To Notre Dame, icons for the chapel of the Eastern Christians
With its Ethiopian cross, its koukoulion (This cap carried by the oriental clerics and monks) and its immense eyes, Saint Frumence is surprised. Iconography accustoms us rather to people with serious air, with marked facial features, and most often represented alone. There, the founding patriarch of the Church of Ethiopia in the 4th century is accompanied by six characters, four apostles and two kings, and inscriptions in Guèze, the local liturgical language. A reproduction of an icon of the 13th century, in the pure style of iconography of this country in East Africa. It will accompany seven other works in the future chapel of the Eastern Christians of Notre-Dame de Paris, established in the current Saint-Georges chapel.
The installation of this chapel was made at the request of the Archbishop of Paris, pushed by the work of the East. A strong gesture that Mgr Ribadeau Dumas, rector of the place, sums up as follows: “The cathedral is Catholic, and therefore universal, open to all: the Christians of the East find their place. “It is not, for him, a simple” geographic extension, but above all spiritual “. The one that Saint John Paul II expressed forcefully by affirming that “the Christian breathes with the two lungs of the Church, Western and Eastern. »»
There are, in the East, twenty-three different Catholic churches. “Representing them all would have been impossible,” explains Marielle Fontanilles, responsible for culture within the work of the East, “it was essential for us to also make a place for Orthodox churches”. The choice was therefore made to represent the historic cradles of the Church in the East, both to “show the diversity and the links that unite us.”
Among the eight artists, the Syrian Nimat Badaoui and the Lebanese Nayirie Keuteklian carried out the icons of Saint Ignace of Antioch and Saint Jacques respectively. They will appear alongside Saint André, Saint Frumence, Saint Thomas, Saint Marc, Saints Addaï and Mari, and Saint Grégoire the illuminator.
Spiritual works
Written in various iconographic styles, and summoning the different liturgical and oral languages of the East (Coptic, Arabic, Syriac …) These eight works were carried out in six months – a real feat. “In addition to the time required by the iconographic technique, which works by installing successive layers, such a project constitutes a strong spiritual approach for some of the artists. One of them told me that I couldn’t go to finishes if she was in a bad mood, ”says Marielle Fontanilles.
In the eastern tradition, from the iconoclastic quarrel and the ecumenical council of Nicea II (in 787), the icon occupies a central place of expression of eastern spirituality. “The icons are not simple reproductions, but living expressions of faith, anchored in particular cultures”, specifies the work of the East.
Reaffirm links with oriental churches
In addition to the fact that Roman Catholicism plunges its roots in the East, where the first disciples of Christ were born, the Archbishop of Paris has also been, since 1954, Catholics of the Eastern Churches residing in France. A decision by Pius XII, in response to the massive exodus of Eastern Communities in France in the middle of the last century. Mgr Ulrich therefore has a jurisdiction over the priests and the faithful of the oriental churches who have no bishop: the Melkites, Syriacs, Copts, Chaldeans, Greeks, Russians, Romanians, Ethiopians, Eritreans, and Malabares.
The chapel will also be decorated with a stone cross offered by Mgr Tobji, Archbishop Maronite d’Aleppo, at the time of Notre Dame’s fire. His own cathedral, from which the stone in which this cross was cut, was partially destroyed during the war in Syria.
