The Ikons in the churches, in the cathedrals and monasteries and shrines are
the symbols of the saints and of God. The Ikons in the homes are the symbols of the Ikons
in the churches; they are the symbols to which authority has been delegated; they are
the representatives of the original Ikons, as all crosses may be understood as representatives
of the original Cross on Calvary. Every Russian home has its Ikons, and every Russian wears
below his shirt his baptismal cross. The Ikon claims the home and the man for God, it
indicates God's ownership, God's original right. It is in religion what the trade mark
is in commerce. So the Russian world —
"is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God."
The candle before the Ikon is man's finite life shining against the background
of the Infinite.
. . .
In every Russian room there is an Ikon, even in railway waiting-rooms,
banyas, public houses, doss-houses, prison cells and houses of ill-fame. It occupies what is
known as the front corner of every room, that is, the corner towards the rising sun; it is not
strictly proper to sit with one's back to it, indeed peasants' tables are often so arranged that
it is impossible to sit with one's back to it, the table is-jammed up into the Ikon corner so
that it appears as if the Ikons themselves are sitting down to the meals. Before eating, one
bows to the Ikon and crosses oneself three times and one repeats the ritual after the meal and
then adds " Thank you " addressing the master of the house.
If you sleep in a Russian home, the Ikon with its little lamp before it
looks down upon you all night and guards you from evil. It teaches little children not to be
afraid of the dark, and even nihilistic students come to regard the Ikon and its little night-lamp
with tenderness, for they look back to so many occasions when they wakened on dark nights and
felt frightened because of some dream, and then looked at the lamp and the Ikon and were quieted
and fell asleep again.
In reverence to the Ikon you remove your hat upon entering a room — it is the
sign that God is in the room amongst you and about you. The reverence accorded to it by the
Russians is the reverence of one who asks himself no questions, and who accepts without doubt
the emblems of religion set before him. Certainly the Ikon is a power, it gives an atmosphere
to its room. It owns the room, or rather it is a Presence in the room. It reminds, it restrains.
Outside are the sun and moon and stars, the beautiful creation to remind; inside, the Ikon
takes their place. The value of the Ikon to the Russian is inestimable, in innumerable ways
it is of service to him in the consecration of time and place and deed. Is it his birthday;
he burns an extra candle before it, and holds a prayer-meeting under its auspices.
Is his daughter to be married: he gives an Ikon to guard the future home.
It is perhaps because its service is so often invoked that no thought of its necessity ever
occurs; it is because all day long occasion is found to appeal to it that its power is so great.
The whole use of the thing flashed upon me one day when I was in Little Russia
staying at the deacon's house. I was whistling a London tune, and a man said sternly to me
"Remember God." Someone pointed to the Ikon. I had been committing sacrilege, or invoking the devil,
or something of the sort. Let me note in passing that the Russians, though the most musical people
in the world, cannot whistles-it is probably because it has been counted irreligious.
I inquired what other restrictions on my behaviour there might be, and was
answered that all the homes were as private ante-chambers of the village church, that in passing
from the church to the home one's reverence remains unaltered, and that all lived in the
remembrance of the immanence and nearness of God. If it appeared that God was forgotten in
a song, in angry words or actions, or in anything contrary to the law, the master of the house
should .in the name of the Ikon, reprove the forgetful person.
So the Ikon is the " God in the midst " with eyes for highest and for lowest
things — it is a more live, religious symbol than the Roman Catholic crucifix or rosary, but withal
it is something beyond these, something unique. It is so powerful that it suggests itself as the
spirit of the room; take away the sacred picture, and you leave the dead body of what was once a
living, breathing room. It might be asked " Is then the unconsecrated English room relatively dead?"
Certainly the Russian gets much by his Ikon that is wanting in a foreign room. Likewise by his
hundred and seventeen holy days in the year he gains something similarly unique. In England
to a week, are one holy-day and six week-days; the Russian calls his Sunday "Resurrection Day"
and has probably two fast days in his week.
