The “Notremam” cathedral in Paris celebrated, in late May, the blessing of 8 oriental icons, representing the pioneers of the saints in early Christian history, which was wiped with the “Holy Meron” (a mixture of natural and aromatic oils) before taking their place inside the cathedral in the chapel of St. George Mar Gerges, one of the early Christian pioneers in Palestine.
Among the eight icons that Notre Dame celebrated its blessing, the icon drawn by the Syrian artist Nemat Badawi to Saint Agatius Antioch, the most prominent fatwa of the first churches.
The Archbishop of Paris, Bishop Laurent Ulrich, believes that these icons are not just pictures, but “real windows on eternity and a honest sign of the entire Church’s faith.”
In turn, the artist Badawi indicated that the icon he drew took about 3 months. He believed that the success of his work is due to his city of Aleppo, which gave him all its long experience in the arts, and all its methods of expression and formation.
The icon of St. Ignatius carries a deep spiritual value, drawn from the position he assumed according to the sacred texts.
He believes – according to the Christian narratives – that he was among the children whom Christ embraced them, and said about them, “Let the children come to me.”
During the period of persecution of the first Christians, he was arrested in Antakya, and he was taken to Rome, and then he was thrown on the Roman runway at the time of the Emperor “Trian” in 107, as the monsters ravaged his body.
“Let me be food for monsters, for I am, with the mercy of God, I would like to pray the wheat of God, until I grind the fangs of monsters and become pure bread for Christ,” he said.
Harmony is not satisfied with looking
The term “icon” or “sacred image” is used to denote religious ideas or events, which have been embodied in detail in the form of paintings that carry a spiritual nature, spread on the walls of churches and in their halls on a large scale, where the stories of prophets and saints are listed, and used as a means of teaching religion at the same time.
Historical sources indicate that the icon entered Christian life in Syria, in the service of ideas that address the soul with the aim of meditation and harmony in a suggestion that is not satisfied with looking.
Saint John Al -Dimashqi’s entrenched – in particular – this discourse with a spiritual text in which he said, “When my thoughts are troubled and prevent me from the intellectual focus, I turn towards the church.
The Churches of Syria include many icons, the most famous of which is the icon of St. Hanania Al -Dimashqi (from the first century AD), one of the seventy apostles whom Christ sent to spread his call, along with two icons, one of them for Christ and the other to Saint Paul the Apostle, all of which are distributed within what is believed to be the house in which the Apostle Hanania lived in Damascus, and later turned into a small church, today is one of the oldest churches.
From paganism to religion
The researcher in the science of history, Ilham Mahfouz, believes that the art of the icon dates back to the pre -Christianity in its Greek and Roman modernity, when the artists drew human faces on wooden paintings, but the Byzantine Church adopted it as a tool of persuasion, contemplation and reverence, in order to turn pagan beliefs, and to bring the concept of Christian religion in its place.
She explained in statements reported by the official Syrian News Agency that this art grew up in the Levant and was influenced by the ancient Syrian art, including destructive art, since the birth of the Byzantine state in the sixth century AD, graphic decorations of mosaic and skis began to appear inside the temples and churches, represented the beginning of the emergence of icon art, where they were often painted on paintings of wood, within a copper framework, reflecting their subjects. And the spirituality of the peoples of the region.
He had found in the “Monastery of Mar John” in the house of Zogaba in northern Syria, a Syriac Gospel dating back to the sixth century AD, which was adorned with iconic drawings.
The murals in the churches of “Dura Oreius” and the murals in the monastery of “Mar Musa Al -Habashi” in Al -Nabek, the drawings of the monastery of “St. Yaqoub Al -Maqta” in a continent, the drawings in the “Mar Elias neighborhood” monastery in Maarat Sednaya, and the icon of a lady Damascus Which moved to Malta in the late fifteenth century AD, and the icon of the Virgin and the Secretary, one of the most important murals that formed the first roots of this art.
The researcher, Mahfouz, pointed out that the blurred “Nobravia” icon, including the techniques of mixing color, and foundations made of plaster, sand and manganese, and metal structures such as iron oxide in its red and black color, implemented without using an organic link, of distinctive importance.
