The Recovering Choir Director

Yesterday in his weekly General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI shared a summary of the life of St. Germanus.  The translation below was done by Teresa Benedetta of the Papa Ratzinger Forum.  Links and emphases added.

Dear brothers and sisters:

The Patriarch Germanus of Constantinople, whom I will speak about today, is not among the most representative figures of the Greek-speaking Oriental Christian world, but nonetheless his name appears with some solemnity in the list of great defenders of sacred images listed in the Second Council of Nicaea (784), the seventh of the Church’s ecumenical councils.

The Greek Church celebrates his feast in the liturgy of May 12.  He had a significant role in the complex history of the fight in favor of sacred images during the so-called iconoclastic crisis. He valiantly resisted the pressures of an iconoclastic Emperor — one who was an adversary of images — in Leo III.

During the Patriarchate of Germanus (715-730), the capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, underwent a very dangerous siege by the Saracens.  On that occasion (717-718), a solemn procession was organized in the city with the exposition of the image of the Mother of God, the Theotokos, and a relic of the Holy Cross, to invoke the Supreme Power in the defense of the city.

Afterwards, the enemy decided to desist from their idea of establishing their capital in the city that was a symbol of the Christian empire, and the people’s acknowledgment for the divine assistance was extremely great.

Patriarch Germanus, after that, was convinced that the intervention of God should be considered evident approval of the piety shown by the people towards holy icons.

But a completely different view was held by Emperor Leo III, who in that year, seated himself in Constantinople as the undisputed Emperor, reigning until 741.

After the liberation of Constantinople [from the Saracen siege] and other victories, the Christian emperor started to show more openly that the consolidation of empire should start with a reordering of manifestations of the faith, particularly against the risk of idolatry to which he believed the people were exposed as a result of an excessive cult of icons.

In vain did Patriarch Germanus argue about the tradition of the Church and the efficacy of some images that were unanimously acclaimed to be miraculous.  The emperor became even more firm in applying his plan of ‘restoration’ which included the elimination of icons.

When on January 7, 730, Germanus openly took a stand during a public meeting against the cult of images, he did not wish to yield to the emperor in any way on questions that he felt were determinative for the orthodox practice of the faith which, he said, included the cult and love of sacred images.

As a consequence, Germanus was forced to give up being Patriarch, condemning himself to exile in a monastery where he died forgotten by virtually everyone.

His name re-emerged at the aforementioned Second Council of Nicaea (787), when the orthodox Fathers decided in favor of icons and recognized the merits of Germanus.

Patriarch Germanus gave great attention to liturgical celebrations, and for a time, he was even considered the initiator of the Feast of the Akatisthos. This is an ancient and famous hymn dedicated to the Theotokos, the Mother of God, which developed in Byzantine Christianity.

Even if Germanus cannot be described as a great thinker from the theological point of view, some of his works had a certain resonance especially for some of his intuitions on Mariology.

Of his works, several homilies with a Marian theme have been conserved, and some of them had a profound effect on the piety of entire generations of faithful in the East as well as in the West.

His splendid homilies on the Presentation of Mary in the Temple are testimonies that remain vivid of the unwritten tradition of the Christian Church.  Generations of nuns, monks and members of numerous institutes for the consecrated life continue to find today in these texts the most precious treasures of spirituality.

Still arousing wonder today are some of his Mariologic texts that are part of the homilies he delivered on the Feast of SS. Deiparae dormitionem [Most Holy Dormition of the Mother of God], which corresponds to our Feast of the Assumption.

From these texts, Pope Pius XII picked out a passage that he framed like a pearl in his Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus (1950), with which he declared the Assumption of Mary as a dogma of the faith.

Pius XII cited the text as one of the arguments in favor of the Church’s permanent faith in the corporeal Assumption of Mary to heaven. Germanus wrote:

Could it ever happen, Most Holy Mother of God, that heaven and earth feel honored by your presence, and you, with your patience, could leave men deprived of your protection?  No.  It is impossible to think these things.   Indeed, just as while you were on earth, you did not feel estranged from the realities of heaven, so too, even after you migrated from this world, you are indeed not estranged from the possiblity of communicating spiritually to men….

You have not abandoned those whose salvation you have guaranteed.  Indeed, your spirit lives eternally, just as your flesh was not corrupted in the tomb.

You, O Mother, are near to everyone, and protect everyone, and although our eyes are prevented from seeing, we know, O Most Holy, that you live in our midst and manifest your presence in the most diverse ways….

You are she who, as it is written, appears in beauty, and your virginal body is all holy, all chaste, entirely the dwelling place of God, so that it is henceforth completely exempt from dissolution into dust.  Though still human, it is changed into the heavenly life of incorruptibility, truly living and glorious, undamaged and sharing in perfect life. (PG 98, coll. 344B-346B, passim).