The peasant rejects the secular calendar, even in the arrangement of his
agricultural year. He reckons the day before or after a festival or a fast: There is, moreover,
scarcely a day in the year that has not its popular name. Ancient customs of bygone Nature worship
are also interwoven with Christian chronology, such as the welcoming of Spring in the second week
after Easter, and the blessing of the beer in the middle of August. All children are named after
one of the saints, and most of them receive in addition some earthly nickname.
Visitors to Russia, if they are observant, will see an unvarnished wooden
cross set up wherever a house is in course of building. This also is an Ikon, and it will not
be removed till the house is built and the priest comes and performs an opening service.
Then the ritual of the sign of the Cross is most potent in Russian life.
It is prayer without words, the assigning of implicit faith. The only words the moujik adds
are sentences of supplication or of praise, as "Oh Lord have mercy!" or "Glory be to Thee,
O Lord!"
"Nothing is within our powers ; everything is beyond our powers " says a
character of Gogol. " Nothing is possible without aid from on high. Prayer concentrates the
faculties. A man crosses himself and says 'Oh Lord have mercy,' " then he rows on and reaches
the shore." Pereplotchikof told me a story of a peasant servant who had taken a place at Moscow,
and his master kept two pet wolves. The servant was called by his mistress, and came suddenly upon
these two wolves stretched in the passage like sleeping dogs. He was quite familiar with the
physiognomy of wolves, and so was struck with terror. He had to pass them to get to his mistress'
room. He hesitated a moment, crossed himself, and then ran for it.
I have seen engine drivers come down the platform at railway stations to bow
to the Ikons before proceeding on their way. Cab-drivers, even with fares, will stop before
monasteries or churches, and cross themselves. Indeed it is not proper to pass a church
without crossing oneself, and even in degenerate Moscow one is struck by the people crossing
themselves in the electric trams as the latter shoot past the sacred places.
If a peasant yawns, he makes the sign of the cross over his mouth to prevent
the devil getting in — which is in itself a little sermon on the dangers of boredom. The good
old peasant-wife puts cross-sticks over all empty dishes or jars in her pantry, and these too are
Ikons. And if her husband is out, and his plate of soup is left for him, she makes the sign
of the cross over it before going to bed.
So by a thousand little gleams of ritual, we see how the Russian has interwoven
Christian religion with life. He truly lives as "ever in his great Task-master's eye," only he
would not call God a task-master. The Russian people are one in their unanimous loyalty to one
idea and thereby they have become all — brothers. With far more justice can it be said of the
Russian people than of the English, they are a church — unless commerce is Our church.
In England are churches and houses; in Russia, churches and consecrated homes!
And though God is everywhere, we feel He is absent from unconsecrated places. It has been the
consecration of things already holy, that has insinuated the subtle error of distinguishing between
the things of God and the things of man. The giving of a tenth of our goods to God has
led us to regard nine-tenths as our little own; "the dedicating to. God of the lives of priests
has left the laity undedicated; the consecration of churches has placed our houses outside the
church.
Was it not vain then, to consecrate at all? — will not all things in time have
to be consecrated, and in our thoughts brought up to one level of holiness just because of these
initial consecrations? — our days each be given its special holiness; our homes, whether in slum
or park, be consecrated to be known as ante-chambers of the church? If so, the Ikon is much already
gained: it consecrates the home, the first of those unconsecrated things to be remembered as holy;
it reminds the Russian that God is not locked up in the church, that He is even in his own parlour.
In all finite and material things it reminds him of the Infinite and the Spiritual.
I, for my part now, wherever I may have an abiding place and a home would
always have some Ikon in my room. The Russian says that the Ikon face should have little beauty
or interest; he thinks the rude axe-hewn cross the best symbol of all. But in all my wanderings
except those that were merely tramping expeditions, I have taken with me my Ikon — not a Russian
picture, but a copy of Millet's "Angelus". It has been in Little Russia, in Moscow, and the
Caucasus, and back to England, and has looked out on all rooms and superintended my writing
and reading. It is looking over me now. In its grey depths one can lose oneself, can forget
words and thought - words, and kneel in the great grey temple of the Innermost. It may not be in
the "front corner," but he who looks to it looks into Infinity. It ever calms and puts into their
places noisy thoughts, it is ever a reminder and a restrainer — a giver of peace, and of those
"still-creation-days" that give strength for combats new.
