificial languages in the twentieth. It leads to the notion that language is a means in the
service of techne” 34 (in ancient Greek: an art, skill, or craft; a technique, principle, or method by
33 Gadamer, 414.

which something is achieved or created 35). “In Plato’s emphasis on the silent logos, in his
insistence on the independence of thought and its object from words, there was already implicit
the technologization of language.” 36
According to Gadamer, the steady development of scientific terminology contributed as well to
the process of the instrumentalisation of language, for a technical term is nothing but “a word,
the meaning of which is univocally defined, inasmuch as it signifies a defined concept.” 37 In the
case of scientific terminology either the word is artificially created or, even more often, a word
already in use is stripped out of its variety of meanings to be bestowed upon “only one
particular conceptual meaning.” “In contrast to the living meaning of words in spoken
language- to which, as Wilhelm von Humboldt rightly showed, a certain range of variation is
essential- a technical term is a word that has become ossified. The terminological use of a word
is an act of violence against language.” 38 But the inevitable dissemination of the technical terms
back into the spoken language, as there is no “pure technical speech”, is, Gadamer notices,
circumscribed to the demands of language. Thus, even when interpreting scientific texts one
must take notice of the “juxtaposition of the technical and the freer use of the word.” Modern
commentators on classical texts are even more in danger of overlooking the variety and breadth
of meanings that a word has, being accustomed now to the multitude of artificially formed
concepts with fixed meanings that pervade the modern scientific usage of language. It was
35 Oxford English Dictionary.

37 Gadamer, 415.
38 Gadamer, 415.

Leibniz’s idea that this sign system is allowing us to overcome the elusiveness of concepts that
the historical languages present us with and to acquire truths of mathematical certainty. The
ideal language of Leibniz was envisaged according to the laws of the system of combinations, in
advance of and independent from experience. In conclusion, the construction of an artificial
language is the ultimate consequence, according to Gadamer, of a process of abstraction at the
beginning of which language was taken to be entirely detached from the considered object, to
be rather an instrument at one’s disposal.
This technologization of language is, according to Weinsheimer, precisely what Gadamer
rejects: “In Gadamer’s view […] language is not an instrument at the disposal of will, desire,
consciousness, or subjectivity generally.” Instead, Gadamer proposes that, similar to the
mimesis theory of art, there’s still something right about the iconic theory of language presented
in Cratylus, the one which holds that there is a natural similarity between the word and the
object. “This affirmation does not imply that he asserts some visual or aural similarity between
discourse and its object, only that they belong together.” 39 Objects cannot be understood apart
from language and there is no understanding of language apart from things.
The shortcoming of the artificial language schemes, such as Leibniz’s, is their presupposition
that knowledge can be attained in advance of experience, an idea firmly rejected by Gadamer.
“Experience is not wordless at first and then made an object of reflection by being named…

Rather, seeking and finding words to express it belong to experience itself. We seek for the
right word, i.e. the word that really belongs to the object, so that in it the object comes into
language.” 40 According to Gadamer, Aristotle seemed to have recognized as well the important
role of language in concept formation.
According to Weinsheimer, Gadamer shows that “one advantage of the resemblance theory is
that it recognizes this indivisible reciprocity between discourse and thing. A second advantage
is that a copy does not betray the embarrassment over its own existence that one finds in the
sign. A pure sign ideally means without being: and insofar as language is conceived of as
semiotic, its own being seems always an obstacle to be gotten around, superseded, or merely
concealed. But if semiotics finds its ideal in forgetting the being of language, the iconic theory
of language serves as a corrective and reminder that even the purest sign must exist in order to
be a sign. And in that existence the sign is like a copy, which –however it effaces itself in
deference to the original- nevertheless conveys meaning through its own characteristics and its
own existence. Conceived of as iconic, language is a thing that means, a being that can be
understood.” 41
Despite what happened in regard to the theories of language, where the form of language,
separated from all content, became the object of attention, unconsciousness of language
continues to be the actual modality of speech. We have seen that the critique of correctness of
40 Gadamer, 417.
41 Weinsheimer, 232-233.

names in Cratylus “is the first step in a direction at the end of which lies the modern
instrumental theory of language and the ideal of a sign system of reason. Wedged in between
image and sign, the nature of language could only be reduced to the level of pure sign.”42 But
we will later in this thesis see that, according to Gadamer, the Christian idea of Incarnation
prevented the complete obliviousness of language in the western tradition.
2.3 The Concepts of Sign, Symbol and Image
In this section, we will follow Gadamer’s use of the iconic image, as against the modern
aesthetic conception of a picture, and of art in general. Gadamer rejects the notion that
"aesthetic differentiation", that is, the process of abstraction whereby a work of art is removed
from its ontological background, could legitimately apply to the plastic arts. According to the
logic of aesthetic differentiation, a painting or a statue can be experienced in itself, without any
variation. Whenever there are variations of the conditions under which a painting or sculpture
is accessible, these belong to the viewer and not to the work of art proper. 43
This abstraction from the variability of representation lies at the center of modern aesthetics.
The epitome of the modern aesthetic view of art is the framed picture, hanging side by side in a
gallery, with no particular regard for order. Not only have pictures in a gallery been severed
from their connection to life and enclosed in frames, but modern paintings are executed with
42 Gadamer, 417.
43 Gadamer, 130.

the view to be exhibited in such a manner, and thus made to conform to the logic of abstraction
from the outset. The framed picture is the prototype for the kind of abstraction that has affected
practically all current discourse about works of art. Inquiring into the mode of being of the
picture will hopefully be instrumental in freeing all art forms, including the liturgical arts of the
Orthodox Church, the icon and church architecture, from the enclosure that they have been
subjected to by modern aesthetics. Incidentally, the revision of the “gallery” concept of painting
and sculpture goes hand in hand with a similar reevaluation in the field of art history;
historians of art have also sought to bring the modern concept of painting and sculpture more
in line with the contemporary appreciation for performance art. The purpose of the current
inquiry is, however, not aesthetical, but ontological.
According to Gadamer, the problem of the picture “corresponds to a historical problem of
philosophical aesthetics, which ultimately goes back to the role of the image in Platonism and is
expressed in the usage of the word.” 44 Still, the “picture” retains a general sense that is not
limited to any particular historical phase. The first step of the inquiry into the mode of being of
a picture is to look for commonalities between what historically has been called a picture.
Looking back in history, the self-sufficient type of picture was not seen until the high
Renaissance. Alberti's requirement of "concinnitas" (skillfully put together) is, according to
Gadamer, the theoretical expression of the new artistic ideal. Alberti, however, formulates his
"concinnitas" in terms that remind us of Aristotle's definition of the beautiful. According to
44 Gadamer, 131.

