The Spirit Moves This Man of Faith

Nicolas Majdalani says he has two birthdays.

Although he entered this world on July 18, 1935, Majdalani prefers to celebrate another date: July 11, 1958. That was the day he began work on his first religious icon. That was the day, he said, life truly began.

Ask him what he’s painted lately, and he’ll wince. Majdalani doesn’t “paint” icons. “No,” he said. “I write the icon.”

Iconographers compare their work to the writings of the apostles. Rather than using a pen to spread the word of God, they use a brush.

One afternoon in late February, the 70-year-old Majdalani basked in the glow of gold leaf as he prepared to “write,” a journey he equates with Divine Liturgy, the ceremony in which Eastern Orthodox Christians believe they receive the body and blood of Christ.

He kissed his brush, made the sign of the cross and smoothed a line of ecru-tinted paint onto the hand of St. Ignatius of Antioch, one of 31 saints in an alcove attached to St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral. Throughout the past year, the chapel project has trumped all else in Majdalani’s life.

“When I’m in the car, when I dream, icon, icon, icon,” he said.

His fascination with these two-dimensional images that portray biblical figures or scenes was born in the pews of a church in Beirut, just a few miles from where he now lives.

As a boy, Majdalani would pass Sunday Mass staring at icons. By his early 20s, he was spending summers in Greece learning from Photios Kontoglou, a man credited with leading a revival of Byzantine-style iconography.

Majdalani, who once taught drawing to a St. Nicholas priest, the Rev. Father Michel Najim, has previously created icons for the cathedral, located a few blocks northeast of MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. The church and a benefactor commissioned the work.

To prepare the 10 canvases that adorn the Cloud of Witnesses Chapel, Majdalani began as he always does, with a prayer recited in Arabic: “Sanctify those who love the beauty of thy house.”

Next came 11 months of studying the saints, praying and painting, he said. In January, the paintings were flown from Lebanon to Los Angeles, ready to be unrolled and glued onto the walls and ceiling of a tiny hallway that leads into the narthex of the St. Nicholas Cathedral.

Gold leaf now coats nearly every inch of the chapel not occupied by an icon. The resulting gilded room feels celestial, a vessel worthy of the icons that Orthodox Christians call “windows to heaven.”

For six weeks, in a space only three paces by five, Majdalani finished detail work and repaired damage caused in transit -- cracks in St. John’s robes, tears in St. Thekla’s Bible.

At 5 foot 3, Majdalani stood eye to eye with Ignatius, “the God Bearer,” a bearded icon wearing the cross-trimmed stole of a bishop. Many believe it was Ignatius whom Jesus presented to the disciples with the words, “Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

He and the other icons “represent divinity in humanity,” Najim said. “God reflected in man.”

The gold-haloed icon’s uniformity becomes like the chorus of a favorite song, comforting in its repetition. Their pursed lips and steely gazes -- which follow both sinners and saints as they cross the room -- are not intended to depict the human forms of St. Peter the Aleut or St. Mary of Egypt. They’re symbolic, said Najim, who studied drawing with Majdalani as a boy.

Majdalani follows the traditions of monastic iconographers, a calling with numerous self-imposed customs.

He selects an outfit to last the duration of the project -- in this case, blue sweatpants and a striped shirt. He’ll retire them, along with his brushes and gloves, once the chapel is finished.

First and foremost, he said, is the matter of purity.

As the back of Majdalani’s hand skimmed Ignatius’s coral robes, a makeshift blue glove served as barrier between him and the icon. Although he lives as holy a life as possible while working -- abstaining from alcohol and physical love -- Majdalani said he never could be pure enough. Some of his sins might seep into the sacred contours of his beloved icons, and that, he said, just would not do.

He stepped back to examine Ignatius’ hand. It still lacked. He reached for a metal cart packed with short jars filled with powdered pigments and dipped his bristles -- no larger that a kernel of long-grain rice -- into a small cup containing vinegar and an egg yolk.

