Workshop 3 : 11.15 Am to 12.15 pm

A member of the Orthodox Church, Aidan has been a full-time iconographer for almost forty years. He has works in over 25 countries of the world, including with HM King Charles III, the Ecumenical Patriarch, Pope Francis, and in numerous cathedrals in the UK. He was also a novice monk for twelve years, six years of these as a hermit, before deciding to ‘descend the mountain’ to dedicate himself to the ministry of iconography. For Aidan, the act of creating an icon is to pray with matter, but above all, icons are a door between heaven and earth, a place of encounter between the praying viewer and the person depicted.

Aidan is also an author, his latest book being the richly illustrated ‘Festal Icons: History and Meaning’ (2022), described by one reviewer as ‘bound to become a classic’. 

It is all too easy to think of the human person as a miserable creature, given our capacity to ruin things, to create our current ecological crisis, to wage wars, to squabble. But in this workshop we shall explore how the Scriptures, the Orthodox Church’s patristic writings, and the icon tradition all affirm how unimaginably great and dignified has God created the human person. We shall consider how, when we pray, we do so as princes and princesses standing before the King of kings. As the Psalmist writes: ‘God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment’ (Ps 82:1). Christ became man, suffered, died and rose not out of pity for some bestial creature, but because he has created us as living icons of himself, of unimaginable depth, dignity, mystery and promise. 

The maximum number of participants in each session is limited, so book early to avoid disappointment!