The icon in at the front of St. Nicholas church was commissioned for the parish by the Musial family and painted in Greece by Mr. George Tsantilas, an internationally recognized iconographer. The blessing and presentation of the icon took place on Thanksgiving Sunday, 2006. The icon is a modern rendering of the world-renowned 13th Century Mosaic, “Christos Pantokrator (Christ the Almighty)” at St. Sophia Church, in Constantinople (pictured below).
Christos Pantokrator (Christ The
Almighty)
St.
Sophia Church, Constantinople
Mosaic,
13th Century
The
Theology
The icon of Christ, God-man,
is the graphical expression of the Dogma of Chalcedon. The
Council of Chalcedon (4th Ecumenical Council in A.D. 451)
affirms the two natures of Christ being present in one and
the same person. The icon represents the incarnated divine
person, the Son of God who became Son of man,
consubstantial with the Father through his divinity,
consubstantial with us through his humanity. Christ unified
these two aspects in his life:
“Christ, who, though
he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking
the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And
being found in human form, he humbled himself and became
obedient to the point of death— even death on a
cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him
the name that is above every name, so that at the name of
Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and
under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father." (Philippians. 2, 6-11)