The Icon of Pentecost

This book is an English translation of Father Nicholas Ozoline's French doctoral thesis (la Sorbonne, Paris, 1985) on the icon of Pentecost. It is not an explanation of the theological meaning of the icon, as we have it today. There are already many good studies that accomplish this task. Fr. Nicholas's study delves rather into the history of the form of the Pentecost icon. After all, Christian art has existed for centuries, and the forms we know today are not necessarily those that have always existed in the past. Christian iconography today is, therefore, the result of changes and developments from past ages. Fr. Nicholas examines the long history of those changes and developments in relation to the way Christians have represented the feast of Pentecost. Did they create totally new forms or adopt and adapt already existing ones borrowed from the cultures they lived in at any particular period? Fr. Nicholas stresses that representations of New Testament events follow and derive from the liturgical celebration of those events. Here too, there is a long history of changes and developments, but the liturgical celebration of Pentecost, for example, and the iconographic representation of that event are inseparably linked in history, as are icons and liturgical celebrations today. So, this study is as much one of liturgy as of iconography. Another remarkable element of Fr. Nicholas's study is found in the album of images he has added to the written word: nearly 100 colored images (the ebook) highlight the text and illustrate the various points of his thesis. This most interesting historical story of these two intertwining realities—word and image, icon and liturgy—is for the reader to discover and enjoy.