Glenn:

Thank you.  I thought about adding a paragraph about
an Icon of Blessed Mary that adorns a Greek Church in
Cincinnati, Ohio, but the piece was already long.  

The Greek Church has a high domed ceiling, and the
icon is, as Fr. Wiebe said, as big as all out doors. 
The mosaic artwork is excellent and reaches from floor
to the top of the dome. The color in the mosaic work
gives a feeling of dimension to the "flat" appearance
of the icon.  She reaches from earth to heaven just as
the verbal Icon in Revelation 12 says. 

In reading Revelation 12, one can't help but think of
Blessed Mary, so typologically it is and was the most
natural thing in the world to identify Mary with the
Israel of God.  Perhaps John the Revelator felt the
same way.  But that is a different matter from the
exegesis of the text.

Your comment about an icon of the Dragon reminded me
of the difficulty I had as a teenager and young man in
accepting the reality of evil. I refused to believe in
a personification of evil.  I could believe in a good
God but not a Devil.

In rejecting dualism, the Church has difficulty of
conceiving of a perfect slime or ultimate evil.  After
more than half a century of ignoring evil by such
slogans as "I'm a work in progress", maybe the Church
does need an iconic reminder that there is, as the
Shadow knows, "evil that lurks in the heart of men."

Charles+  

--- GMSpencer@... wrote:

> " I wonder, the vision in Revelation of the flight
> of the woman into the desert,
> could it be a remembrance of the flight of the
> Jerusalem Christians prior to the fall of Jerusalem?
>  Jesus said, "Pray that your flight will not take
> place in winter or on the Sabbath. . .How dreadful
> it will be in those days for pregnant women and
> nursing mothers!" 
> 
> Fine exgesis work Fr. Charles! This makes a lot of
> sense to me. Iconographically the woman would
> probably still be dipicted as our Lady since she was
> from the earliest days a type of the Church. I would
> have to say I'm not sure what I'd do with an icon
> dipicting the red dragon preparing to devour the
> child. I recall such an icon that we discussing in
> Icon Theology (taught by Geoffrey Wainwright at
> Duke) that was in a Roman Church in France. I'm
> almost sure they had it behind the altar. Can you
> imagine! I don't think I'd use it at all. Maybe in
> the nursery to scare the kids into good behavior.
> gms+
>