Aristotle, beautiful is that to which nothing can be added and nothing can be taken away,
without destroying it. It seems, therefore, that the concept of the picture cannot be extracted
from any particular historic period. Nor is the modern concept of a picture a suitable starting
point, as this is exactly what Gadamer is trying to overcome. In order to find a general concept
of the picture, Gadamer asks two questions. The first one is in what respect the picture is
different from a copy; the second one is, what is the picture's relationship with its world.
Gadamer starts by affirming that the mode of being of the work of art is presentation. The
concept of presentation is borrowed from performing arts, like drama and music. According to
Gadamer, the world that appears in a presentation is not a copy of the real world, but the real
world "in the heightened truth of its being." 45 The key difference between performing arts and
plastic arts, however, is the absence of an original. Typical of performance arts is a double
representation; both the performance and the script are representations that do not stand in
relation with an original. Neither does a first performance stand as an original that subsequent
performances relate to. The picture, however, unlike drama and music, does have a
relationship with an original. This makes the concept of picture necessarily larger than the
concept of presentation. In order to find out what presentation means for the mode of being of
a picture, a distinction will be made between the way a representation relates to an original and
the way a copy relates to an original.
45 Gadamer, 132.

According to Gadamer, the task of a copy is to resemble the original; a copy has no independent
existence, but serves only “to mediate what is copied”46. The ideal copy is “self-effacing”,
allowing the spotlight to be placed on the original. A picture, on the other hand, is not meant to
be self-effacing; it is not merely pointing at the original, but co-exists with the original in a
symbiotic relationship. The ideal copy is the mirror image. In fact, not only does a mirror
image disappear, but it has no being at all; it depends on the continuous presence of that which
is reflected in the mirror. The original and its mirror reflection are one, and not differentiated.
In the same way, the presentation (the picture) and what is represented are one. The model of
the mirror image serves to show the ontological inseparability between a picture and what is
represented, but does not cover the whole aesthetic conception about a picture: an image in the
mirror has no being of its own, but depends for its existence on the being that is reflected. The
picture, on the other hand, does have its own being.
Not only a picture has its own being, but, according to Gadamer, a picture brings about an
“increase in the being” of that which is being represented 47. The relationship between the
picture and what the picture represents is an ontological one: a specific presentation (picture)
becomes an essential part of what is represented. Even if multiple presentations (pictures) are
available they do not exhaust the original, but become part of, and increase, the being of the
original. One way to understand this non-exhausting relationship between a picture and its
original is by making use of the neoplatonic concept of "emanation." The concept of emanation
46 Gadamer, 133.
47 Gadamer, 135.

was meant to surpass Greek substance ontology, and capture the idea that the original One is
not diminished by the outflow of many from it. The logic of emanation was instrumental in
overcoming the Old Testament aversion to images.
„It seems that the Greek Fathers [of the church] used this kind of neoplatonist
thinking in overcoming the Old Testament’s hatred of images when it came to
Christology. In the incarnation of God they saw the fundamental recognition of
the visible appearance and thus legitimated works of art. In this overcoming of
the ban on images we can see the event through which the development of the
plastic arts became possible in the Christian West.” 48
So far, Gadamer has inquired into the relationship between a picture and its original, by
contrasting it with the relationship between a copy and its original. He concludes that a copy
has no being of its own, while a picture constitutes an autonomous reality that does not subtract
from the being of the original, but, on the contrary, adds to that being. At this point, Gadamer
introduces yet another concept, one that will help us further understand the relationship that a
picture has to an original. This concept is representation (Repräsentation) 49.
The concept of representation is meant to express the idea that a picture, in order to be granted
its own ontological status, must bring an essential modification to the original that it represents.
In a reversal of the ontological relationship between the picture and the original, we say that the
original only becomes original when represented in a picture. The quintessence of
representational art is found in the representation of the ruler, the statesman, or the hero. The
representation arises from the necessity of the ruler to show himself to his subjects. However,
48 Gadamer, 136.
49 Gadamer, 136.

once the picture comes into existence, the ruler must fulfill expectations that arise from his
picture; he cannot avoid his own representation and must show himself to his subjects in a
manner that is prescribed by the representation. We can say, therefore, that the representation
is made possible by the very fact that the being that is represented is showing itself as an
essential part of his being; representation would, therefore, not exist if it were not from the
outset a part of the being that is being represented.
An even better example of this two-way relationship is, according to Gadamer, the religious
picture. Gadamer thinks that the religious representation is solely capable of displaying “the
full ontological power of the picture" because it is only through the picture that the divine
acquires its "pictorial quality," or “appears for the first time as what it is.” This is a clear case of
a picture that is not just a copy, but in “ontological communion” with what is pictured. The
same is true about art work in general:
“... It is clear from this example that art as a whole and in a universal sense
brings an increase in ‘pictorialness’ to being. Word and picture are not mere
imitative illustrations, but allow what they represent to be for the first time what
it is.” 50
The act of imaging the divine, however, is not to be confused with the nineteenth century
anthropological interpretation of religious experience, which is, Gadamer thinks, just another
manifestation of the “subjectivism” that characterizes modern aesthetic thought. 51
Following this approach, Gadamer has shown that the picture is an event of being and cannot
50 Gadamer, 137.
51 Gadamer, 137.

be properly understood as merely the subject of aesthetic consciousness. Art is by nature
presentational, it does not reproduce or imitate an idea, but occasions the "appearing" of that
idea. According to Gadamer, once we give up the logic of aesthetic consciousness, many
phenomena that were problematic for modern aesthetics become less so. One such
phenomenon is occasional art, exemplified by the portrait, the dedicated poem, or
contemporary comic references. The reason occasional arts constitute a problem for modern
aesthetics is because their contents are partially determined by the occasion for which they are
intended, therefore they cannot easily abstract themselves from that context. Occasionality is
intrinsic to these art forms and not forced upon them by an interpreter. This can be seen by
looking at the difference between a portrait and a genre picture or a figure composition. In a
portrait, the original (the sitter) is to be recognized in the painting. In a figure composition or
genre picture, the sitter, or model, must disappear, or become unrecognizable in the painting.
We recognize a portrait as such, not because we are able to recognize the person portrayed
(although we do recognize that it is an individual and not a type), but because of the occasional
character that is impressed upon the work. 52
Occasionality does not diminish the work of art's claim to artistic status. Occasionality is just an
instance of a general relationship between the work of art and the world, or maybe even the
prototype of such a relationship. If the being of the work of art is presentation, then the work of
art experiences a continuous determination of its meaning from the "occasion of its coming-to-
52 Gadamer 140.

