The halo around the saint's head is a very important detail in Orthodox iconography. Its significance is evidenced by the fact that traditionally, when writing an icon, they determine the space that the halo occupies. The further construction of the composition depends on this.
The halo of the main figure should be at the top of an equilateral triangle (a symbol of the Holy Trinity), the sides of which coincide, in size, with the sides of the base (the symmetry of the icon is a symbol of the correctness, perfection of the depicted heavenly world).
Nimbus on the icon of the Virgin
History of the halo
The image of a halo, as an attribute of a celestial, is known in various religions, and in Buddhism, and among many pagans, and appeared long before Christianity.
The word "nimbus" itself comes from the Latin "nimbus", meaning "cloud". The Greeks and Romans believed that the Olympian gods, when they descend to earth, appear before people in a radiant glow, in a cloud of light. This is reflected in their images. Also in ancient Rome, halos could be on the portraits of emperors. After all, the ruler was also considered a god, and power was sacred.
Christians adopted the external forms of this tradition, but filled them with their own, completely new meaning.
Nimbus theology
A halo is, by no means, just a radiance around the head of a saint. Like all the details of the icon, it is a multi-valued sacred symbol. First of all, it is necessary to explain the meaning of light itself in the theology of icon painting.
About icons in Orthodoxy:
Uncreated Light
“... There was a certain man named John ... he was not the Light, but was sent to testify about the Light. There was a True Light, enlighten and sanctify every person coming into the world. “(from John, 1, 6-8)
In fact, we can say that any icon is an icon of Christ. Even if He is not depicted directly, He is everywhere. All gold on the icon: halos, shining highlights on the clothes and faces of the saints, the entire golden background is an image of the all-pervading Divine grace, fully manifested in the Kingdom of Heaven. All rays of light lead to the source of light. Yes, and in itself a holy man, this is also the image of Christ.
“... And the night will not be there, and they will not need a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God illuminates them; and they will reign." (Rev. 22:5)
The halo on the icon is the most luminous area.
If a saint is depicted, then, although the radiance comes from him, we are talking about reflected light. That God sanctifies and transfigures human nature. And only on the icons of the Savior, we see the Light Giver Himself.
Separately, it is necessary to explain the shape of the halo. Almost always (exceptions will be discussed below), it looks like a circle. This is the image of eternity. There is no time in the Kingdom of God.
Icon of the Tenderness of the Mother of God
So, light is a symbol of divine grace and, ultimately, of God Himself. If you look closely at the construction of the halo, you will notice that it is outlined by two lines, dark and white. This is no coincidence. There is nothing accidental in iconography at all. The dark border symbolizes the incomprehensibility and impregnability of the Divine. His separation from the created world, transcendence.
But then there is a light line, usually white. White in iconography is akin to gold. This is also light, but a little different. White is the light of Tabor, transformation. And the white stripe around the halo symbolizes the appearance of God in the created world. Light comes to those He created to transform them.
True, you can not see these two lines on all icons. The canons of icon painting were often forgotten and violated.
Images of the Savior
In general, on the icons of Christ, the halo looks the same as that of the saints, but has additional details. This cross is the main symbol of Christianity. The world is saved by the cross. To die on the cross, the Lord came here. Through suffering on the cross, He returns the fallen universe to Himself. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the cross on His halo has expanding ends. It seems to be spreading into eternity, covering the whole world.
In addition, three letters are always inscribed in the circle of a halo - "ό ώ ν". The Greek word όών means "Being". It is necessary to emphasize that He Who is depicted here as a man is also the Eternal God, the Cause of all existence. Nimbus on some (rather rare) icons of the Savior enclose an octagon inside. Two squares symbolize two worlds and differ in color.
Icon Jesus Christ
Red, in iconography, a symbol of the earth and martyrdom. In this case, the one that the Savior shed for our world. Blue is the color of the sky, the spiritual world of angels. The eight-pointed star formed by quadrangles is a symbol of the unity of the two worlds. As an image of the power of Christ, His dominion over the visible and invisible, this star is depicted behind His head. But this is only the first semantic layer. The same star symbolizes the properties of God Himself.
The blue color in iconography, like black (“blue is like the thinnest haze ... As yellow always brings light with it, you can also say that blue always brings something dark with it” P. Florensky), can be an image of the incomprehensibility of God , His unknowability and inaccessibility to us.
Red is the color of the king, a symbol of the omnipotence of Christ.
In addition, there are differences in the iconography of God the Father. But, since His images were banned by the church, and appeared only due to theological illiteracy, they can not be mentioned.
