St. John Damascene

St. John Damascene was born in Damascus, Syria, in the year 675. The world he was born into was already, officially, Islam. The Arab Christians had family roots there reaching back to the time of Christ. John came from a family that held a hereditary position as Chief of the Revenue Department, until the Caliph decided he didn't want a Christian doing that anymore. Then John became a monk.

While a monk he wrote over one hundred fifty works. One of them was the Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. He weighed against the Iconoclasts in that controversy. Iconoclasts were icon breakers, they believed that the veneration of images was idol worship. His support of icons made St. John very unpopular in the Byzantine empire. John didn't live in the Byzantine empire, so he wasn't hounded like so many others were.

"Since some find fault with us
for worshipping and honoring the image of our Savior
and that of Our Lady, let them remember
that in the beginning God created
man after his own image. On what grounds
then do we show reverence to one another
unless it is because we are made
after God's image?"

I think that makes the case rather convincingly for the veneration of Icons. It makes me think of John Donne's poem "The Cross," written against the Puritans who were trying to ban all crosses.

SINCE Christ embraced the cross itself, dare I
His image, th' image of His cross, deny ?
Would I have profit by the sacrifice,
And dare the chosen altar to despise ?
It bore all other sins, but is it fit
That it should bear the sin of scorning it?

That was written sometime in the early 1600s. So more than a thousand years separates the two works, but the same spirit is in both.

For his many works, and his clear defense of veneration of icons, John is a Doctor of the Church.