presentation.”
The determination of the meaning by the occasion is seen most clearly in the case of performing
arts, wherein only on the occasion of the performance everything that is in the play can be
brought out. The same is true of plastic arts, insofar as the work of art displays itself differently
under different conditions. It should be noted that the variation is proper of the work of art and
not just of the effects of a self-contained work of art, as modern aesthetics would have it. “The
viewer of today [as compared to the viewer in antiquity] not only sees things in a different
manner, he sees different things.” 53
The coming-into-presentation of the work of art is a community event. This is seen in the case of
performances, but also most clearly in the case of religious rites. For Orthodox Christians the
thought that the meaning of the architecture or the icon is only revealed in the context of the
liturgy was always a self-evident truth. An aesthetic consciousness, which sees the aesthetic
object in its own right, cannot make sense of the relationship between the religious picture and
the performance of religious rites, as essential to religious truth. It is Gadamer’s thesis that “the
being of art cannot be determined as an object of an aesthetic awareness because, on the
contrary, the aesthetic attitude is more than it knows of itself. It is part of the essential process
of representation.” 54
“…imitation, as representation, has a clear cognitive function. Therefore the idea
53 Gadamer, 141-142.
54 Gadamer, 115.

of imitation was able to continue in the theory of art for as long as the
significance of art as knowledge was unquestioned. But that is valid only while
it is held that knowledge of the true is knowledge of the essence, for art supports
this kind of knowledge in a convincing way. For the nominalism of modern
science, however, and its idea of reality, from which Kant drew the conclusion
that aesthetics has nothing to do with knowledge, the concept of mimesis has lost
its aesthetic force.
Having seen the difficulties of this subjective development in aesthetics, we are
forced to return to the older tradition.” 55
To conclude, occasionality is the fundamental condition of the work of art and a permanent part
of the work of art's claim to meaning and truth. Occasionality remains present in the work of
art even when the occasion that generated it is forgotten (we no longer know the sitter for a
portrait, or the saint that is depicted in an icon), and makes possible further fulfillment. This is
the reason why a portrait, for example, transcends its particular relation to its original and
becomes universally significant. ”A work of art belongs so closely to that to which it is related
that it enriches its being as if through a new event of being.” 56
According to Gadamer, religious or secular monuments are an even clearer expression of the
ontological valence of pictures than portraits. Monuments have as their particular function to
make present that which they represent. Monuments do not live through their power of
expression only, as in the logic of aesthetic consciousness. This is shown by the fact that
symbols and inscriptions can perform the same function as monuments, namely to keep that
which they represent present to the public, yet symbols and inscriptions are not works of art.
55 Gadamer, 114-115.
56 Gadamer, 141.

The work of art not only keeps in the public consciousness that which it represents, but it both
adds something of its own to it and says something of its own, which allows it to become
independent of the anterior knowledge.
For Gadamer, it is not accidental that religious concepts come to mind when defending the
special ontological status of the work of art, as there are elements of the sacred in every work of
art. The distinction between sacred and profane is only relative, however, as they presuppose
each other. We can feel that art resists desecration in any museum or antique shop, where
traces of life still remain in the works to be exhibited or offered for sale. Moreover, even
aesthetic consciousness is acquainted with the idea of desecration. That can be seen in the
reluctance to destroy works of art: "To destroy works of art is to break into a world protected
by its holiness." 57
So far Gadamer has characterized the work of art, and the picture in particular, as an event of
presentation, which brings about an increase of being to that which it represents. Now we need
to differentiate between the mode of presentation proper to the work of art and other modes of
presentation, such as the one proper to a symbol. A symbol does indicate something, therefore
it is a representation, but is not a work of art. In order to see the difference between the two,
and thus better understand the nature of a picture, we have to examine the concept of
57 Gadamer, 144.

indicating 58.
The picture lies halfway between two extremes of representation: the sign, "whose nature is
pure indicating", and the symbol, "whose nature is pure substitution". There is something of
both in a picture.” 59 The picture is not a sign, as the sign invites “no lingering over”, but points
away from itself (after initially drawing attention to itself). The memento, which serves to
remind us about the past, is, according to Gadamer, the only sign that seems to have a reality of
its own: it both points to the past and keeps the past alive for us. However, the memento's
quality of keeping the past alive is not something intrinsic to the memento, but depends on us
attaching significance to that past. Even the memento does not invite us to linger over itself, but
over the past that it points at. On the other hand, a picture does invite us to linger over itself, by
sharing in the being of what it represents.
We said that the difference between a picture and a sign is that the picture shares in the being of
what it represents, while the sign points away from itself to what it represents. A symbol
however, does share in the being of what it represents, and is therefore closer to a picture. The
symbol not only signals at what it symbolizes, but what is symbolized becomes present in the
symbol. What makes a symbol different form a picture, nonetheless, is that the symbol takes
the place of what is symbolizes. In that respect, a symbol is much more like a sign, as it does
not say anything about what it symbolizes. The symbolizing does not bring about an increase
58 Gadamer, 145.
59 Gadamer, 145.

of being for that which it is a symbol of. The picture, on the other hand, does bring an
increment of being to what it represents.
We can say, therefore, that a picture is halfway between a sign and a symbol, but has a unique
ontological status. Gadamer introduces the concept of "institution" in order to further
differentiate between a picture and a sign or symbol. Symbols represent and receive their
ontological function of representing from what they are supposed to represent. The origin of
their signifying function is called their “institution.” All signs and symbols are instituted; they
depend on a previously established linkage with their signified. Signs are established by
convention. Symbols take their significance not from their own ontological content but trough
an institution, installation, consecration. The artwork, pictorial or non-pictorial, is a structure
with a signifying function of its own; it does not owe its significance to such an institutional act,
“even when a public unveiling or consecration does take place.” Works of art are instituted only
because they themselves prescribe and help fashion this kind of functional context; the
consecration only validates what was to be found in the work itself:
„It is important to see that a work of art, on the other hand, does not owe its real
meaning to an institution of this kind even if it is a religious picture or a secular
memorial. The public act of consecration or unveiling which assigns to it its
purpose does not give it its significance. Rather it is already a structure with a
signifying-function of its own, as a pictorial or non-pictorial representation,
before it is assigned its function as a memorial. The setting-up and consecration
of a memorial – and it is not by accident that we talk of religious and secular
works of architecture as of architectural monuments, when historical distance
has consecrated them – therefore only realizes a function that is already implied
in the proper import of the work itself.” 60
60 Gadamer, 148.

