How Angels Are Depicted

The angel is one of the most recognizable figures in Orthodox iconography, and its form is a language: wings for bodiless swiftness, a staff for the messenger’s office, a mirror-sphere for the contemplation of God, the ever-youthful beardless face for the incorruption of a bodiless being, and the streaming ribbons in the hair — the “hearing bands” — for the angels’ rapt attention to God. This file reads that grammar and its meanings, treats the three angels of the Trinity/Hospitality icon, and distinguishes the two great images of Michael — the armored Chief Commander and the archangel in a deacon’s vestments — deferring the fuller theology of the image to the Holy Icons collection.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

Depicting the Bodiless

There is a paradox at the root of angel iconography: how does one depict a bodiless being? The Orthodox answer is the one the seventh Ecumenical Council gave for the whole theology of the image — that the angels are depicted not because they have bodies but because they have appeared to human beings in forms the Scriptures record, and because the image serves the honor and remembrance of the one depicted (Second Council of Nicaea, 787; and see Holy Icons). The angel is shown in a human form because that is the form in which angels appeared to Abraham, to the prophets, to the myrrh-bearing women — but the form is treated symbolically, its every feature bent to signify the angelic nature rather than to portray a body the angel does not have (Ouspensky and Lossky, The Meaning of Icons, SVS Press, 1982, on the depiction of the angels). The result is a figure at once human and unearthly: a young man, winged, robed, bearing emblems, whose very features declare that he is not of this world.

The Grammar of the Angel-Image

Wings. The angel’s wings are the most immediate sign. They do not mean the angel flies as a bird; they signify the bodiless swiftness of a spirit that is present wherever it is sent, the height of its nature, and its heavenly origin — the creature that stands before God and is “sent forth to minister” (Hebrews 1:14). The wings mark the figure at once as belonging to the invisible creation (Ouspensky and Lossky, 1982).

The staff (or measuring rod). Angels are very often shown bearing a slender staff or wand. It is the emblem of the messenger — the traveler’s and herald’s staff — signifying that the angel is a sent one, an ambassador bearing the authority of the One who sends him (the word angelos means “messenger”; see The Bodiless Nature). The staff marks the angel’s office rather than its nature.

The mirror-sphere. In many icons the angel holds a translucent orb or disk — often shown as a clear sphere, sometimes bearing the monogram of Christ (IC XC) or a cross. This “mirror” or sphere is read as the emblem of contemplation: the angel gazes ceaselessly upon God and holds, as in a mirror, the reflected light and knowledge of the Divine that it receives and passes on; the sphere can also signify the created cosmos over which the angelic ranks minister, or the foreknowledge of God’s providence disclosed to the angels (Ouspensky and Lossky, 1982, on the sphere/mirror). Whichever nuance, it points to the angel as a being turned wholly toward God, receiving and transmitting the divine light — the very definition of the Dionysian hierarchy (see The Dionysian Hierarchy).

The youthful, beardless form. Angels are almost always depicted as young men, beardless, of an ageless beauty. This does not mean the angels are literally young; agelessness signifies their incorruption and immortality by grace — a bodiless being knows neither aging nor decay, and the perpetual youth of the face declares a nature untouched by time (Ouspensky and Lossky, 1982; and see The Bodiless Nature). The beardless youthfulness is a theological statement about the angelic condition, not a portrait.

The “hearing bands” (tainiai). In the angel’s hair, above the ears, the iconographer paints two fluttering ribbons or streamers (Greek tainiai), often gold or white, that stream out behind the head. These “bands of hearing” signify the angels’ rapt attentiveness to God — their ceaseless listening for His word and readiness to obey; the ribbons at the ears say that the angel is all attention, forever turned toward the will of God to hear and to do it (Ouspensky and Lossky, 1982, on the tainiai as the sign of the angels’ hearing of the divine will). It is one of the subtlest and most beautiful elements of the grammar: the angel is, above all, a listener.

Together these emblems make the icon of an angel a compact statement of the whole doctrine: a bodiless (wings), immortal (youth), attentive (bands) messenger (staff) who contemplates and transmits the divine light (sphere).

The Three Angels of the Trinity Icon

The single most celebrated angelic image in Orthodoxy is the icon of the Hospitality of Abraham — the three winged visitors of Mamre seated at Abraham’s table — which in its classic form, above all St. Andrei Rublev’s, is titled The Holy Trinity. The theological delicacy of this image is exactly that it depicts the three angels of Genesis 18 and not the divine essence directly: the Father is never circumscribed, and the icon prefigures the Trinity through the three created messengers of the scriptural scene, using the equal, mysteriously-one visitors as the vehicle of a Trinitarian contemplation (see Angels in the Old Testament; Bunge, The Rublev Trinity, SVS Press, 2007). The full reading of the icon — the composition, the inclination of the three, the chalice at the center — belongs to the Holy Icons collection and is deferred there (see Holy Icons); the point here is that the tradition’s supreme Trinitarian image is, in its surface, an angel-icon, and admissible precisely as such.

Michael in Armor and Michael in Vestments

The Archangel Michael is shown in two great types, and the difference is a difference of office. As Archistrategos — the Chief Commander of the heavenly hosts — he is depicted as a warrior: in Byzantine military dress or armor, bearing a sword or spear, often trampling or binding the fallen dragon, sometimes with the fiery sword of the guardian of Eden. This is the Michael of Daniel and the Apocalypse, the defender who casts down Satan (Revelation 12:7–9; see Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael). But archangels — Michael and Gabriel especially — are also frequently shown in the vestments of a deacon: the long sticharion and the orarion (the deacon’s stole) draped over the shoulder, sometimes bearing a liturgical fan (ripidion) or a censer. This depicts the angels in their liturgical office — the servants and concelebrants of the heavenly worship, the deacons of the great Liturgy of heaven (see The Angelic Liturgy). The two types are complementary: the same archangel is the warrior against the powers of darkness and the deacon of the heavenly altar, and the iconography lets the Church see him under both aspects.

The seven archangels, when depicted together, each bear their assigned emblem — Michael with sword, Gabriel with a lily or a lantern and mirror, Raphael with a vessel of healing (and the fish of Tobit), Uriel with a flame, Selaphiel with hands folded in prayer, Jegudiel with a crown, Barachiel with roses — a visual roster that, as noted in the source-critical treatment, gives the later four names their most concrete existence (see The Seven Archangels).

The Image and Its Honor

All of this iconographic grammar exists for the sake of honor and remembrance, not portraiture — and it raises directly the question the next file must answer: if the Church paints and venerates the angels, how is that honor kept from the worship forbidden by Scripture and canon? The grammar itself supplies part of the answer: the angel-icon shows a servant — a listener, a messenger, a deacon, a fellow-creature turned wholly toward the God it contemplates in its mirror — and the honor rendered to the image passes to the angel as to a fellow-servant, while worship is reserved to the God the angel adores (see The Boundary of Veneration).

See Also

References

  • Ouspensky, Leonid, and Vladimir Lossky. The Meaning of Icons. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1982. (The iconographic depiction of the angels: wings, staff, sphere/mirror, the youthful form, the “hearing bands”; Michael in armor and in vestments.)
  • Bunge, Gabriel. The Rublev Trinity. Trans. Andrew Louth. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2007. (The icon of the three angels as the icon of the Trinity.)
  • Second Council of Nicaea (787). (The theological warrant for depicting the angels; on which see Holy Icons.)
  • Scripture: Hebrews 1:14; Genesis 18; Revelation 12:7–9; Tobit (Raphael).