Gazing on God: Trinity, Church and Salvation in Orthodox Thought and Iconography

An exposition of Orthodox systematic theology, ‘Gazing on God’ is written from the point of view of the experience of the faithful, drawing on traditional icons and liturgy. By tracing the depth of some key Christian concepts -salvation, Logos, the Trinity- Andreas Andreopoulos provides a framework for the theology of experience. In the following chapters seven select icons are analyzed, in order to demonstrate the theological ideas and themes that may be revealed by studying Christianity through iconography. The analysis touches on topics such as time (the eternity of God, ‘flat’ liturgical time), space, the Church as the Body of Christ, and the Trinity. ‘Gazing on God’ offers to all Christian traditions a demonstration that, while our understanding of the development of Christian views and attitudes is guided by the history of theological ideas, Christianity includes from the beginning a strong dimension of meta-linguistic knowledge, which is expressed in its liturgy, as well as in its symbolism.