Steven Bigham

A myth deconstructed indeed. Fr. Steven Bigham does an excellent job of finally putting to rest the slanderous notion that this great saint and father of the Orthodox Church was an iconoclast heretic, affirming, as he says in the closing, that "from the time of the apostles, the Christian tradition has been and remains fundamentally and essentially iconodule." Many of the side notes throughout the book, especially as the author explores the writings of St. Nicephorus of Constantinople, are also very enlightening, such as the Christological implications of iconoclasm. A great read for anyone interested in the history of the use of iconography in the Church.… (més)

In Early Christian Attitudes toward Images, Fr. Steven slowly and meticulously picks apart the arguments put forward by modern scholars (most of them Protestants) in support of the hostility theory, carefully exposing the false assumptions, the deliberate misreadings, and the many internal contradictions. Perhaps one of the most important points that Fr. Steven makes in this book is that it is absurd and futile to try to find exact answers to 8th (and, later, 16th) century questions in the 1st-3rd centuries. Iconodules and iconoclasts are both mistaken if they think they can find anyone in the early Church with exactly their iconology. What is possible, though, and very important as well, is to find the seeds of one or the other in the early Church. Whichever seeds you find will tell you which is the flower that was planted and which is the weed that needs to be uprooted and removed far from the garden. That is exactly what Fr. Steven Bigham does in this book. I do recommend a read.… (més)