Nimbus other than a circle
In Byzantine iconography, one can find the image of square haloes. They had their own meaning. If the circle is eternity, then the square is the other world, the world of the earth.
The saint, with a quadrangular halo, is depicted in his earthly life. And the color of such a halo is not golden, but white. That is, it is not yet given in fullness Divine grace, as in the heavenly world, but transforming, gradually opening up on earth.
Other traditions can be found among Catholics. On Catholic icons, the radiance often forms, as it were, a crown over the saint's head. Light descends on him from above, from outside. Then, as in the Orthodox image, the grace of God sanctifies a person from within, permeates everything created.
Revered Orthodox icons:
An Orthodox icon is a sacred thing. It is needed so that the Prototype is revealed to the believer through the image. It is called "prayer in colors", "window to the Heavenly World". Such tasks of icon painting as an art form required the creation of a special artistic language. It can be called symbolic realism. There is no naturalism here, because we are talking about a completely transformed world, but there are no abstract symbols or allegories either.
After all, these are people, real earthly people, who must be transformed. Here matter is combined with the Spirit, the visible with the invisible, the human with the Divine.
And the whole icon as a whole, and each of its parts: halos, clothes, objects, colors, lines, composition, through the symbol lead to the Source of Being.
There are things that in certain circles are considered "well-known", the more surprising it is to come across an opinion that contradicts what, it would seem, all Orthodox Christians should know. And I had to be convinced of this more than once.
Thus, for those who know the "Law of God" as part of Sunday school, this material can be skipped... And for those who are interested, I present a new article for the March issue of the Loza magazine
The images of saints in Orthodox iconography have one common attribute - a halo. The nimbus, as we know, is a circle symbolizing the sanctity of the depicted person (sometimes, the nimbus can also mean the royalty of the character or, in more rare cases, accompany the figure, which is an allegory of the time of day, natural phenomenon, city and country).
All haloes, to a greater or lesser extent, are of the same type, and only the halo of the Lord Jesus Christ has certain differences.
Even in the period when the iconography of the Savior was just taking shape, various attempts were made to highlight His image with various signs. For example, the monogram of Christ (the combined Greek letters “chi” and “ro”, the so-called “chrysma”) fit into the halo, and the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet “alpha” and “omega” (“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev. 1:8)). Which once again demonstrates the divinity of Christ.
Later, in the halo of the Savior, the main symbol of our salvation, the cross, began to be depicted. This attribute is very firmly entrenched in the iconography of Christ and still remains almost an indispensable attribute of it. Such a halo is called cross.
The shape of such a cross at different times was different, as was the color. The cross could be white, and golden-ocher, and red, and purple, and sky blue.
It could be flat, have a conventional volume, simple or decorated with "jewels".
Over time, the Greek word "ό ών", which means "Existing", began to be entered into the three visible blades of the cross. “And Moses said to God, Behold, I will come to the children of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you. And they will say to me: What is His name? What should I tell them? God said to Moses: I am Existing. And he said, So say to the children of Israel: Jehovah has sent me to you. Exodus 3:13,14).
Constantinople was the center for the development of Christian iconography for a long time, the more interesting is that the letters in the halo of Christ in Byzantium itself appear relatively late, while they were already used on the periphery of the Byzantine world - for example, in Southern Italy and in Russia.
So, “ό ών”, the Greek letters “omicron” (in this case, it is the masculine article) and “omega” with “nu” (“neither” in the Byzantine pronunciation), in fact, the word “existing” itself. Usually on icons they are arranged as follows: in the upper lobe "omicron" and below from left to right relative to the viewer, "omega" and "nude".
Less often, the letters are arranged clockwise and even against.
There are many examples in world culture when the meaning of a certain symbol is forgotten and, over time, begins to have a different meaning. Unfortunately, this happened with the letters of the cross halo. Almost no one knew the Greek language in Russia by the 16th century. The interpretation of "ό ών" - "existing" was lost. However, I really wanted to unravel the mystery of the “mysterious letters”. Greek letters are very similar to Slavic (especially since the fonts at that time practically did not differ), the Greek "omega", with superscripts, was mistaken for the Slavic letter "from" T. And this already gave a certain scope for interpretation.
In the Old Believer literature, which ignored Greek sources, there are several options for interpreting the new letter combination: T OH. For example: T - "there are fathers", O - "mind", N - incomprehensible syy. "Or: T- "came from heaven" O "They don't know me" H - “crucified on the cross”, etc. There were also popular interpretations, like: "He is Our Father."