Some forms of art that were peripheral within the logic of aesthetic consciousness take now a
central place. The most distinguished of these art forms is architecture. A work of architecture
extends beyond itself in two ways: it is determined by the aim it serves and the place it takes in
a certain spatial context. A building is a work of architecture only insofar as it successfully
meets both these requirements: it fulfills its purpose and adds something valuable to the
existing landscape or urban context, thus constituting a true increase of being. Moreover, a
work of architecture is not only a perfect solution to a purpose and context problem, but also a
perpetuator of its purpose and context, which continue to live through the building. When a
building stops pointing out at its original purpose and context, it becomes incomprehensible.
Architecture is a good example of why aesthetic differentiation (abstraction from a life context)
leads to a shadowy reality and a distorted life of the work of art.
„Works of architecture do not stand motionless on the shore of the stream of

history, but are borne along by it. Even if historically-minded ages seek to
reconstruct the architecture of an earlier age, they cannot try to turn back the
wheel of history, but must mediate in a new and better way between the past
and the present. Even the restorer, or the preserver of ancient monuments,
remains an artist of his time.” 61
Works of architecture not only present an original purpose and context, but they also mediate
between present and past, when other architectural monuments are part of the building context.
Attempts to reconstruct, or preserve architecture of the past are also instances of mediation
between past and present. Gadamer not only singles out architecture as occupying a special
61 Gadamer, 150.

place in the inquiry of the mode of being of the work of art, on account of its inalienable
connection to the world, but also identifies architecture as “embracing all other forms of
representation”, i.e. providing a context to them, on account of its space shaping function.
The context provided by architecture is present even when works of art seem to extract
themselves from the context, or seem to be physically translatable to different contexts:
"Even a free-standing statue on a pedestal is not removed from its decorative

context, but serves to heighten representationally a context of life with which it is
decoratively consonant. Even poetry and music, which have the freest mobility
and can be read and performed anywhere, are not suited to any space
whatsoever, but to one that is appropriate: a theater, concert hall, or church." 62
The point here is not to find a setting for a work that is complete in itself, but "to obey the space-
creating potentiality of the work itself (...) 63." Not only does architecture subsume all decorative
shaping of space, but it is decorative in itself. The nature of decoration, or ornament, is to not to
have attention linger over it, but merely to accompany that which it decorates. Architecture
subscribes to this definition, insofar as it at first is drawing attention to itself and then
redirecting this attention to the greater context of life which accompanies it.
Revealing the decorative task of architecture is yet another way to explode the abstraction
involved in the logic of aesthetic consciousness. The distinction between a work of art proper
and a mere decoration needs to be revised in the process. The antithesis between an artwork
and mere decoration used to be superimposed on an antithesis between the inspiration of a
62 Gadamer, 150.
63 Gadamer, 151.

genius (unique, irreplaceable) and craftsmanship, (means to end, replaceable). The ornament
needs to be “freed from this antithetical relation with the concept of art, and understood within
the ontological structure of representation:” the ornament is not a self-sufficient something that
is applied onto something else, but it is from the outset an essential part of the presentation of
that which is ornamented. “An ornament, a decoration, a piece of sculpture set up in a chosen
place, are representative in the same sense that, say, the church in which they are to be found is
itself representative.” 64
The conclusion of this inquiry is that there is no difference in the mode of being of performance
arts and that of plastic arts. Both of them have coming-into-representation as their specific
mode of being. Representation here is to be understood as "an ontological event, and not an
experiential event which occurs at the moment of the artistic creation and is repeated each time
in the minds of the viewers." 65
2.4 The Iconic Language
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God.”
John 1:1, King James Bible
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”
John 1:14, King James Bible
64 Gadamer, 152.
65 Gadamer, 152.

The initially uncontested unity between thought and language, or word and object that has
been obscured by the historical enquiry into the nature of language, has been preserved,
according to Gadamer, in the Christian idea of incarnation. While, as previously suggested,
Plato’s philosophy is seen as an attempt to overcome language and hence to forget its existence,
Gadamer sees incarnation as a return of the word.
He differentiates the Christian idea of incarnation from that of embodiment that corresponds to
the religious idea of the migration of souls that relate, for example, to the Platonic and
Pythagorean philosophies. “The soul retains its own separate nature throughout all its
embodiments, and the separation from the body is regarded as a purification, i.e. a restoration
of its true and real being.” 66 Following Gadamer, Weinsheimer contrasts also the idea of
embodiment with that of incarnation: in embodiment “the relation of soul and body is
something like that between content and form, or the thing in itself and its appearance. The
content can take any number of forms but it is not itself any one of them.” 67 In incarnation these
separations are overcome. The Word became flesh. That is, God became man without a
diminution of His divinity, as the human appearance was not “a mere form either concealing or
revealing a content different from itself.” 68
66 Gadamer, 418.

Gadamer finds great interest in the idea of incarnation especially as it connects with the
problem of the word. The interpretation of the mystery of incarnation and that of the Trinity
has been based, ever since the Church Fathers, on the relationship between human speech and
thought. The dogmatic theology built its interpretation of the Trinity on the prologue to St.
John’s gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God.” 69 The important task that the Fathers were confronted with was not merely to explain the
mystery of the incarnation, that God became man, but that, in this becoming, God the Son
remained united with God the Father in the Holy Trinity. To solve this theological problem,
Gadamer recounts, they relied on Greek ideas. But in doing so they opened up directions
foreign to Greek philosophy. This is particularly manifest in the way in which the
interpretation of incarnation resulted in a reassessed understanding of language. The historicity
of the redemptive event, the incarnation of Christ, translates into the departing of language
from the “ideality of meaning” that the earlier Greek philosophy of the logos threw it in. In
summarizing Gadamer’s view, Weinsheimer concludes as well that “the advent [the
incarnation, the word made flesh] … is an event which, like all historical events, is unique; and
thus, in contrast to the ideality of the disembodied logos, the Christian doctrine of the incarnate
Verbum insists on the reality of history. In the event of the incarnation the word is uttered,
spoken, and thereby realized.” 70
69 John 1:1, King James Bible.


