20th December, 2020.
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My dear friends,

As it is the tradition on the fourth Sunday of Advent to focus on the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Christianity, I thought I would share with you the fascinating history of an ancient religious icon which was much beloved of the medieval Hospitallers of the Order of St John, the icon of Our Lady of Philermos.

            This is a small, dark painting on wood of the head of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to tradition, it was painted by St Luke in AD 46, some 13 years after the Resurrection. I must confess that when I first read that, I was a bit sceptical: it struck me that the icon probably dated from rather later. However, it is certainly possible that the icon may have been painted by St Luke: there was a tradition of painting realistic portraits of people in the 1st century AD – think of some of the images at Pompeii or in Egypt – and St Luke, being a physician, was a careful observer (this comes across from his Gospel), so he might have painted Mary as a record (there are one or two other ancient religious images that he is said to have painted). As he wrote his Gospel, St Luke would have had a little team of helpers – researchers, scribes, etc – and so it is possible that one of these people painted the icon. We shall never know for certain.

            Sister Wendy Beckett, the nun and well-known art historian (and a bit of a favourite of mine) would probably have said to us that whatever the origins of the icon, its meaning lies in what it stands for. What we have in the icon of Our Lady of Philermos is a very ancient image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is a recognition and a celebration in paint on wood of the vital role of Mary in Christianity: quite simply, without Mary, there would have been no Jesus.

            The icon of Our Lady of Philermos had rather a chequered life. At some point it was taken to Antioch and then to Jerusalem. Around AD 430 it was taken to Constantinople. In 1204 it was taken back to Jerusalem. After the fall of Jerusalem, it was taken to Rhodes – controlled by the Order of St John – and eventually to Malta, where it was much venerated by the Hospitallers.

            In 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte turfed the Hospitallers of St John out of Malta. The Grand Master, Ferdinand von Hompesch, managed to save the icon and took it with him into exile. The Order was dispersed. Some of the surviving knights of St John invited Tsar Paul I of Russia to become the Grand Master, which led to the creation of a Russian (and Russian Orthodox) Order of St John. Other knights of St John managed to retrieve the icon of Our Lady of Philermos and sent it to St Petersburg, where it was once more venerated in church. Following the Russian revolution in 1917, the icon was again saved and ended up in Denmark in the care of the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (the sister of Queen Alexandra and aunt of King George V). Towards the end of her life, the Dowager Empress entrusted the icon to the Orthodox Church in Yugoslavia.

In 1941 during the Second World War the icon of Our Lady of Philermos disappeared. It wasn’t clear whether it had been destroyed by bombing or had been looted. From Rome, the Order of Malta tried to track it down, but without success. An Italian scholar, Giovannella Berté Ferraris di Celle, determined to find out what had happened to the icon. She persisted with her research, and eventually in 1997 – after the end of Communism made things easier – she tracked down the icon to Cetinje in Montenegro, where it may still be seen today.

It is easy to see why the icon of Our Lady of Philermos appealed to the knights hospitaller of St John. Whether it was painted by St Luke or someone else, it was a very ancient image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. If an old church may be said to be soaked in the prayers of generations, the same may doubtless be said of an icon. The medieval hospitallers of St John in Jerusalem would have been very conscious of all the places in the Holy Land associated with Mary and Jesus. When the Order of St John had to leave the Holy Land, the icon would have seemed a little link to the place of their origins. The Blessed Virgin Mary, too, would have been a figure with whom they found it easy to associate: she had taken a leap of faith at the Annunciation, and they too had taken a leap of faith by joining the Order of St John and moving from Europe to the Holy Land. In their work in the hospital in Jerusalem, they would daily have seen pain and suffering, and they would probably have felt a certain kinship with Mary, who saw her son die on the cross and held his dead body in her arms. They would have felt a link with Mary via the communion of saints; and they would have sought her heavenly prayers as they tried in their own lives faithfully to follow her son Jesus.

And what is the significance of the icon of Our Lady of Philermos for us in later generations? It is, after all, only some old paint on an old piece of wood. Sister Wendy Beckett, let us remind ourselves, would have said, what matters is what the icon stands for. God has used paint, wood and the skills of an artist – whether St Luke or some other – to create an image of Mary that has inspired and comforted countless generations of Christians on their journey through life. The very ups and downs of the icon’s history – all its journeys, spells housed in different churches, and narrow scrapes – symbolise the daily lives of each of us on our Christian pilgrimage. The icon bids us look to Mary for an example of faith, and beyond that it speaks to us of her son Jesus Christ, and reminds us that whatever happens to us as we go through life, nothing can ever separate us from his great love.