In the same way, the nine lines of the cross in a halo (a rudiment of volume) also began to be endowed with a symbolic meaning, for example, 9 ranks of angels. What relation the angelic ranks have to the cross of Christ is absolutely incomprehensible, but at first glance it may seem that there is nothing terrible in these alternative readings.
But still. The very tendency to give deep meaning to random trifles (like the same lines of the cross) and invent their own interpretations, ignoring the historical meaning of the symbols, can sooner or later lead to a sad result.
So, recently, information has been circulating that the date of the end of the world is allegedly encrypted in the halo of the Savior: http://samlib.ru/n/nostr_a_g/kod2.shtml
Such a technique, using our illiteracy and inertia, is often used by various sectarian groups. Knowing your own tradition is the best antidote.
Source bizantinum
NOT LITTLE
NOT LITTLE, adv. (book). Not at all, not at all, not at all. "One doesn't interfere with the other." Leskov .
NIMBUS
NIMBUS, halo, husband. (Greek nymbos) (special and poetic, obsolete). Radiance in the form of a circle around the head (on Christian icons, antique statues, etc.). "Like a halo, love, your radiance over all those who died loving." Bryusov .
them
NIMI. creative from they in position after prepositions. With them.
NYMPH
NYMPH, nymphs, genus. pl. nymph, female (Greek nymphe).
1. In Greek. mythology - a minor deity, personifying, depending on where it lived (in springs, meadows, mountains, caves, etc.), various forces of nature. "A sleepless nymph wandered along the banks of Peneus." Pushkin . “Nymphs will run in a frisky crowd into my magnificent gardens.” Pushkin .
2. The second stage of development of the larvae of some insects (zool.).
3. more often pl. Small shameful lips (anat.).
Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov - (Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language Ushakov D.N., 1935-1940.)
there was a message that Japanese scientists using highly sensitive equipment were able to detect the light coming from a person, invisible to the eye. They considered it an aura and trumpeted the discovery to the whole wide world.
From other sources, I found out that this news is not the first freshness, but I have not lost interest in it. The fact that halos are not fiction, our scientists found out back in the 60s of the last century, it turns out. Found out, what's next?
Head of that research group, and now Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, Head of Department, Moscow State Academy of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnology named after K. I. Skryabin Alexander Zhuravlev said:
This phenomenon has a long name: spontaneous super-weak glow of the internal organs of animals and humans in the visible region of the spectrum due to oxidative processes. I discovered it with my colleagues Boris Tarusov and Anatoly Polivoda.
Discovery of Zhuravlev and his colleagues studied at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and hacked to death. In the resolution of the commission, it was said that the presented scientific work has neither fundamental significance nor practical application.
Since 2009, this problem has been taken up in earnest. Japanese researchers from Kyoto University and Tohoku Institute of Technology. Later, bright minds from the University of Tokyo were involved in the work. They rediscovered the discovery of Soviet biophysicists. The researchers placed topless people in a completely dark room. They sat there for 20 minutes. At this time, volunteers were filmed by a high-sensitivity camera capable of capturing even individual photons. Shooting was repeated every three hours from 10 am to 10 pm.
The processing of the obtained images confirmed that the human body glows in the visible range. That is, it emits photons. The radiance is very ghostly and weak - a thousand times less intense than the human eye can catch. But it is. What, in fact, our scientists were talking about more than half a century ago.
The discovery was considered so significant that now the Japanese are tipped for a Nobel Prize.
Studies by Japanese scientists have shown that the aura is most pronounced in the morning, during the day it persists, and by the evening it is almost invisible. A brighter glow is observed in the neck, mouth and cheeks.
Allow me a little remark here. The glow, according to all the canons of religion and esoteric treatises, should be above the head in the form of a halo. Observations by scientists of only small bright centers do not at all contradict this statement. They did not see a volumetric glow around the head for the simple reason that they did not have a test subject with a similar aura. A halo is a sign of special spiritual purity and holiness.
There is a third point of view on the discovery of the Japanese. Biophysicist and biochemist Gennady Goroshkin believes that he does not need proof of the existence of the aura, since he himself is able to see it. He spoke about another discoverer of the aura. In his opinion, this is a Russian scientist from St. Petersburg G.K. Korotkov. He was the first in the world to obtain an image of the human aura using gas-discharge imaging. This method allows you to "catch" the light on the human body, which is similar to the glow discovered by Japanese scientists.
