Lenten Retreat

Seeing the Divine: Icons and Visual Prayer

Our retreat facilitator, The Rev. Canon Mary Brennan Thorpe, will give us insight into the experience of Orthodox icons. We will explore the history of iconography, the hidden meanings, the surprises that each icon brings, and the varied theological views of encountering this form of art/prayer.

We will hear the legends associated with various icons, see the power of color to influence what we see, and the stylistic differences over the centuries and around the globe. What are traditional icons and what are contemporary icons and how do they show the expansiveness of the medium? Who has loved icons and who (gasp!) has hated them? How does this tool for prayer and meditation vary from the Western canon of religious art?

This is not a class in how to write icons: that’s a task for another day. It is a retreat to discover how to read icons, and how we can encounter the divine – indeed, the Divine Mystery – through the practice of studying icons and seeing what the Spirit draws us to see.

This retreat will include times to learn, times to discuss, times to meditate and times to rest, all in the beautifully peaceful setting of Chanco. Who is it for? Those who want to discover a new spiritual practice and path to engage with God, those who want to understand the strange beauty of icons, those who are icon-curious: you know who you are!

The Rev. Canon Mary Brennan Thorpe, who serves as the Diocese’s Interim Canon to the Ordinary, has been a student of iconography for 27 years. She began her studies with Master Iconographer Irina Beliakova, a Russian-born and Moscow-trained expert in traditional egg-tempera iconography. Mary later continued her studies with Teresa Harrison, where she learned the use of acrylic paints and began to design contemporary icons. She has visited prominent monasteries and sites of iconography, including numerous churches and museums in various parts of Greece (Athens, Thessaloniki, Meteora, Aegina among others) as well as Bulgaria (Rila Monastery, Alexander Nevsky Church/Sofia, Bachkovo Monastery.) She now accepts commissions, and her icons can be seen in churches across the United States, in Ireland, England, and Africa. Her icon depicting the encounter on the road to Emmaus serves as cover art for her book “On the Emmaus Road: A Guide to Transitions in Lay Leadership” (Church Publishing, 2021).

Registration coming soon.