She Who Shows the Way
“of the Dove”
In Greek, Hodigitria is the word for “she who shows the way.” If this were a painting of an ordinary mother, we might see this phrase and assume that it’s the growing child in her arms to whom the mother is showing the way to maturity. But this is the Theotokos, the God Bearer, and with her hands gently pointing to the child in her arms, she shows us that Christ, the Logos Emmanuel, “is the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6).
With the Hodigitria-type icon, a subtle shift occurs for the viewer through the gentle pointing of the Theotokos. Instead of our focus being entirely on Mary, we now notice that how Christ is depicted suggests a different relationship between body and soul. The Logos confirms this suggestion by the authority of his gaze, now directed at the viewer rather than his mother. Most often in a Hodigitria icon, the Christ child holds a scroll indicating he is a teacher and the actual Word of God. Here, unusually, the child holds two doves. While not replacing the idea of the scroll, the doves remind the viewer of the Christian feast of the Presentation at the Temple: Jewish law required a young family to bring their firstborn son to the Temple in Jerusalem forty days after birth, after the period of uncleanness was finished, with either a lamb or two turtledoves for sacrifice. The doves Christ holds show that his future teaching will be one of humility and gentleness, equally present in a person of maturity.
Hodigitria icons symbolically depict the progress of faith in a Christian who has firmly decided to follow the commandments of Christ. The initial joy of tender, youthful faith has begun to fade, a child needs to grow up, and the path of growth becomes narrow, sometimes rocky and thorny. The Christian must now deepen his or her study, practice virtue and disciplined prayer, and patiently await his or her own meeting with the Lord—that is, a new installment of grace, which takes place in the very center of the soul.
In Orthodox teaching, spiritual realities are apprehended through our intelligence, which includes, but is more than, mere reason. Our soul has a center, which is called different things by various Church Fathers: mind, heart, eye of the heart, nous. In this icon, the Logos Emmanuel represents the very center of the soul. He is the prophetic word, bearing wisdom, thereby illuminating both the soul and body.
And what of the Theotokos? Having borne God, how does she now continue to show us the way? The Hodigitria icon traditionally emphasizes Mary’s quality of virginity, which, in New Testament times, referred less to sexual purity and more to the completeness, or wholeness, of a person. Just as the clay bole for the gilding of the halo must be pure, without grit or blemish, purified and burnished to accept the gold, the Virgin represents the senses of the soul, purified to the point of giving birth to the soul’s “heart,” illuminated by Christ, the Logos Emmanuel, God-With-Us. Follow her unbroken gaze and we too can become unified in soul and body: virginal and whole.