The method of gas-discharge visualization is generally recognized and even used in functional express diagnostics of patients. The uniqueness of the method lies in the possibility of a quick, harmless and visual assessment of the general state of human health, indicating the organs and systems involved in the pathological process, the detection of "weak links" in the state of health. Aleksadr Zhuravlev, already familiar to us, has his own point of view on the discovery of a colleague
Here we are talking about the Kirlian effect. It occurs when objects are placed in an electromagnetic field. They really begin to surround a certain halo. But it does not arise as a result of life activity. Just from the surface - any - electrons come off, which ionize the air. This glow is captured by photographic film. The picture appears colorful, makes it possible to enchant and mislead all the ignorant and those who want to be mistaken. And the glow that we discovered is the glow of our internal organs.
Zhuravlev also has his own version of the origin of halos over heads:
In some people, a very rare metabolic disorder occurs when abnormal fluorescent sweat is released. Under the influence of external light, it shines. And this glow can reach such a level that it becomes noticeable. Especially in the dark. And if in ancient times our ancestors saw how one saint lit up around his head, then this fact was enough for them to subsequently draw an aura-nimbus around their heads on all icons.
Scholars disagreed for a reason. They, judging by their statements, call aura completely different physical phenomena. But it's the physical ones. Therefore, I believe that in this dispute we will not see the truth.
I believe that the aura, if it is related to physics, as a phenomenon, then only in conjunction with information fields, their multiple memes and egregors. It is necessary to approach the study of this phenomenon, first of all, not with modern optics, but with new ideas about the structure of our entire existence, starting from the creation of man
The appearance of a normal aura is bluish-purple, or a transparent pulsating layer of light, surrounding the body with a cover from 5 mm to 3.5 cm thick. It pulsates at a frequency of up to 15 cycles per minute. This pulsation looks like a traveling wave that spreads down the arms, legs and torso. The colored rays of the aura are surrounded by a grayish-blue nebula, which is brightest near the surface of the body and gradually fades as it moves away. The blue color in the head area slowly turns into yellow, surrounding the head with a crown at a distance of 7-10 cm.
When a person begins to sing, his field becomes more extended and brighter. Bright flashes and sparks fly out of it with each breath preceding the beginning of a new musical phrase. As the attention of the public grows, its general aura also expands. Similar to large arches of communication extend from the field of the singer to the field of the public, and their auras are connected. New, joint forms emerge, through which energy flows from the singer to the listener and back. These forms of energy create the structure and color of the aura, corresponding to the thoughts and feelings that the music generates in the singer and listeners.
When a woman is pregnant, her field expands and becomes much brighter. Above the shoulders of the mother-to-be, gentle balls of energy of blue, pink, yellow and green colors are visible.
In 1992, a special device for photographing the human aura, the Aura-Camera-6000, was manufactured in the USA. The picture taken by the "Aura-camera-6000" allowed, according to the developers, look into the inner world of a person, get an idea about the characteristics of his psyche, emotional state, his qualities and problems.
The main colors of the aura were deciphered as follows:
RED is the color of emotionality and vitality. Strong feelings of any kind, such as anger, fear, or love, are represented in red. A person with a red aura has physical vitality, vigor, ambition, and also sexual power. Red - courage, activity, assertiveness.
YELLOW is the color of the intellect, representing the process of change from the unconscious to the conscious. It involves changes and movements of all kinds, especially those that lead to purification and growth of the mind. Most often, yellow is seen as a halo or halo around the head. A person with a yellow aura has such qualities as love, kindness, optimism, compassion.
ORANGE - color primordially healing. Like the sun, which it symbolizes, it indicates the masculine principle or the masculine side of the feminine nature. When seen in the aura, it may indicate that the individual has strong healing abilities, or that the individual is in the process of physical growth or emotional self-healing.
GREEN - the color of growth; its presence in the aura usually indicates that a person is in the stage of choosing his attitude to life, beliefs or behavior. This is a positive color that can appear when a person, unsettled by fundamental internal changes, believes that his life is going badly.
BLUE is the color of creation, imagination and self-expression. Like the sea and sky, of which this color is a symbol, it expresses femininity or the feminine side of male nature. A person with a blue aura is fraught with deep wisdom and inspiration. He is artistic and easily finds harmony with nature, knows how to control himself, is pious or spiritual in nature.
GOLD is the color of pure intuition, psychic courage and self-knowledge. Glowing golden halos can often be seen above the heads of mystics and people in a state of bliss. Gold is a masculine color, often represented by the sun. It is also the color of cleansing and healing. Golden - the highest spirituality, huge life potential, high intelligence.
