Bringing saints to Naples: Iconographer adds paintings to St. Paul Orthodox Church

John Filippakis slept Tuesday night surrounded by saints, prophets and apostles.

That celestial community may have eased the bareness of his bed — a pew in the darkened St. Paul Antiochian Orthodox Church at 2425 Rivers Road. Filippakis is an iconographer, painting the wall art that is an Orthodox sanctuary's illustration of its faith. He had hoped to get a little more work time by painting through the evening and arising early to paint more. 

The hallowed company for his slumber were all familiar to him. After the church was built in 2006, Filippakis had painted its first saints, St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great,behind the iconostasis, Orthodoxy's holy area for the offering of the bread and wine. They lean eagerly toward a central icon behind the altar depicting Christ's consecration of bread and wine. 

St. Paul, patron of the church, and St. John the Baptist are close by, on the iconostasis. The prophets, apostles and the New Testament's four evangelists — all Filippakis' work — survey the church from around its dome at the juncture of its sanctuary's crucifix design. 

Above them all, a portrait of Christ, his face a subtle glow of divine presence, gazes down over a church that will be filled for the Sunday Divine Liturgy. That icon, too, is one of Filippakis' creations. He peered up, inspecting what had been the biggest challenge of his work at St. Paul.  

"Canvas is flat. But the rotunda is round. We had to make that in seven or eight pieces," he recalled. Proof of his expertise is that the viewer can't find a clue Filippakis did not paint the entire sacred portrait directly on the ceiling.

This week and next he's placing additional icons in the "arms" of the sanctuary and adding trim to the enclosure arches of the iconstasis.

Canvas makes huge icons portable

Filippakis, 67, only finishes his icons on the wall. The figures in Orthodox church icons are generally painted on canvas squares, cut out, applied to the walls and embellished, for two practical reasons:

• A roof leak would not destroy the paint on an icon; chipping into it to repair a  crack would.  It would be costly and slow, given the rarity of iconographers in the United States. Canvas icons can be removed while the repair work is done.
• Iconography is a painstaking art; Filippakis has already spent nearly six months working on this group of canvases, which are easily changed at floor level. 

"Can you imagine how many months this would be here if I were painting directly on the walls?" he asked, waving a muscular arm around the sanctuary. A full third of its public space is latticed in scaffolding; 12-ounce plastic drink cups protect the floor screws where front pews will be re-affixed after Filippakis' departure at the end of next week. 

As it is, Filipakis says he still finds himself at floor level doubting the wisdom of a stroke on an applied icon and clambers back up on the scaffolding up to change it. Since his early teen years in his home on the Greek island of Crete, Filippakis has studied and practiced iconography, learning the more polished, subtle Byzantine style, as opposed to textured Russian work.

He has learned how to paint large, to reach the distant perspectives of the churchgoers, and the tricks of keeping proportion on curved walls.  He's learned its many protocols, the symbolism in apparel and objects and the historical customs for those portrayed.

"For instance, with Christ, he rises from here," he said, pointing to the altar, "to here" — his hand gesturing toward the ceiling dome. "But he never descends. He is the apex, the star." 

Christ's mother, Mary, known as the Theotokos (literally, God-bearer) is always depicted on the left side of the altar. St. John the Baptist holds an honored spot as well.

Paintings aren't final, even on walls

Although his family immigrated to America when he was in high school, Filippakis apprenticed with the masters in Greece and has painted both in North America and abroad. He has painted private family chapels and the huge rotunda at St. Demitrios Greek Orthodox Church in Fort Lauderdale, which, by secular standards, should have earned him sainthood.

Its 90-foot diameter dome was done largely in gold leaf, which must be carefully pulled, in sheets thinner than tissue, off 3-by-3-inch papers the size of an eye shadow box. Then it's bonded to the ceiling with adhesive.

"You don't even want to breathe while you're doing it," Filippakis declared. He recalled gingerly patting thousands of little gold leaf squares onto the ceiling with a long baton outfitted with a padded top.

The baton is at St. Paul's with him, ready to cement halos around the heads of the saints. So are a coterie of supplies: brushes, paint tubes and cans, rollers and roller trays, tape, spray bottles, cloths and denatured alcohol for cleanup. Beth Reid, a Naples student of iconography and parishioner of the church, has been keeping it organized for Filippakis.

Tradition — with humanity — is paramount

Filippakis is poetic about the art he practices. 

"When you walk into an Orthodox church, it is like an open Bible," he said. "Whatever the Bible says you see in iconography. Iconography for us is the holy art of Orthodoxy."

He pointed toward a circle of canvas scenes that covered the entry floor to St. Paul's, all of them depicting the biblical story of Christ raising Lazarus from the dead.

"We don't come up with the scenes from out of our minds and make our own compositions, like Michelangelo. We have rules and standards."

"In terms of choice, there's a tradition of various ways, one of which is depicting the  life of Christ and feasts of The Church," explained the Rev. Paul Girgis, priest of the church. "The raising of Lazarus is just one of these events, but it says such beautiful things about our faith."

"Every piece counts — the firmness of his posture, his confidence. He's God. He is not worried about any of this," he added. "But (it shows) also being human, having groaned and wept that humanity has to suffer and die."

The paintings are stylized, but narrative through their expressions: "Even the disciples," Filippakis pointed out, "They're behind Christ and wondering to themselves, 'Is this going to happen?'"

As do most Orthodox churches, the parish at St. Paul adds icons as it can afford them, and it becomes a big event for the church, which will have just under a quarter of its sanctuary's icons complete by the first Sunday in October, "God willing," as  Girgis emphasized. 

Will there be a special liturgy to celebrate the addition of the new icons? Girgis said, smiling.

"We see every liturgy as special."

St. Paul Antiochian Orthodox Church

Where: 2425 Rivers Road, North Naples

When: Orthos (Matins) 8:30 a.m., Divine Liturgy 9:30 a.m. Sundays; a Great Vespers (evening prayers) service is at 6 p.m. Saturdays

Information: stpaulnaples.org or call  239-348-0828

Something else:  At 3 p.m. Oct. 19 a famous myrrh-streaming icon of the Mother of God will be in the church for a service open to the community. More information will be at the church's Facebook site.