Interviewer: Did (iconographer Photios) Kontoglou ever make a distinction between the so-called “big–T Tradition and small–t tradition”? Such a view states that there are some traditions in the realm of dogma, doctrine, and spirituality that are absolutely non-negotiable, but there are smaller traditions like beards and rassa that are negotiable. You don’t have to have them, but you may have them. Did he ever make any distinctions like that?
Fr. Constantine Cavarnos, iconographer & Schemamonk: He did not make such a distinction. He believed that innumerable things organically related make Orthodoxy and give it its identity.
Everything is organically related. About the Church’s arts, for example… iconography addresses itself to our sense of sight, while music addresses itself to our sense of hearing, but both seek to express the same essence, the Orthodox Faith. Architecture has its own tradition, particularly recognizable in the dome, in the round arch, and by the surfaces that are used for the wall paintings, which other kinds of architecture, such as the Gothic, do not provide. The architecture of the Orthodox church is a very important element of the totality; in other words, all of these arts are organically interrelated, though using different media.
