Taken word for word from the Life of St John Chrysostom.

Blessed John loved the epistles of St Paul exceedingly. … He had an image of the apostle in a place where he was wont to retire now and then on account of his physical weakness, for he outdid nature in watchings and vigils. As he read through St Paul’s epistles, he had the image before him, and spoke to the apostle as if he had been present, praising him, and directing all his thoughts to him. …

When Proclus had finished speaking, gazing intently at the image of the apostle, and recognising the likeness to the man he had seen, saluting John, he said, pointing to the image: ‘Forgive me, father; the man I saw talking to you is very like this statue. In fact, I should say he is the same.’

In the life of St Eupraxia we are told that her Superior showed her the likeness of our Lord.

We read in the life of St Mary of Egypt that she prayed before the statue of Our Lady and besought her intercession, and so obtained leave to enter the Church.

In all the past array of Christian priests and kings, wise and pious, conspicuous by teaching and example, in so many councils of holy and inspired fathers, how is it that no one has pointed out these things? We are not advocating a new faith. The law shall come out of Sion, the Holy Ghost said prophetically, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. We do not advocate one thing at one time, and another at another, nor that the faith should become a laughing-stock to those outside. We will not allow the king’s commands to overturn the tradition handed down from the fathers. It is not for pious kings to overturn ecclesiastical boundaries. These are not patristic ways. Things done by force are impositions, and do not carry persuasion. A proof of this was given in the 2nd Council of Ephesus, when a decree, which has never been recognised as valid, was enforced by the emperor’s hand, and blessed Flavian was put to death. Councils do not belong to kings, as the Lord says: ‘Wherever one or two are gathered together in My name, there I am in the midst of them.’ Christ did not give to kings the power to bind and to loose, but to the apostles, and to their successors and pastors and teachers. ‘If an angel were to teach you a different gospel to what you have received,’ St Paul says—but we will be silent about what follows, in the hope of their conversion. And if we find the warning disregarded, which may God avert, we will then add the rest. Let us hope it will not be needed.

If any one should enter a house and should see on the walls a history in painting of Moses and Aaron, perchance he might ask about the people who are walking across the sea as if it were dry land. ‘Who are they?’ he asks. What would you say? ‘Are they not the sons of Israel?’ ‘Who is dividing the sea with his rod?’ Would you not say ‘Moses’? So if a man makes an image of Christ crucified, and you are asked who he is, you reply, ‘It is Christ our Lord, who became incarnate for us.’ Yes, O Lord, we adore all that belongs to Thee, and we take to our hearts Thy Godhead, Thy power and goodness, Thy mercy towards us, Thy condescension and Thy Incarnation. And as men fear touching red-hot iron, not because of the iron but because of the heat, so do we worship Thy flesh, not for the nature of flesh, but through the Godhead united to that flesh according to substance. We worship Thy sufferings. Who has ever known death worshipped, or suffering venerated? Yet we truly worship the physical death of our God and His saving sufferings. We adore Thy image and all that is Thine; Thy servants, Thy friends, and most of all Thy Mother, the Mother of God.

We beseech, therefore, the people of God, the faithful flock, to hold fast to the ecclesiastical traditions. The gradual taking away of what has been handed down to us would be undermining the foundation stones, and would in no short time overthrow the whole structure. May we prove steadfast, unflinching, immovable, founded on the solid Rock which is Christ, to whom be praise, glory, and worship, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, now and for ever. Amen.