​​With my prayers and all good and warm wishes,

The Rev. Dr ROBERT BEAKEN, County Chaplain
ADVENT 4 – 20th DECEMBER 2020.
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Gospel: St Luke, chapter 1, verses 26-38
The story of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary is one of my half-dozen favourite passages of Scripture. It is, I venture to suggest, well-known to all Christians. But, because of its very familiarity to us, its sharp edge has become somewhat blunted. The Annunciation to Mary is a truly amazing event.

            For a start, most Jews in first century Palestine would have been most surprised to learn that God sent his Angel Gabriel to an ordinary young woman. There are instances in the Old Testament of God communicating with women, but they are not very common. For the most part, the popular expectation was that God would speak to patriarchs, prophets, kings and religious leaders: all top people.

Then the Angel Gabriel’s message itself was revolutionary:
 
Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord will give him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
 
The Angel Gabriel’s message contained a series of extraordinary ideas. Mary, an ordinary Jewish girl, betrothed to a carpenter, was asked by Gabriel to take on board the notion that her son would be a king. His kingdom would be great, and he would reign for ever – something not even the great King David had done. In response to Mary’s assertion that she was a virgin and thus couldn’t be pregnant, the Angel Gabriel replied:
 
The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; and he will be called Son of God.
 
It is important that we do not go away with the idea that God, in deciding to send His Son into time and space, had a look around all the women living on earth, to try to spot someone who would do to be the mother of His Son. Far from it. The constant and ancient tradition of the Christian Church asserts that God had always planned that Mary, the girl from Nazareth, would be the mother of Jesus. From the very earliest moments of Mary’s life, the Holy Spirit had been at work inside her, preparing her through her relationship with God, through her prayerfulness and purity, for this great moment.

In Christian art, Mary is often depicted at the Annunciation reading; for, according to Greek Orthodox tradition, she was reading Isaiah the Prophet, and she got to the passage where he predicts, ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel.’ Mary thought to herself, ‘Gosh, I wish I could be that virgin and conceive and bear the son,’ and in this moment of her longing to carry out God’s will, the Angel Gabriel appeared to her. Mary could still have said ‘No’ to Gabriel, and we would have all understood her fear, but instead, she said very humbly, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be to me according to thy word.’ She heard, believed, trusted, and accepted. And in that instant, the long chain of human sinfulness going back to the Fall was broken, and the Word became flesh – her flesh, in her own womb.

            As you will have gathered by now, I am very interested in Christian art and architecture. A few days ago I came across a photograph of an old Spanish tabernacle that quite literally took my breath away. I need to explain that tabernacle is the name given to the place in a church where the Blessed Sacrament – the bread consecrated in the Eucharist which becomes the sacramental Body of Christ – is reserved, so that the priest may give Holy Communion in a hurry to the sick or dying, or take Communion to the housebound. Down the centuries there have been many ways of reserving the Sacrament: in a tabernacle or little cupboard on the altar, in a freestanding tabernacle, in a cupboard set into a wall, or in a metal container suspended by chains from the chancel ceiling, frequently in the shape of a turret or a dove. In the cathedral at Palma de Mallorca there is a rare 14th century tabernacle in the form of a statue of the Virgin and Child, with a little cupboard in the side to contain the reserved Sacrament. Such tabernacles were to be found in medieval Spain and France, and sometimes in Cistercian monasteries. The one in Palma de Mallorca was used for over four hundred years before it was replaced with a baroque altar in the 18th century. It was re-discovered in the twentieth century and restored by Antoni Gaudí, the architect of the famous Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona.

            It is sometimes asserted that a picture is worth a thousand words. This image of a tabernacle in the shape of a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary moved me intensely. There, inside an image of Mary, the Blessed Sacrament was reserved. When those unknown 14th century Christians decided to reserve the Sacrament in an image of Mary, they expressed wonderfully the vital role of Mary in the Christian story. They reminded us that for nine months Mary bore Jesus Christ in her womb. She gave him her flesh and blood, so that 33 years later on the Cross he might give his flesh and blood for us.

            Without Mary, quite literally, there would have been no Incarnation, no Christmas, no Easter, no salvation. God, placed the whole of His work to redeem the world in the hands of a young girl; and she, in faith and love, said      ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be to me according to thy word.’

The same Holy Spirit who worked inside the young Blessed Virgin Mary, preparing her to cooperate with God, is also at work inside each of us. Today, we venerate Mary for her role in the Christian story; and we pray that we, too, may also hear God, and do what He wants us to do in our lives.