eikon

A visual devotional, virtual gallery and fundraising effort.

Grace and peace in Jesus Christ our Lord!

My name is Luiz Coelho and I come from the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil. This summer, I am going to serve at the Lambeth Conference as a steward, representing both my country and my church.

For the last few years, I have been discerning a call to the religious life which involves the use of visual arts as a means for healing and reconciliation. Currently, I am pursuing a dual degree both in Painting (at the Savannah College of Art and Design) and in Theology (through the long-distance program of the Seminário Teológico Egmont Machado Krischke).

During the Lambeth Conference, I will be producing a series of pieces (paintings, drawings, photographs, collages, etc.) based on the “Signs on the Way” Bible studies series, which is a special series of studies for the Conference. Those images will be posted on this blog, as a visual devotional. As an example of what they might look like, please visit my portfolio at http://imagosui.luizcoelho.com.

Eikon, in Greek, means “image", and you are free to use the images that will be featured on this website as a tool either for lectio divina along with the bible readings or for complementing the study guide which can be downloaded from the Lambeth website. However, if you really appreciate them and intend to have them at your church or chapel, please consider acquiring them as part of a fundraising effort to help a poor area of my home diocese.

Half of each piece’s price will be redirected to the Archdeaconry of Western Rio, of the Anglican Diocese of Rio de Janeiro. This Archdeaconry, headed by the Ven. Josi Saldanha comprises five churches and is located in the poorest area of the city. Donations will be used both in evangelism and outreach programs and in urgent structure refurbishing. The other half will compensate costs related to shipping, handling and art supplies and help me with transportation and tuition for the next quarter of studies.

You can also help by spreading the word and talking about this initiative with your friends. If you feel like contacting me, please use the following e-mail: info @ luizcoelho.com. It will be a pleasure to exchange e-mails with you.

Thank you for your attention. Blessings in Christ!

A quasi-medieval/quasi-arcadian knight, of unconventional principles, space and time dettached, lost in the midst of ideas, feelings, traumas (many of them), wrong rhumbs and desillusions.
Defender of impossible causes, tries to see in everybody a little bit of himself, and believes that it is necessary to love people unconditionally, whoever they are.
In his longtime fights, everyday he combats a new dragon, destroys a new fortress and crosses another ocean. But the way, even being harsh, follows the light of God.
There is nothing more to fear. Anyway, there never was.

My name is Luiz Coelho and I am a member in full communion of the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil - Diocese of Rio de Janeiro. I am also a seminarian at SETEK - one of the two provincial seminaries, following the Liberal Catholic tradition and heavily influenced by Liberation Theology. My home-parish is the Church of the Redeemer but for almost one year, I served as an intern at the Church of Christ the King, which is located in Cidade de Deus (City of God), one of the most violent communities in this city. Since the beginning of 2008, I have been spending part of the year in Atlanta (Rio de Janeiro’s companion diocese), where I am enrolled in the Painting BFA program at the Savannah College of Art and Design, which I will hopefully finish together with my theological studies. While in Atlanta, I attend All Saints’ Episcopal Church.

My story of life may not be very uncommon. I was born in a middle-class family mostly from Portuguese roots (from my mother’s side, Continental Portuguese, from my father’s side, Azoreans who were also “marranos” - ethnic Jews who pretended being Christians during the inquisition). During most of the time of my early life I was part of another denomination (conservative). Having been presented to the god of oppression at that time, I left everything and became an agnostic (and after some time, an atheist) at 17.

However, the God of liberation pulled me from my ears and said “you belong to me and I will never stop loving you” and five years later (and after a series of supernatural events in my life) I caught myself being a Christian again.

I am a Christian for many reasons, but I would say the main one must be the mystery of the Incarnation. It still impresses me the idea of God made man. God who holds hands with us, walks with us and shares our pains in solidarity with the oppressed, suffering, dying and resurrecting, as a sign of hope for all who have wounds and committing us to follow that example.

I am an Anglican because of the richness and variety of this tradition that is not (or should not be) attached to specific formulas and pre-defined rituals, that is wise enough to define four simple points of common agreement, instead of a rigid confession of faith (sometimes, of lack of faith).

I am an Anglo-Catholic, and unashamedly so, because I find in a sacramental life grace and hope for myself and the others. Despite our human divisions and prejudices, to God, we are all equal. All of us share Christ’s body and blood, receiving equal fractions of the divine banquet. All of us are (or should be) committed to the same Baptismal Covenant, and so on (I could write much more on the other sacraments and on the inability of the Church to offer them to all her children, but this would take too much time). The small glimpses of God, such as the smell of incense, the contemplation of the Blessed Sacrament, the chants and litanies, etc make me feel connected to this cloud of witnesses that surely supports us in prayer, and who have followed the same path in so many different contexts.

I am a socialist, from the time being a socialist was not a good thing in this country that at the same time launches rockets and satellites, but has forty million people living in complete mysery. I was born at the end of a long and disgraceful dictatorship, of which we are still counting the number of murders for political reasons (almost having lost my mother this way) and was able to see the first democratically elected president only when I was in my early adolescence. Since then, I have taken part of some groups, being now less involved in them. I am also rooted into the Liberation Theology movement, and in its second generation, which embraces ethnic, gender and sexuality issues as well.

I am an artist (or at least I hope I am) and draw and paint for a long time (my father was a painter and illustrator himself). I have also studied music for a while, but never professionally (and frankly, I prefer the visual arts). I see art as one of the ways God communicates to people and I hope I can merge it in my ministry throughout my life.

But most important than all those words and theories, I want to be able to love and fight for a change. That’s what matters the most.

If you want to make contact with me, you can do that through the following ways:

e-mail: info @ luizcoelho.com
Facebook profile: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=514360742
Orkut profile: http://www.orkut.com/Profile.aspx?uid=11619088381951240623