St John Chrysostom uses the metaphor of the Imperial Portrait to discuss restoration, in this exhortation to Catechumens:
" Then, as in the case of painters, so let it now be the case for you. For they, after setting out their panels, and drawing on them with white lines, sketch out the royal images before they apply the truth of the the colours. And with full freedom they wipe out some things, and redraw other parts, and correct mistakes and change things which are not right. But when they bring in the final tempera, they no longer have the power to wipe things out or redraw them, since they will destroy the beauty of the portrait, and the thing will be defective...
...Consider the soul to be your portrait. So, before the true tempera of the spirit comes, wipe away the habits which have been wrongly put into it [a long list of sins follows]... correct your habits, so that when the colors are laid upon it and the imperial portrait shines forth, no longer will you wipe things out again, and damage or scar the beauty which has been given to you by God."
+ St. John Chrysostom, Catech.2.3[49.235], from Margaret M. Mitchell, "The Heavenly Trumpet: John Chrysostom and the Art of Pauline Interpretation"(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002) 60.
Beautifully this again echoes the theme of restoration and ancient beauty that is used in Orthodox theology to approximate in language the participation in the Divine Life of Christ.
May we all be led back to be refashioned into that ancient beauty, that portrait of Love and the glory of His Likeness.
Glory to the Holy Trinity.
O Holy Trinity, Have Mercy on us.