BLACK is the color of death and destruction and can be read as a sign of depression, especially if it appears as a dark cloud enveloping the patient's head. However, death is a state that precedes rebirth, and destruction is a state that precedes creation and creativity. Black is also considered a color that symbolizes the invisible Divine Light that comes to illuminate and purify the soul. Black - malice, anger; black holes in the aura - health problems, an indicator of painful areas, disturbed energy.
(from the Latin "nimbus" - "cloud", "radiance") - the radiance depicted on the icons around the head and symbolizing the presence of Divine grace and the deification of the ascetic. In the God-man Jesus Christ, the halo depicts the Divine glory (grace), originally inherent in Jesus Christ by His Divine nature.
The Christian halo has a prehistory already in the Old Testament. For example, when Moses came down from Sinai with the tablets, “his face began to shine with rays because God spoke to him” (Ex. 34:29). In the New Testament, for example, there is a description of the face of the first martyr Stephen, similar to the angelic face. The halo symbolically displays the mystery of the Divine presence in a righteous person. He testifies to the presence of the Divine, transforming the personality of the saint, certifying his involvement, which does not come externally, but resides inside the human soul. The nimbus symbolically conveys the mystery of the blessed, in which a person becomes involved as he goes through a spiritual feat and unites with God.
There are several types of nimbus in Orthodox painting. Most often - and most often in the most outstanding monuments, especially monumental art - with a dark outline of its golden part. This stroke was different, but mostly - in the form of one thick line or two thin, parallel ones; sometimes they are just counts. In both cases, a narrow strip was drawn - a light stroke - from the outer edge of the halo, about the width of a dark one, white, but often the same color as the inside of the halo. This iconography is the most common, and it seems to us the most correct in paracanonical terms. What does its content say? Let's look at the dark stroke first. Since its presence in the vast majority of monuments is mandatory, the conclusion suggests itself about a certain restrictive function of the stroke: it is something like a “frame” for the light coming from the saint. We are talking here, of course, about the spiritual light - about the Light, which, according to Dionysius the Areopagite, "comes from the good and is the image of goodness."
Of the modern authors, Archimandrite Raphael (Karelin) thinks interestingly about light. In his sermon on the Transfiguration of the Lord, he specifies: “The Orthodox Church teaches that there are three types of light.
The first kind is sensual. Created light, the light of physical energies that can be measured and characterized.
The second is the intellectual, inherent in man, soulish, also created light. It is the light of judgments and ideas, the light of imagination and fantasies. The light of poets and artists, scientists and philosophers. Soul light is usually admired by the semi-pagan world. This light can be intense and bright, bringing a person into a state of intellectual ecstasy. But spiritual light belongs to the earth. Spiritual realms are inaccessible to him.
The third kind of light is the uncreated, Divine, the revelation of Divine Beauty on earth and the manifestation of eternity in time. This light shone in the deserts of Egypt and Palestine, in the caves of Gareji and Betlemi (ancient Georgian monasteries), it is embodied in the words of the Holy Scripture, in the church liturgy and Orthodox icons”
The nimbus in the Orthodox icon, while remaining a symbol of holiness, is also a form that reveals the Divine nature of the superlight. “Glory to You, who showed us the light!” exclaims the priest in the last part of Matins. A saint in Christianity also acts as a direct witness to the truth, understood precisely as light. But here the meaning of the halo, of course, is not limited to what has been said. The light stroke from the outer edge of the halo is a kind of opposition to the dark one: if the latter is the Inmost Sheath that performs a concealing function (it is apophatic theology), then the first is the key, Revelation, an opportunity for the one praying to see the Light while still on earth; in this case it plays the role of a revealing function (kataphatic theology). Hence the white color of the stroke, that is, symbolically consubstantial with gold, but different in substance.
But this does not say everything. Clarifications needed. Gold itself does not emit light, but only reflects it from a real source; so the light of a saint by nature does not belong to him personally, but to God, and shines in the saints, like the sun in gold; “The righteous will shine like the sun,” according to the words of the Gospel (Matt. 13:43), “for they will become by grace what God is by nature,” writes V.N. Lossky, that is, we are talking about the blessing given, bestowed - “good + give”, - and not about some kind of “self-flare”, “self-ignition” of light in a person.
The feat of holiness is the voluntary renunciation of selfhood, the struggle against it. When Rev. Seraphim of Sarov shone with this light of grace before N.A. Motovilov, what did he pray for the day before? - "God! Deign to see it clearly and bodily with your eyes, that descent of Your Spirit, with which You honor Your servants, when You deign to appear in the light of Your magnificent glory!”
ABC of Faith