On Thursday, May 12, 2005, Mrs. Mirana Abdelnour, M.A. in Family Sciences from The Lyon Catholic University, made a presentation on Spouses in Orthodox Iconography as part of a series of public lectures on Family and Pastoral Care organized by the MTh Program for this academic year 2004-2005 (see full program here).

During her conference Mrs. Abdelnour projected a sequence of Orthodox icons that represent spouses in different scenes. The icons of the Creation, Resurrection, Wedding of Cana, osculation of the righteous, and many others were interpreted from this very particular perspective.

God blessed the union of man and woman in marriage. Icons depict this union respecting a vital space between the two spouses. These holy images do always call the beholder to discern between union and fusion. Hence, each individual remains independent, though united to the other one. To rediscover the prosopon in the neighbor permits a reassurance of the self and incites to the search of the Divine. 

Mrs. Abdelnour concluded her conference naming some issues that still need to be studied in the Orthodox iconography and exhorting the attendance to engage themselves in a pastoral work that reinterprets the tradition for a flock living in the modern world.

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