Icons

Windows, not decoration, the veneration passes to the one depicted, not the wood and paint.

Icons are the sacred images of Christ, the Theotokos, and the saints. Orthodox Christians venerate them, bowing before them and kissing them, but do not worship them: the honour passes to the one the icon shows. The Seventh Ecumenical Council confirmed their veneration in 787, and the Church keeps their restoration on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, the first Sunday of Great Lent.

Icons are the sacred images of Christ, His Mother, and the saints that fill Orthodox churches and homes. They are not worshipped, worship belongs to God alone, but venerated: honoured with reverence that passes, as the Fathers say, to the one whom the image depicts. To kiss an icon of Christ is to reach, through the image, toward Christ Himself.

The Church's confession of icons rests on the Incarnation. Because the invisible God became visible in the flesh in Jesus Christ, He can be depicted; to deny the icon is, in the end, to deny that God truly became man. This was settled at the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787, after long struggle, and is celebrated each year on the Sunday of Orthodoxy.

An icon is written, not merely painted, a theology in line and colour, following the tradition rather than the artist's imagination. It is a window through which the light of the Kingdom shines, and a witness that the saints depicted are not dead but alive in Christ, and near.

Icons in the Church's year

The Church keeps the restoration of the icons on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, next on Sunday, March 21, 2027. Some icons of the Theotokos have feasts of their own in the calendar:

Dates on the New Calendar. On the Old Calendar the icons' feasts fall thirteen days later; the Sunday of Orthodoxy is set by Pascha, so it falls on the same day on both.

At home, icons are kept in an icon corner, where the family turns to God each morning and evening.

Questions about Icons

Do Orthodox Christians worship icons?

No. Worship belongs to God alone. Icons are venerated, honoured with reverence that passes to the person they depict.

Why does the Church have icons at all?

Because of the Incarnation: the invisible God became visible in Jesus Christ, and so He can be depicted.

What was iconoclasm?

The teaching that holy images must be destroyed. It tore the Church in two periods, from about 726 to 787 and from 814 to 842. The Seventh Ecumenical Council, in 787, upheld the icons and taught that the honour given to an icon passes to the one it shows. Iconoclasm returned, and ended only in 843, a victory the Church keeps each year on the Sunday of Orthodoxy.

What is the Sunday of Orthodoxy?

The first Sunday of Great Lent, when the Church celebrates the restoration of the holy icons after the iconoclast controversy.

More questions about the Orthodox Church, answered ›

In Orthros

In Orthros a holy icon appears whole and framed, one at a time, as it would stand in a church, never cropped through a face, never a texture behind text. The icons are content, never decoration; the app's own drawn ornament is a separate layer entirely.