He said he combines yolk, “the symbol of life,” with the pigments to create the rich colors that bring life to his icons. Flakes from ancient icons and a pinch of incense, a Wise Man’s gift, also lift his paints to a sacred level.

After dabbing the egg-soaked brush into a pool of russet paint, he slid his brush across a white plastic plate he used as a palette. The concoction, swirled with a puddle of beige, yielded a tawny pink that Majdalani would use to fashion cuticles for Ignatius.

Although the project was not yet complete by Majdalani’s standards, congregant Jameel Beebe said that when he first entered the room, tears came to his eyes -- every inch of wall space sang with God’s grace.

The icons now envelop visitors as they enter -- the evangelists on the ceiling, the female saints with the Blessed Mother on the left, Jesus and the men on the right.

“The saints care for you and hold you as you enter God’s house,” said Beebe, 90. “The way it should be.”

Majdalani responded with humility, explaining that the work isn’t truly his.

“This hand,” he said, tugging off the paint-speckled glove, “is not my hand when I work. It is the hand of God.”

Beebe, who suggested the project, will be there when the Antiochian Orthodox Christian bishop of Los Angeles and the West, the Rt. Rev. Joseph, consecrates the chapel next Sunday,, which also marks the Day of Orthodoxy.

In the year 726, Byzantine Emperor Leo III forbade the veneration of icons, labeling it idolatry. His edict spurred the destruction of countless works in churches and homes. The Seventh Ecumenical Council restored them 61 years later, an act celebrated each year on the first Sunday of the Orthodox Lent, this year on March 12.

After Beebe left him to his work, the iconographer turned his attention from Ignatius and toward the saint’s teacher: John the Evangelist.

John, his held tilted up to the right -- toward the heavens -- sits on the ceiling with his scribe, St. Prochorus, whose scroll reads: “In the beginning was the word.” The fourth finger of John’s right hand presses into his thumb, a blessing called a Christogram, a gesture that mimics Jesus Christ’s initials in Greek.

John’s inside robes blaze blue, his outside garb a blood red. In iconography, blue symbolizes humanity and red divinity, Majdalani said. Although John walked the Earth a human, his passion for the Lord was divine, thus earning the red robes. Reverse John’s clothes and you have the iconographic apparel of Jesus Christ. As the son of God, he’s divine first, human second, he said.

Below him, king of the angels Archangel Michael carries a sword; Archangel Gabriel, a messenger, holds a staff.

Majdalani said he speaks with the angels frequently, as he does all the saints. While working, he said, he’ll mumble things like, “Oh, Jesus, let me make for you the beautiful eyes now, OK? OK.”

Never has such discourse had such an effect as in 1993. It was midday in Toronto, and Majdalani sat 50 feet above the altar of St. George Orthodox Church. He’d been working on the Last Supper and spending time with Jesus and his disciples. Judas was next.

“Whenever I write Judas, I must make him ...” Majdalani trailed off, scrunching his face like a child playing a villain in a school play. This notion, that Judas’ betrayal led to the Crucifixion, is common Christian dogma, he said, so he felt compelled to create a face devoid of humanity.

Just then, the long-silent figure spoke: “A voice said, ‘Nicola, please don’t make me bad. I didn’t kill Jesus.’ ” Judas continued, Majdalani said, telling his side of the story, going as far to single out people who take communion without truly loving the Lord. “They are Judas,” the apostle told the iconographer. “I loved Jesus.”

Ever since, he said, he renders the biblical villain “the most beautiful” figure at the Last Supper.

The icons at St. Nicholas have been rather subdued, comparatively. Although Majdalani said St. Thekla did help him out of a bind, telling him where to find a pink folder he’d filled with gold leaf and lost.

“Unbelievable,” he said, shaking his head in awe -- not of the saint’s sixth sense but of his absent-mindedness.

As he toiled away, Majdalani awaited the icons’ approval. When the process is done, the icons will know, he said.

“Stop, Nicola,” they say, “we are finished. We are beautiful.”