08 — The Feast as Theology
A feast teaches. This section steps back from the individual feasts to ask how — through the icon, which sets each feast’s doctrine before the eyes, and through the hymnography and structure of the festal cycle, which set it in the ear and the calendar. Icon and hymn are the two great catechetical instruments by which the Church makes her feasts theology.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox
Purpose
The Orthodox feast is not primarily an idea but a celebration that carries an idea — in image and in song. These two files treat the festal icon and the festal hymnography as forms of theology, gathering the observations made feast by feast in the earlier sections into a general account.
Navigation
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| the-icon-of-the-feast.md | How each feast’s icon teaches its doctrine; the icon as sung theology in color; the festal tier of the iconostasis |
| hymnography-and-the-shape-of-a-feast.md | Troparion and kontakion, the vigil and canon, forefeast, afterfeast, and leave-taking; the festal cycle as a form |
See Also
- Orthodoxy: Icons and Iconoclasm — the dogmatic basis of the holy image
- The Twelve Great Feasts and the Calendar — the structure the hymnography fills