In the Church Fathers’ investigation of the problem of the Word, human language is only
indirectly an object of reflection, since the main focus was not language but rather the
theological problem. But since the “mystery of this unity is reflected in the phenomenon of
language” 71, through analogy, human language becomes part of the inquiry as well. To address
the theological problem of the infinite God, the Father, and the historical God, the Son, they
used as an analogy the stoic antithesis of the inner and the outer logos. Weinsheimer comments
as well on the way they dealt with the theological problem of the Trinity: “to explain the fact
that the Word was with God from all eternity, the Church Fathers distinguish the inner, mental,
or rational word from the external, spoken word; and it is by appeal to the former that they
elucidate the mysterious unity of the Trinity.” 72
The early Fathers used the analogy with language because the creation, as well as the
incarnation, is described in St. John’s gospel in terms of the word. “Exegesis interprets the
speaking of the word to be equally miraculous as the incarnation of God.”73 The act of
becoming, concerning both God and the word, is one in which the essence remains unaltered.
But the “direct reference to the utterance, to the speaking of the Word” has been eventually seen
in the Christian dogmatics as implying a rapport of subordination of the Son to the Father, and
therefore rejected. This has led to the reconsideration of language as well, the weight being
shifted towards the inner word: “The greater miracle of language does not lie in the fact that
71 Gadamer, 419.
73 Gadamer, 419.

the Word becomes flesh and emerges in external being, but that that which emerges and
expresses itself in utterance is still a word. That the Word is with God from all eternity is the
victorious doctrine of the church, as against subordinationism, and it places the problem of
language entirely within thought.” 74
Even though the Church Fathers eventually concentrated on the inner word, as opposed to the
outer, spoken word, as the solution to their theological problem, Gadamer is still able to derive
from here the union of thought and language. Although not an “expressive event”, the inner
word remains related to its possible utterance. When the object is conceived by the intellect the
inner word is the process of “thinking through the end.” Thus, “it is not utterance, but
thought.” 75 Because of our finite understanding the human thought passes from one thing to
another, that is, a mental process is involved. “As the word is never a single word but a
sequence, so thought is not intuitive but discursive.” 76 Although Gadamer sees “the particular
difficulty of enlisting the aid of scholastic thinking“ 77 for working out the problem of language,
since the Christian understanding of the word as rendered by the Church Fathers approached
once again the Greek concept of logos, thanks to Aristotle’s influence, he is able to draw from
their interpretation both inspiration and, at the same time, validation of his idea of the truth-
revealing quality of discourse.
74 Gadamer, 419.
75 Gadamer, 422.
77 Gadamer, 421.

Weinsheimer draws a parallel between the union of the Father and Son within the Trinity and
the unity of thought and language that Gadamer proposes: “When the church fathers affirmed
the Trinity and rejected the doctrine that the Son was subordinate to the Father, they denied the
subordination of the word to what it reveals, and Gadamer (in contrast to Plato) denies this as
well. It is the union of Father and Son that the theologians maintain, just as Gadamer maintains
the union of thought and language.” 78
So to conclude, Gadamer affirms that our modern perception of language as separated from
thought was prompted by Plato’s discussion in the Cratylus. By contrast, the understanding of
language implied in the Christian doctrine of the incarnation is more “hermeneutical” in its
nature. Contrary to what Weinsheimer calls the “iconic theory of language”, namely Cratylus’
resemblance theory, the Orthodox icon is not to be comprehended in an instrumental way. If it
is understood as a tool, we part from its orthodox interpretation. The icon is best
comprehended in a hermeneutical way that does not break the union between thought and
language and is consistent with the doctrine of the incarnation.

3 The Hermeneutics of Orthodox Church
Architecture
Figure 3- Stavropoleos Church, Bucharest, Romania, 2009
The Hermeneutics of Orthodox Church Architecture 52

3.1 The Church as an Icon
“The icon, for the Byzantines, is a complete expression of the Tradition, a

proclamation of the incarnation of God and the deification of man.” 79
“Perhaps the church made with hands has been given to us wisely for the soul’s
sake, because by the complexity of the sacred things in it, it is meant to be a
symbolic pattern for the soul, for our guidance to the higher state.”80
The most important text at the foundation of Orthodox Church architecture is the Mystagogia of
St. Maximus the Confessor (580-662). In Mystagogia, which can be literally translated as The
Teaching of the Mysteries, St. Maximus introduces an elaborate iconographic system, which is
meant to render visible, in Maximus' own words, the work of God in us, through His Holy
Church. 81 St. Maximus is basing his work on an apparent division of being, only to show how
the division is overcome in the process.
The book addresses three main topics. The first one is the church, as both “divine/human
institution” and building. The second one is the Divine Liturgy, the same liturgy that the
Orthodox Church celebrates today. The third one is the soul, or, more specifically, how the
79 Perl, 46.
80 Maximus, the Confessor, Saint. The church, the liturgy, and the soul of man: the Mystagogia of St. Maximus
the Confessor. Translated with historical note and commentaries by Dom Julian Stead, St. Bede's
Publications, Still River, Massachusetts, 1982.
81 Maximus, the Confessor, 66.

movement of the liturgy provides an interpretation of the movement of the individual soul
towards God. Although the three topics are intimately related, we will mainly follow Maximus'
teaching about the church and its different parts, in line with our inquiry about the
fundamentals of church architecture.
St. Maximus starts by presenting a series of ways in which the church can be seen as having a
multifaceted symbolism, or, more appropriately, iconography. The “doctrine” behind church
iconography was made explicit after the iconoclastic controversy, back in the ninth century. He
first interprets the Church, both as a world-wide community and a building, as (1) an icon of
God, since both bring about union. People very different from each other, "in race and
appearance", "of all languages, lifestyles, and ages," "of great differences in their mentalities,
customs, their social station, their skills, and their professions", "their fortunes, their characters
and their abilities" come together through faith. The church does not allow the differences to
stand out, but "softens" the diversity in them, and unifies them. Subsequently, the church is
said to be (2) an icon of “the whole visible and invisible universe” 82 or cosmos, for the division
of the church into sanctuary and nave (or clergy and laity) can be seen as corresponding to the
division of the cosmos into the invisible and the visible. But this differentiation of its parts does
not break the unity of the church. Nave and sanctuary are separated by being related. Each
part exists for the other. Similarly, the spiritual world and the world of the senses are strongly
82 Maximus, the Confessor, 68.