It has been said that for the Byzantines, the discipline of rhetorical form in preaching — and even more, in hymns or the compositions they call troparions — is as important in the liturgical celebration as the beauty of the sacred edifice in which it takes place.

Patriarch Germanus has been acknowledged, in that tradition, as one of those who contributed most to keep this conviction alive, namely, that the beauty of words and of language should coincide with the beauty of the edifice and the music in liturgy.

I will cite, in conclusion, the inspired words with which Germanus describes the Church at the start of his small masterpiece:

The Church is the temple of God, sacred space, a house of prayer, a convocation of the people, Body of Christ… It is heaven on earth, where transcendent God lives ‘at home’ and walks with us, but it is also the realized impression (antitypos) or the crucifixion, the tomb and resurrection…

The Church is the house of God in which the vivifying mystical sacrifice is celebrated, which is also the most intimate part of the sanctuary and a holy grotto.  Inside it in fact are found the tomb and the table, food for the soul and guarantees of life.

In it, finally, are found the true and proper precious pearls which are the divine dogmas of the teaching directly offered by the Lord to his disciples (PG 98, coll. 384B-385A).

In the end, the question remains: What does this saint have to tell us today, who is chronologically — and even culturally — distant from us? I can think of three things, substantially.

The first: God has a certain visibility in the world, in the Church, which we must learn to perceive. God created man in his image, but this image has been covered so much by the filth of sin, as a result of which God can no longer be seen.

And so, the Son of God became man, a perfect image of God — and so, in Christ we can contemplate the face of God and learn to be true men ourselves, true images of God.

Christ invites us to imitate him, to become like him, so that in every man, the face of God may show again, the image of God.

True, God in the Ten Commandments forbade graven images, but this was because of the temptation to idolatry to which the believer could be exposed in the context of paganism.

But when God became visible in Christ through the Incarnation, it became legitimate to reproduce the Face of Christ. Sacred images teach us to see God in the representations of the Face of Christ.

Thus, after the incarnation of the Son of God, it became possible to see God in the Face of Christ and even in the face of saints, and in the faces of all men in which the holiness of God shines through.

The second thing is the beauty and dignity of liturgy. To celebrate liturgy in the awareness of God’s presence, with that dignity and beauty that make us see something of his splendor, is the task of every Christian educated in the faith.

The third thing is to love the Church. With regard to the Church, we men have been led to see above all its sins, what is negative.  But with the help of faith which makes us capable of seeing thins in an authentic way, we can also, today and always, rediscover the divine beauty in the Church.

It is in the Church that God is present, offers himself to us in the Holy Eucharist and remains present for Adoration.  In the Church, God speaks to us; in the Church, God ‘walks with us’, as St. Germanus said.  In the Church, we receive God’s forgiveness and we learn to forgive.

Let us pray to God that he may teach us to see in the Church his presence, his beauty, and to see his presence in the world, and that he may help us ourselves to be transparent with his light.

Download the Vatican Radio podcast of Pope Benedict’s summary of this catechesis.

Transcript of the English-language synthesis reproduced below (links added):

Dear Brothers and Sisters, In our catechesis on the early Christian writers of East and West, we turn to Saint Germanus, Bishop and Patriarch of Constantinople, whose feast day is celebrated in the Greek Church on 12 May.

In 717, while Constantinople was under siege by Saracen armies, Germanus led a procession with the venerated image of the Theotokos, the Mother of God, and relics of the Holy Cross.  The siege was lifted, convincing him that God had responded to the people’s devotion.

Some time later however, Emperor Leo III initiated his campaign against the use of sacred images, judging them to be a source of idolatry.  When Germanus opposed the Emperor publicly in 730 he was forced to retire in exile to a monastery, where he later died.  His memory was not forgotten, and in the Second Council of Nicaea, which restored devotion to sacred images, his name was honoured.

The writings of Germanus, steeped in an ardent love of the Church and devotion to the Mother of God, have had a wide influence on the piety of the faithful both of the East and the West.  He promoted a solemn and beautiful Liturgy and is also known for his insights in Mariology.  In homilies on the Presentation and the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, Germanus extols her virtue and her mission.  A text which sees the source of her bodily incorruption in her virginal maternity was included by Pope Pius XII in his Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus.

I pray that through the intercession of Saint Germanus we may all be renewed in our love of the Church and devotion to the Mother of God.

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I offer a warm welcome to all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors from England, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Japan, Canada and the United States. Upon all of you I cordially invoke the Lord’s Easter blessings of joy and peace! 00:02:26:66