Icon courtesy: Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America
By the hand of Fr. Stamatis Skliris
Today is St. Nicholas Day, a major Slava in Serbia. As most non-Serbian readers know, each Serbian family celebrates their own personal family Slava. St. Nicholas is such a major Slava we have a saying: Half of Serbia is celebrating their Slava today, and the other half is going to a Slava.
A few years ago Metropolitan Amphilohije of Montenegro and the Coastlands said the following at the Divine Liturgy on this feastday:
“All European peoples, both in the East and the West, respect our Holy Father among the Saints, Nicholas. He is that one who, like the three wise men from the East, brings gifts, especially to children. But in our time St. Nicholas, particularly in America, has been exchanged with that deceitful father-frost (Santa Claus), who is starting to be celebrated even among our own people. This is a fictional, deceitful being through whom the European people are returning to paganism. Father Frost has nothing to do with Christ’s Church. This is not a person that existed, frost comes and goes and therefore there is no sense in celebrating it.
We should be celebrating St. Nicholas, we should be celebrating the holy Fathers on Father’s Day*, the holy Mothers on Mother’s Day, holy Children on Children’s Day. Instead of celebrating those living beings who existed, who still exist, who glorified God and whom He glorified, we commemorate fictional people….”
* As Christmas, probably more than any other church holy days, is a feast centered around the family, in the Serbian calendar on the three Sundays before the Feast, we have: Children’s Day, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. On Children’s Day, for instance, the custom is for parents to tie up their children and the children to “buy their freedom” by bestowing gifts to their parents. On Mother’s day, mom is tied up and on Father’s day well….you get the point. The tying of one another corresponds to the bond between us and the bestowing of gifts is our love for one another.
As the Metropolitan points out above, on these days we are to remember not only our immediate family but also all holy fathers and mothers and children.
Photo: Me last year on Father’s Day.
AGAIN AND AGAIN 
Here’s an interesting article in Serbian. I suppose one can google-translate it:
http://borbazaveru.info/content/view/1816/1/
That “icon” of St Nicholas is disgraceful. The shrill, loud colors and impressionistic artistic style reminiscent of Van Gough in his more tormented periods are completely contrary to the iconographic principles of peace, dispassion, silence, dignity and spiritual perfection. What on earth possessed the artist to paint the crosses on the saint’s omophorion in the shape of propellers? Shameful and disrespectful to the saint and to the office of bishop. And what is the theological and liturgical significance of the seagulls? Please. Icons must NEVER be used as playthings, vehicles for indulging in “creative” reinterpretation. They are nothing less than the visual counterpart to Orthodox hymnography (what next, the troparion and kontakion to the saint sung in sea-shanty style?). Does the priest who painted this image take similar liberties with what is read, chanted and sung in his church? If not, then why does he see it fit to mess with iconography?
i thought of this when i read today’s epistle reading:
II Timothy 4:4
“And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
Really cute photo of you and your family, Father. 😛
I haven’t seen an icon by his had that I didn’t love.
Yes, I consulted a friend for his opinion, my brother in Christ and iconographer, about the icon in question.
Didn’t think of it at first but couldn’t think of that many icons in which the Saints show much (if any) facial expressions. He said that there are some cases but for the most part it isn’t that common.
I like Fr. Stamatis’ colors.
Saint Nicholas looks a little worried in that icon there.
Yes, what the metropolitan said about us inventing fictional characters to glorify and then to take refuge in is indeed true, all of it is true, and our reluctance to let go of these things, especially in America with our “American” fictional holidays, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Easter (NOT Pascha!), and Xmas (NOT Nativity), which butt into each other sometimes with quite hilarious results—this reluctance on our part, well, it only demonstrates how far from “reality” our entire culture has drifted, including the majority of those calling themselves Christians. We stand up for Christ so rarely, that when we see anyone who does, he or she seems like “a hater of mankind,” that old charge against us that was brought by the Roman Empire’s rulers. We whine “How can you think that good ole Santa is wrong? Why, he brings such smiles and joy to the hearts of the little children! That can’t be bad!” And then we have our cultural icons, films like “Miracle on 34th Street” that bolster this attitude and make a virtue of it. If any of us object, we’re lumped in with the Jehovah’s Witnesses and other cults.
All of this is just the besetting sinfulness of humanity in bold relief, so obvious that we cannot see it as it is, because it is too close for comfort, or I should say, too close AS comfort. We little know what to do, when even our leaders in Christ veer off the path with such ease, and so we reluctantly follow and conform outwardly, while inside some of us, a fire of discontent and unease is smoldering, and a voice is crying out in anguished, furtive tones, “How long must we wait, O Lord, how long!” and “Mother of God, save us!”