related. Yet again, (3) “the church is an icon of the material world” 83, the distinction between
sanctuary and nave being reflected in the distinction between heaven and earth. Furthermore,
Maximus talks about (4) the church as an icon of man, with the soul being an analogy for the
sanctuary, the mind for the altar within the sanctuary, and the body for the nave. Conversely,
the human being is an icon of the church. This is followed by an interpretation of (5) the church
as an icon of the soul considered in itself and of a parallel between (6) the Holy Scripture and
the human person: body/soul corresponds to Old/New Testament (The New being the inner
reality of the Old), and also to text/meaning (the meaning being the inner reality of the text).
Maximus continues after that with drawing parallels between what he calls three human
beings: the cosmos, the Holy Scripture, and the human being “who is ourselves”.
According to Andrew Louth, in his commentary on Maximus the Confessor, "these divisions
are not oppositions, for one term always stands higher than the other: the visible world points
to the invisible world and in a way adumbrates it, similarly the nave/sanctuary, or body/soul, or
Old/New Testament, or Scripture/meaning." Neither are they "separations", "but
representations of a tension, a tension which draws onwards and upwards – towards the final
consummation." 84
“By holy communion of the spotless and life-giving mysteries we are given
fellowship and identity with him by participation in likeness, by which man is
deemed worthy from man to become God. For we believe that in this present life
we already have a share in these gifts of the Holy Spirit through the love that is
in faith, and in the future age after we have kept the commandments to the best
83 Maximus the Confessor, 71.

84 Louth, Andrew. Maximus the Confessor. Routledge, London and New York. 1996, 76.

of our ability we believe that we shall have a share in them in very truth in their
concrete reality according to the steadfast hope of our faith and the solid and
unchangeable promise to which God has committed himself. Then we shall pass
from the grace which is in faith to the grace of vision, when our God and Savior
Jesus Christ shall indeed transform us into himself by taking away from us the
marks of corruption and bestow on us the original mysteries which have been
represented for us through sensible symbols here below.”
We can sense that the nature of these symbols is different from their normal meaning. The
“symbols” are not separated from what they “represent”, but take part in what they
“represent.” Therefore, they are not symbols, but icons. All the divisions we have seen set up a
series of echoing correspondences. Each division is interpreted through the others. It is a
circular movement, but subordinated to the movement from nave to sanctuary, from earth to
heaven. The divisions cease to separate and fragment, and become a kind of ladder. This
ladder “heals” the divisions. 85 The liturgy enables the participant to realize the healing power
of divine grace. The divisions are not dissolved but come to represent the richness and
diversity of God’s creation. Louth continues:
“The movement between God and humankind in the Incarnation, the ascetic struggle leading
to contemplation as a healing of divisions within the human person and the cosmos, the liturgy
as the celebration of the mutual encounter between divine self-emptying and human
deification: these are the themes Maximus draws together in his vision of the cosmic liturgy
that is the reality of the humblest celebration of the divine liturgy." 86
85 Louth, 77.
86 Louth, 77.

3.2 The Theological Concept of Incarnation
“At the heart of all Byzantine theology are the words of Saint John the
Theologian: ‘The Word became flesh,’ that is God became man.” 87
“Divinity and humanity are united in him, in the words of the council, 88
‘without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.’” 89
“We needed an incarnate God, a God put to death, that we might live.” 90
For the Orthodox Church, the icon is a proclamation of the incarnation of God, a full expression
of the sacred tradition 91. One of the liturgical hymns celebrating the restoration of the icons in
the feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy says: “The uncircumscribed Word of the Father became
circumscribed, taking flesh from thee, O Theotokos, and He has restored the sullied image to its
ancient glory, filling it with divine beauty. This, our salvation we confess in deed and word,
and we depict it in the holy images.” 92
For the Byzantines in their day, as well as for the Orthodox Church today, the icons are not only
permissible but necessary. The Seventh Ecumenical Council of Nicaea plainly says “we define
with all precision and diligence that, like the figure of the precious and life-giving Cross, the
reverend and holy images are to be set up, made out of pigments and tesserae and other
87 Perl, 40.
88 The Fourth Ecumenical Council met in 451.
89 Perl, 43.
90 Gregory the Theologian, Saint. In Perl, 44.
91 In orthodox theology, tradition is capitalized when it means sacred Tradition, the source of all truth and
authority in the church, even of the Gospels –in contrast with the Protestant confessions where the
Gospels have the ultimate authority.
92 The Lenten Triodion. Translated by Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos. Ware, London, 1978, 306.

appropriate material, in the holy churches of God, on the sacred vessels and vestments, on walls
and on panels, in houses and on the ways: the image of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus
Christ, of our immaculate Lady, the Holy Theotokos, of the honorable angels, and of saints and
holy men.” 93
One of the great defenders of the icons during iconoclasm, Saint John of Damascus, explains
why icons are a profound statement of the faith of the Church and of the incarnation, in contrast
with the interdiction of images in the Old Testament: “Of old God, the incorporeal and
shapeless could in no way be imaged. But now, when God is seen in the flesh and converses
with men, I image what is seen of God. I do not worship matter; I worship the Creator of
matter, who for my sake became matter, and accepted to dwell in matter, and through matter
effected my salvation; and I will not cease to honor the matter through which my salvation is
effected. … Although the body of God is God, having become, without change, by union in
person, that which anoints it, it still remains what it was, flesh ensouled with a rational and
intellectual soul, made, not uncreated.” 94
And yet again, arguing for the icons against the iconoclasts, with the support of the incarnation,
Saint John of Damascus says: “How could the invisible be imaged? How could there be a
likeness of that to which none is like? How could the bodiless be painted? ... It is clear that,
when you see the bodiless become man for your sake, then you will make a picture of his
human shape. When the invisible becomes visible in the flesh, then you will image the likeness
93 Denzinger H. and A. Schonmetzer. Enchiridion symbolorum. 36th ed. Freiburg, 1976, 600, 201.
94 John of Damascus, Saint. De imaginibus I.16, PG 94, col. 1246A-B. In Perl, 45.

