My first Icon, St. Columba, sat on a shelf in the living room unfinished for several months. No matter how I tried to bring closure to this icon, I never felt, down deep, that it was complete. Then, in one burst of inspiration, I added a number of features I thought necessary and finally sensed I was finished on November 23, 2010.I had already given some thought to my next icon, and had begun to research and ruminate about St. Thomas - after all, I was named after the Apostle, and was born on his traditional feast day. It was a logical choice for me...but it was "my" logical choice...and not meant to be.
As so often happened to me during this process, I was not at peace with that decision. Then, out of the blue, I was struck with an urgency to paint St. Clement of Rome instead. This thought occurred to me constantly in the week I was finishing the St. Columba icon. Once I realized that November 23, the day on which I completed that icon, was the western Church's traditional Feast Day for St. Clement...well, there was no further question in my mind: St. Clement will be my next effort.
Ironically - or perhaps not - St. Clement's Episcopal Church in Baldwin Harbor, NY, is the church I was raised in. The picture above is how it looks today (as currently owned by another denomination.) But since its construction, St. Clement's was known locally as "The Fisherman's Church," as it was located on a canal off of Milburn Creek. As a child, I can remember the interior very vividly: varnished marine wood was used in the sanctuary. A Ship's Lantern hung from the ceiling. Like a traditional medieval rood screen, a fisherman's net separated the sanctuary from the pews. And in the rear of the church hung an anchor rather than a standard cross. I served as altar boy in that church, the same place where my parents were married.
The church survived a devastating fire and regular flooding. At least once I arrived at church in a boat, as this area of Baldwin flooded simply becuase there was a full moon. But while the church survived fire and floods, it could not survive Diocesan finances, and it closed when I was about 13 years old.
Doing a quick google search to find pictures of the old St. Clement's, I found many churches named after St. Clement around the country, and many of them located in seaside locations. And for good reason.
St. Clement (or "Clemens Romanus," his Latin name) was one of the first Apostolic Fathers of the Church. A contemporary of both Peter and Paul, he is listed as one of the first Bishops of Rome. He wrote the letter commonly called "First Clement" (though more properly known as "The Letter from the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth), as early as 96 AD. His letter is an attempt to call for peace and order in the Corinthian Church, which had recently seen controversy when some young members replaced some of that church's elders. His letter was so much a part of the early Christian Church that it was read in many churches and considered by them to be Scripture. The Roman church included him by name in their earliest liturgies.
By the 300s, the most common story about his death was that he was exiled by the Roman Emperor Trajan to hard labor in a stone quarry near the Black Sea. According to the story, Clement saw a vision of a lamb on some rocks. He struck that site with his pick axe and water gushed forth, providing drink to other parched quarry slaves, who were converted as a result. Incensed by his success, he was martyred by the Roman officials by being thrown into the Black Sea with an anchor tied around his neck...hence, the strong connection between Clement and churches near the ocean.
In considering the symbols and elements to include in an icon, it is important to me to include a 'sense of place' for the subject. As a Roman church leader who emphasized 'order and stability' in his letter, I am leaning towards the having the outside 'frame' of the icon resemble an orderly, patterned Roman tile mosaic motif. Because Clement was a Bishop, he will wear a Pallium, or 'stole,' the symbol of a bishop. But instead of simple crosses on that Pallium, I will use Anchors...anchors that bring to mind both the story that has grown out of his exile and death, but also as a symbol of his steadfastness in the early Church undergoing persecution.
No comments:
Post a Comment