BEMIDJI, Minn. – Long before the Christian church had a printed text, it offered icons as teaching tools for believers. These paintings of the Virgin Mary, Jesus or saints engaged the viewer on a meditative or mystical level, said Father John Husband.

Husband will seek to explain the meaning and mystery of icons in a 10 a.m. lecture on Tuesday, Feb. 26, entitled “Religious Icons and Their Impact on Our Lives.” The lecture will be held at the Bemidji State University Center for Research and Innovation (CRI), an off-campus facility located at 3801 Bemidji Avenue North.

Husband’s lecture is the first in the spring Tuesday morning lecture series sponsored by the Academy of Lifelong Learning (ALL) and coordinated by the CRI. ALL lectures are free and open to the public.

“Unless people have been around the Russian Orthodox or Greek Orthodox churches, icons are probably something of a mystery and perhaps bewilderment,” Husband said. “Yet they are central to these faiths.”

Used in modern English to refer to computer commands as well as to celebrities, the word “icon” means “image” in Greek, Husband said, and appears in the original text of the Bible to describe God’s creation of man. Husband will focus on four icons, one of which was kept at an orthodox church near Bemidji and another which was painted by an Episcopal priest on the Red Lake reservation.

Husband, former vicar of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Bemidji, serves as vicar of St. Helen’s Episcopal Church in Wadena, Minn.

ALL offers humanities-based programs that are made possible in part with private donations and support from Bemidji State University. More information about the ALL is available by contacting the Center for Research and Innovation at (218) 755-4900 or by visiting its Web site, http://www.cri-bsu.org.

2008 Spring Academy of Lifelong Learning Lecture Series Schedule

• Feb. 26: Father John Husband, “Religious Icons and Their Impact on Our Lives.”
• March 4: Marty Leistikow, “Women’s Diaries: A Literary Window into History.”
• March 11: Curt Rice, “Languages, Culture.”
• March 18: Alexander Nadesan, “Southeast Asian and Indonesian Culture and Religion.”
• March 25: M. James Bensen, “The Impact of Emerging Technology on Our Lifestyle.”
• April 1: Russ Lee, “Assisting the Assisters After a Disaster.”
• April 8: Janet Rith-Najerian, “Dragonflies.”
• April 15: Fulton Gallagher, “Opera – For Real!”