of what is seen. When the bodiless and shapeless, unquantified and measureless and
immeasurable in the excellence of his nature, being in the form of God, taking the form of a
servant, contracts in it into quantity and measure, and puts on the character of a body: then
inscribe it on a panel, and set up for seeing, the one who accepted to be seen.” 95
The use of icons might appear at first to be a matter of religious practice rather than a central
doctrinal problem, but for the Byzantines, and the Orthodox Church, doctrine and practice are
inseparable. Icons as full expressions of the incarnation are central to Orthodox theological
thought. The centrality of icons goes back to the words of Saint John the Theologian: “In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God. … And the
Word became flesh, and dwelt among us. … ; we have beheld his glory… .” 96 The ultimate
purpose of the “word becoming flesh,” or the incarnation, is the deification of man: “He
became man in order that we might become God.” 97 Therefore anything that might make it
unattainable for man to become God should be discarded as false, or as an altered form of the
faith. The ultimate purpose of theology is to maintain the possibility of man’s becoming God
through God’s becoming man. Incarnation does not imply that God the Son unites with a man,
but rather that God becomes man so that human nature can become God. Being an image of the
material body which is God the icon Christ, and therefore all icons, affirm the deification of
man. A rejection of the icons would mean a denial of the entire Orthodox tradition and a
negation of salvation. This is why during the period of Iconoclasm the Byzantines were willing
to die rather than to agree to the imperial policy of the destruction of the icons.
95 John of Damascus, Saint. De Imaginibus I.8, PG 94, cols. 1237D-1240A. in Perl, 44-45.
96 John the Theologian, Saint. The Gospel according to John 1:1, 14, King James Bible.
97 Athanasios, Saint. (ca.580-662). De Incarnatione. Robert W. Thomson (ed). Oxford, 1971, 54, 268.

The revelation implied in the doctrine of incarnation and the resulting status of the icon is not
mere information that God gives to the faithful or only statements about himself that we
couldn’t find some other way, but rather God’s way of revealing himself to us: “And since the
revelation of God is the presence of God, to know God by that revelation is to enter into
communion with him, to be deified. This is why, for the Byzantines, an icon is the actual
presence of the person it depicts. When the Byzantines set up icons, in their churches, homes,
and elsewhere, it was not in order to have representations of a person who was absent, who
was not there. On the contrary, an image is an image precisely because it bears its archetype in
itself, so that a Byzantine icon is not merely a picture but a power.” 98 In the words of Saint John
of Damascus: “If he who is imaged is filled with grace, the materials [wood, paint, mosaic,
tesserae, etc.] become participants of grace in proportion to his faith.” 99
Moreover, the above transformation of man and the world, that is the result of the incarnation,
and finds its expression in the use of icons, is only realized in the context of a liturgical life, in
the celebration of the sacraments and especially in the Holy Eucharist. The icons are part of this
ongoing activity that is the Orthodox Liturgy. To make a parallel with the previous chapter one
might say that the liturgy is the ongoing “speech” of the Church, the place of the Truth within
the Church. The liturgy is the true place of the icons, the place where they work as icons, in the
same way words are capable of truth only in speech, as Gadamer 100 puts it.
98 Perl, 48.
99 John of Damascus, Saint. On the Divine Images. I, 36. In Perl, 48.
100 Gadamer, 412.

The liturgy is much more important than written theology. Theology is not a separate science
but a part of prayer and as such it is already a component of the liturgy. Most Byzantine and
Orthodox theological treatises cite liturgical hymns, and statements made in theological
treatises are taken up in liturgical poetry. In this context theology is a liturgical act. Moreover,
the liturgy is not “a mere memorial of a past history”, but the participation here and now in the
First and the Second Coming of Christ: past, present, and future unified. The liturgy not only
commemorates or educates about deification but makes available the union with God now, in
this life, today. The Church alive in the liturgy is the world unified and filled with God. The
church building is the icon of the celebrating church, where all come together in the liturgy to
be unified with God. All the aspects of the liturgy, the architecture of the church, the
iconography, the liturgical movements, the lights, the gold and silver implements and all
decoration are to be thought of together as the incarnation of the liturgy. Numerous accounts
describe the first experience of Orthodox church interiors and liturgy as an overwhelming
appeal to all the senses: “we must think of the church not as silent and still, but rather alive,
with the priests moving about in procession clad in brightly embroidered vestments, as the
sweet-smelling incense goes up in clouds before the image of God and the singers chant the
splendid Byzantine hymns. In the Byzantine liturgy, nothing is left as an abstract idea. All
truth is incarnate and made flesh. There is no idea without a concrete, visible, audible, tangible
expression. And conversely, all the objects of the senses are filled with meaning, that is, with
light. Thus everything becomes icon, the manifestation, the presence of God. In the liturgy all
is transfigured.” 101 Or, as Saint Dionysios the Areopagite 102 says: “The sacrament of the divine
101 Perl, 54.

102 Also known as Pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite.

synaxis 103… is multiplied in love for man into the sacred variety of the symbols, and embraces
even all the hierarchical iconography, but in a unified manner gathers from these again into its
own singularity and makes one those who are sacredly led up to it.” 104
The concept of incarnation was unprecedented in the ‘ancient world’, that of the Old Testament
and of the Hellenistic culture (including Egypt, Greek classical culture and philosophy, etc.),
which operated with a fundamental, seemingly unsurpassable, division of Being. Man and
mankind were irremediably separated from the Gods and the Heavens. For the Hebrews of the
Old Testament even the righteous had no access to heaven when they died. Plato’s Myth of the
Cave, which is still at the heart of western culture and metaphysics, introduced new divisions:
the light of the sun in opposition with the shadows of the cave, to speak only of the extremes,
but does not deal with the fundamentals of ‘the Being question’. It only answers what Being is
by making new divisions among beings, and finds virtue in rejecting some of them [the
appearances] for others [ideas, forms]. This quest for explicit and expressible answers and
fundamental affirmations, implicit in the western tradition starting with Plato, is ”the dream of
the human controlled ‘logos’.”
Christianity brought a fundamental, ontological change to this picture. Christianity, in the
Apostolic and Patristic tradition, introduced a radical questioning and a new horizon for ‘the
Being question’. Because the ontological division of Being was convincingly breached in the
The assembly for the Eucharist.

