The Saint Euphrosynos Cafe

HieromonkIrineos wrote:

Justice wrote:

This is a mosaic of Pope St. John VII. this must have been more commonplace back then though this is the only example I've seen so far. I would like to go slightly off topic here, The article posted suggests that the halo has pagan roots, do you believe this? the author says that the only mention of a halo in the bible could be when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai where he's described as being surrounded by rays of light.

I think the current obsession with labeling everything as pagan in origin is a deformation of the faith and betrays a weak incarnational theology. Altars have pagan roots. Should we remove those from our churches? The halo has a clear meaning in our iconography. Past Pagan usage (if in fact it is true and not Hislopian fantasy) doesn’t change that.

+1

Loved "Hislopian". I'd also like to suggest "Masseyan" or "Dan-Brownish".

I do agree about the ridiculous tarring of things as 'pagan'. Though it seems to me that this has been going on for a thousand or more years ?

What does it matter anyway ? If things such as altars, as Fr Irineos pointed out, are working well for the Church, then why is important about labeling the origin ?
To me, that would have made sense maybe about the year 200 AD when the Church was consolidating herself and organizing.

But today ? Most people don't spend much time decrying pagan influence on this or that. There are too many pressing problems facing the Church world.

About the halo having been present in pre-Christian art and sculture, that must be in fact true. Justice, have you seen any examples ? I think I remember some, but have to look them up.

Barbara wrote:

I do agree about the ridiculous tarring of things as 'pagan'. Though it seems to me that this has been going on for a thousand or more years ?

What does it matter anyway ? If things such as altars, as Fr Irineos pointed out, are working well for the Church, then why is important about labeling the origin ?
To me, that would have made sense maybe about the year 200 AD when the Church was consolidating herself and organizing.

But today ? Most people don't spend much time decrying pagan influence on this or that. There are too many pressing problems facing the Church world.

About the halo having been present in pre-Christian art and sculture, that must be in fact true. Justice, have you seen any examples ? I think I remember some, but have to look them up.

Halos are represented in Buddhism to this day around their pagan statues. Though I assume you mean Greek and Roman art.

Here's a good example of the pagan deity Neptune: