THE HOLY TRINITY

Henry Evans

This article is a shortened version of a meditation which I gave at this year’s Summer School on the famous ikon of the Holy Trinity painted by Andrei Rublev, the Russian Orthodox monk, for the monastic church at Zagorsk, in about 1422.  I would like to acknowledge my own indebtedness to some thoughts on the ikon by William Lazareth of the Bossey Ecumenical Institute. 

Ikons are primarily aids to devotion: they are windows into God. If you pray better by visual image, rather than words, then ikons are probably for you. The Orthodox stand  motionless – just looking, and if the Spirit blesses you – you’re through the surface of the ikon to the glory beyond.

Rublev’s  ‘Trinity’ is perhaps the most famous of many ikons on this theme from the sixth century onwards. Orthodox theologians were looking for glimpses of the Holy Trinity in the Old Testament and they lighted upon the strange passage in Genesis 18. It describes a visit by three angels to Abraham who was sitting at the door of his tent near the oaks of Mamre in the heat of the day. The old patriarch bows himself to the earth and says, ‘My Lord (in the singular), if I have found favour in your sight, do not pass by your servant’. Early readers of the text were very taken by the shift from the plural to the singular. We know now

that the shift is because of a confusion between two versions of the tale, but they thought it was very significant theologically. The Lord/angels accept Abraham’s offer of hospitality; cakes are baked by Sarah, Abraham’s wife, a calf is slaughtered and the angels sit down to eat. The Orthodox liturgical commentary on this passage reads, “Blessed Abraham, thou has seen and received the One and Triune Godhead”.

Looking, then, at the Ikon, in the background to the left we see Abraham’s tent, and behind the central figure is ‘the oak of Mamre’, but Abraham and Sarah are not to be seen. They are, in fact, gazing like us, at the three figures which represent the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. There has been for centuries a discussion as to Who is Who, but I favour the view the central figure is Christ, since (for one reason) the painting was done for the place in the Church where the figure of Christ is usually put. I suggest the Father is on our left – notice the hand raised in sending forth, and the Spirit is on our right.

Notice the extraordinarily beautiful pattern of the ikon. It expresses the ‘round dance’ of the Blessed Trinity – the eternal movement of Love between the Three Persons into whom (like Abraham and Sarah) we too are drawn with bonds of love. Through lines and colour, the ikon conveys the glory of the Living God. Blue is the traditional colour in ikons for divinity: all three figures have blue somewhere. The gold of the haloes symbolises their holiness, and the royal sceptres (you can just make them out) stand for the Lordship of the Three. And yet they are all different – by their attitudes and relationships to the other two and by the colours given to each. Lazareth writes, “Similarity and difference; rest and movement, youth and maturity, joy and compassion, restraint and pity; eternity and history – these all come together. There is no separation or confusion or subordination of the Persons’.

The figures of the Son (centre) and the Holy Spirit (right) are turned to the Father who is the Source of their life, and whom they call ‘Abba’. The Father exists to give life eternally to the Son and to the Spirit. The Son and the Spirit are living because they give themselves in turn to the Father. Each Person lives only for the Others: none can be thought of in isolation from the two Others. Each lives the life of the Others and gives Himself totally to the Others in such a way that each of the persons of the Trinity is in the Others. The Biblical background of this is, of course, John 17 (Moltman says somewhere about the Rublev Trinity – ‘People arrive at their own truths only in their free and loving inclination towards one another’)

This outpouring of love involves, as we know, the world. Here is pictured the heartbeat of the universe: the Divine Love flows out in creation and salvation. We see this by the centrality of the cup of Crucified Love – all the eyes are upon it, and they are eyes of tenderness and compassion. Not only the eyes, but the hands point towards the cup. The Father, clothed in glazed gold on the left is the One taking the initiative – his right hand is both giving and sending. ‘God so loved the world that he gave’(John 3.16). The Father sends the Son and the Holy Spirit into the created world so that the universe can be involved in the Divine Life, hence the green robe of the Holy Spirit (the Giver of Life) and also in the tree. The blood red robe of the Son reminds us of His assuming our human form with His Body and Blood offered in the Eucharist. The golden stole of the Son reminds us that for all eternity Christ is our High priest. In the Ikon, the Son’s Figure stands out because He became near to us, one with us.

Let’s return to the cup, which is the focus of attention. In the original Ikon, in the chalice is the barely visible head of the calf sacrificed by Abraham in honour of his three angel visitors. Self-giving signified sacrifice: it is the outpouring of Love for ever encapsulated in the Eucharist – “This is my Body: this is my Blood’. The sacrificial element is emphasized by the table which is, unmistakably, an orthodox square, stone altar.

I presume to suggest that the Ikon is here suggesting two things:-

 a)  God the Holy Trinity takes the responsibility for all the consequences of the act of creation. The Sacrifice of Jesus did not begin at Bethlehem or at Calvary but has its origin in the timeless life of the Trinity. As someone has written:  ‘There was a Cross in the heart of God before there was one planted outside Jerusalem.’ God the Holy Trinity’s act of creation was already in itself sacrificial. One is reminded of the evocative image in the Revelation of S.John the Divine of  ‘the Lamb which was slain from the foundation of the world’ (Rev.13.8)

b)  The cup of sacrifice reminds us of the Eucharist which represents and makes present and effective that Sacrifice which is at the heart of the universe: the Sacrifice made ‘once and for all,’ but eternally available. Here is the ‘Nerve of the universe’, or to change the metaphor, there is, at the Heart of things, a cosmic Dynamo of Love which we ‘connect up with’ each time the Eucharist is celebrated. This is surely why copies of Van Eyck’s great triptych ‘The Adoration of the lamb’ is to be found in thousands of church vestries. That, too, is a meditation in colour on the same theme as Rublev’s Ikon. They are both trying to portray in form and colour the ultimate Mystery which the Athanasian Creed (The ‘Quinque Vult’ of the Book of Common Prayer) is attempting to describe in words.

I know which kind of description I prefer!

Let the last words be those of Bishop Thomas Ken- ‘Blessing and honour, thanksgiving and praise more than we can utter be unto thee, O most adorable Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost by all angels, all men, all creatures for ever and ever.’