Body and gold
The blessing of the Notre Dame Cathedral for the St. Agatius’s painting, which moved from Aleppo To Paris, again the theme of this art, with which Syria was unique to other countries, and contributed to its transfer to the world early in history.
Last April, Paris witnessed an international conference entitled (Body and Gold), which was called by a group of friends of the Louvre Museum, in which experts and researchers from Europe, the United States of America and the Middle East (Syria and Lebanon) dealt with the art of icon and renewable curricula in dealing with it.
The conference, whose sessions were shared for two days, discussed the Michael Angelo Hall in the Louvre Museum and the Body Guard Hall in France, the horizons of this art and its openness to new methodologies, dates and geography.
The Syrian artist Badawi made an intervention during the session held at the Louvre Museum, in which he reviewed the history of the icon in Syria, the damage to its historical and cultural heritage during the war, and the method used to restore it.
The museum maintains a rare set of oriental icons drawn by artists from Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, in the context of reviving the Greek Church of Antakya during the seventeenth century.
In early this year, the Louvre acquired an important set of icons, which numbered about 272 diverse icons, collected by the Lebanese George Abu Adal, and was presented for the first time in the “Carnavalier” museum in Paris In 1993, it was shown at the Museum of Art and History in Geneva in 1997.
While the Byzantine Library at the College of France includes a group of Arabic icons dating back to various historical periods, captured between the twenties and 1950s.
For her part, the professor of classic archeology and the history of Byzantine art in the college, researcher Nina Lamanids, explained that the icon is a precise combination of artistic technology, theology and visual narration, followed its production, which is a sacred work of strict rules, and was carried out using specific materials and works by spiritual and artistic artists. She pointed out that the restoration of the icon is not just an artwork, but rather a complex process, which involves a deep reflection to preserve the spiritual significance of the painting.
She pointed out in a study entitled “The Icons of the Byzantine Library in the College of France, a legacy of sacred art” that although the icons of the valuable group of the library go back to the post -Byzantine period, and they were not circulated in the Byzantine Empire itself, they undoubtedly belong to this civilization, and come from the areas of documentary related to the empire, which are part of a common heritage.
Absted knowledge
The joint heritage between European civilization has received its various stages and the sources of knowledge in the Arab -Islamic East, and the impact of its cultural, artistic and architectural creations in France, Britain and Spain, with serious research interest, its results were always compatible with the theory of the West affected by the Eastern origins in many aspects.
The British historian and academy Diana Dark presented a more clear model of this influence, when she confirmed that the most famous western buildings in Europe, such as the Notre Dame Cathedral and “Carter Cathedral in France, the House of Parliament and Deir Westminster in London, the San Mark Cathedral in Venice, the Strasbourg Cathedral, and the Aachen Cathedral in Germany, took its designs all of the origins Arab, and Arab Islamic, through a huge cultural exchange, most of which came from east to west, while few went in the opposite direction.
Dark denied that the designs of these landmarks are due to the Gothic heritage and European Christian history as it is always assumed, but rather condemns its design to Islamic origins and clear Arab influences.
She explained in her book “Theft of Muslims … How Islamic Architecture has been Europe” that the design of the architectural cathedral of Notrendam, such as all the Cathedrals of Europe, was inspired by the Church of the Heart of Loza in Syria, when the Crusaders brought the similar style of the two towers on both sides of the pink window to Europe in the 12th century AD.
The Loza Heart Church is located in Idlib Governorate Within the area known as the forgotten cities in Syria, it was built in the fifth century AD. It is considered a preliminary model for which the art of Roman and Byzantine architecture. It was also included in 2011 World Heritage List Liltso.
Dark saw that many archaeological monuments in Syria, and other places in the Middle East stand a witness to the transmission of architectural characteristics from east to west, including the Roman churches in Europe, expressing her belief that people know this, but – as she says – it seems that there is a large gap of ignorance on the history of cultural seizure against the background of an escalation of phenomenon Islamophobia.
“Are we ready to admit that a method that has been deeply established in our European Christian identity condemns its origins to Islamic architecture?” She asked.