Published | Parrésia - Ročenka pro východní křesťanství

Řeči na obranu obrazů

Author: Jan Damašský
Translated by Tomáš Mikulka from the Greek sources.

The book contains the very first complete Czech translation of three works by St. John the Damascene († 749) now know as "words in defence of icons". These texts influenced in a fundamental way the understanding of religious pictorial representation, in the Christian East as well as the West. In his foreword, the translator considers St. John the Damascene as a major personality in early medieval thought, and places the origins and contents of the writings into the context of their time – that is, the iconoclastic disputes of the eighth century. In an afterword entitled "Icons and their place in the liturgy according to the teachings of the Church Fathers", he discusses the meaning of icons and their place in the liturgy.