“SHINING FACE” AS HIDDEN AND REVEALED CHRISTOLOGY

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dc.coverageSTUDIA UBB THEOLOGIA ORTHODOXA, LXII, No. 1, 2017 (p. 187 – 216)en-US
dc.creatorTĂNASE, Nichifor
dc.date2017-06-30
dc.date.accessioned2026-02-21T23:34:43Z
dc.descriptionThe shining face theology as luminous metamorphosis of a visionary has experienced three great challenges: the anthropomorphic controversy, iconoclastic debate and the hesychast dispute. This study attempts to make a mystagogical connection between those three theological developments which are standing all together in God’s holy fire with the unveiled face. I have imposed myself a line of research into the contemplative spirituality field, which in fact represents a hermeneutical trajectory: Glory in the NT (hidden-revealed or being-energies) – Glory in the NT (theosis as Christification) – pre-Nicene Christology (eikonic and apophatic Light / glory) – Desert Fathers (“shining face” christology) – Efrem the Syrian (clothing metaphore) – Dionysius the Areopagite (veils of theurgic rays and Christ’s Presence as immanent transcendence or as tension between transcendent hiddenness and revelation) – Palamas hesychasm (christology of the uncreated light). I am the first who calls the light from the Shining Faces of the Desert Fathers as an uncreated light and a discovery of a Hidden pre-Nicene (apophatic) Christology. I have to emphasize that because these two aspects of my disclosure (meaning uncreated light and hidden christology of the Desert Fathers) were inspired to me by the readings in the field of palamite theology which consider that this light of the ascet’s glowing face to be an uncreated light experienced by the body (aesthetically), an inner presence of Christ who identifies himself with His light (apophatic), He Himself being the deifying light as uncreated divine gift. All studies in the Late Antiquity ignore this visionary experience, reducing it to the level of a simple metaphor of light (completing the ascetic quest for real self), a metaphor in which the saint’s life is hagiographically (mystifying!) described. A second reason for this blindness was a restraint coming from the Evagrian theology that draws attention to the danger of seeking visionary experiences, because in that light there is the risk of an illusory or deceitful demonic appearance. Another reason represents the fact that the hesychast controversy and the theology of the uncreated light as divine energy of the Saint Gregory Palamas’ theology (which in Western media has long been discredited as heretical) have played a negative role in accepting the nature of uncreated light into the shining face Christology of the Desert Fathers.en-US
dc.formatapplication/pdf
dc.identifierhttps://studia.reviste.ubbcluj.ro/index.php/subbtheologiaorthodoxa/article/view/3973
dc.identifier10.24193/subbto.2017.1.12
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14637/3321
dc.languageeng
dc.publisherBabeș-Bolyai University / Cluj University Pressen-US
dc.relationhttps://studia.reviste.ubbcluj.ro/index.php/subbtheologiaorthodoxa/article/view/3973/3843
dc.rightsCopyright (c) 2017 Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Theologia Orthodoxaen-US
dc.rightshttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0en-US
dc.sourceStudia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Theologia Orthodoxa; Volume 62, No. 1, June 2017; 187 – 216en-US
dc.source2065-9474
dc.source1224-0869
dc.source10.24193/subbto.2017.1
dc.subjectShining face, Desert Fathers, Gregory Palamas, iconoclasm, apophaticism, hesychasm, divine light, deification, theology of the iconen-US
dc.title“SHINING FACE” AS HIDDEN AND REVEALED CHRISTOLOGYen-US
dc.typeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/article
dc.typeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
dc.typePeer-reviewed Articleen-US
dc.typetexten-US

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