103
Dionysios the Areopagite, Saint. De Ecclesiastica Hierarchia, in Corpus Dionysiacum, II, III.3, 82-83. In
104
Perl, 54.

concept of incarnation – God became man – [not because of a human cause or virtue but as a
gift of love from God] a whole new horizon for the understanding of the Being question was
put into place, an entirely different world emerged, a different ontological setting was to be
lived, and even thought of and expressed so that the ‘old man’ could understand it in all its
implications. Because the incarnation goes beyond human knowledge and it is adequately
grasped only by love, and a certain kind of faith, it is not as if the question was answered. In a
certain sense the incarnation is possible to be ‘seen’ only somehow beyond human knowledge
and control, in the realm of love and ‘true faith’. If someone would take the incarnation as a
premise for thinking, as a certainty on which human knowledge is possible, then it would have
already missed it. Human affirmations and answers cannot ‘hold’ on to and control the Logos,
just explicitly and correctly ask about it; it is a world of ‘prologos’, of the tacit, of the silence of
mind.

Conclusion- Tradition as Ongoing Conversation
Figure 4- Interior of Stavropoleos Church, Bucharest, Romania, 2009
Conclusion 64
“Historical tradition can be understood only as something always in the

process of being defined by the course of events.” 105
“In the Byzantine setting, theology was above all the work of expressing,
defending, and preserving Tradition. Its fundamental task was to keep the
faith of the Church the same in all times. No Byzantine theologian sought, or
claimed to seek, originality.” 106
The ‘Orthodox world’ was more careful in preserving the church tradition than its western
counterpart. The preservation of tradition, however, should not be understood as conservatism.
According to Andrew Louth, ”Orthodoxy is not conservative it is just radical”.
More often in the course of its history, however, the overwhelming authority of the Orthodox
tradition was wrongly understood, and its duty to constantly reinterpret and integrate all
possible human worlds (as it did with the Hellenistic and Roman worlds) within it, had been
forgotten. This stopping of the flow of interpretation and reinterpretation had historical
reasons, the most significant being the fall of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine
Empire. The Orthodox tradition must start reinterpreting everything again, within the new
‘modern world’, and with the power of its ontological radicalism.
105 Gadamer, 366.

106 Perl, 39.
Conclusion 65
Another reason why it is so difficult to grasp the Orthodox concept of tradition, and its radical
ontology, is the fact that the Greek Fathers of the Church have used the vocabulary and
concepts of classical Greek philosophy to express themselves. An untrained eye, looking at the
concepts that are used cannot easily feel the different kinds of uses and different paideia at work
in the Fathers, as compared with classical Greek philosophers. This is the reason why, with
little formal justification, the Christian patristic theology was sometimes labeled as a neo-
platonic vision of the world.
We can conclude that this stopping of the flow of the Orthodox tradition is what plagues the
understanding and design of Orthodox Church architecture today. The confusion starts when
one thinks that excluding time and forcing things to stay into presence, in order that they might
be comprehensible and ultimately controlled, is the way of being faithful to the tradition.
Instead, the way to more fruitfully understand tradition (Uberlieferung) is, as Gadamer puts it,
like “ongoing conversation”, the active interpretative involvement in what we take over from
the past more or less tacitly. 107
107 Gadamer, xvi.
Conclusion 66
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UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

Student Signature: Tudor Rebengiuc

This work and its defense approved by:

David Saile, PhD

A Thesis submitted to the

In partial fulfillment of the

MASTER of SCIENCE in ARCHITECTURE

In the School of Architecture and Interior Design

Bachelor of Architecture, “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urban

Orthodox Church tradition.

dependent to a large extent on a modern, instrumental understanding of language, basic to

on the hermeneutics of Hans Georg Gadamer. Hermeneutics questions the philosophy of

Orthodox Church Architecture, Byzantium, Hans-Georg Gadamer, hermeneutics,

language, sign, symbol, icon, liturgical arts

emulate in this thesis.

support I would be lost.

are always there for me.

Abstract ________________________________________________________ iii

2 The Iconic Language ___________________________________________ 13

3 The Hermeneutics of Orthodox Church Architecture ______________ 52

Conclusion- Tradition as Ongoing Conversation ____________________ 64

Luke 9:33, King James Bible

Figure 1- Interior of Stavropoleos Church, Bucharest, Romania, 2009

1.1 Problem Statement

Byzantine architecture in general, have elicited words as “Heaven on earth” 1 or “Monuments of

unageing intellect” 2, the Post-Byzantine building tradition of Orthodox Churches is largely

ignored and considered to have no theoretical impact or practical significance on the

contemporary architectural environment. Following the resurgence of the institutions and

building tradition has led to.

Simon & Schuster, New York, 1996.

known precursor, Byzantine architecture, and elaborating on national characteristics, while

theologically, through Western Christianity, and architecturally, through applying,

draw attention to the theoretical background of Orthodox Church architecture and,

Post-Byzantine Orthodox architecture as a whole. Christos Yannaras, a contemporary Greek

interpretation of Orthodox church architecture” 3.

unified vision that attempts to replace the concept of “sacred space.” 4

philosophy of Martin Heidegger than to “modernity” or the “western scholastic and

different kinds of being in the world.

contemporary architectural discourse which are so much infused, theoretically as well as

visually, with the assumptions of modern architecture.

Gadamer (1900-2002) is a German philosopher known for developing the concept of

“philosophical hermeneutics,” anticipated by Martin Heidegger. According to Gadamer,

hermeneutics is the philosophical analysis of what is involved in every act of understanding or

effected consciousness” (wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewußtsein), meaning they are embedded in the

opposed to a mere transportation in a horizon alien to us 6. Gadamer points out that

it to be. Hermeneutics is equally relevant to history as it is to science. 7

1.3 Research objectives– scope and limitations

design by contributing to a richer understanding of its theoretical background. Thus, it aspires

Orthodox Church architecture.

which this background can be better understood.

on the implications of this renewed understanding.

philosophical background of Orthodox Church architecture is so complex, withstanding almost

exploring how the hermeneutical perspective, as formulated by Gadamer, can contribute to a

fruitful interpretation of Orthodox Church architecture.

and finally an icon of the soul of the human being.

symbiotic relationship, in which the image is an essential part of what it represents, an

alongside other pictures, in an indistinct order.

prevalent conception holds language to be a mere instrument through which thought is

thought, incarnation is, for Gadamer, a return to the word.

understanding of language previously established by Greek philosophy. From this new

emphasis on the unity between thought and language.

Considering Gadamer’s conclusion regarding the discursiveness of thought that he takes on

1.4 Thematic Structuring