12.

 Why is it essential to have icons?

            Icons are a visual form of theology that accomplish a silent preaching, and through the centuries they have taught Christians how to know and love the Lord and His holy ones, the saints. St. Basil the Great says in his Liturgy that Christ is the icon of God the Father. When Christ appeared on earth, those who then loved God the Father loved God the Son. Since that time, those who love icons thereby reaffirm their love for God in visible form, the God-Man Jesus Christ.

            Having and honoring icons is deeply rooted in the Sacred Apostolic Tradition of Christianity. Dr. Constantine Cavarnos notes this fact in his book Orthodox Iconography, and he goes on to list seven important reasons why it is necessary to adhere to this ancient practice. The professor states that:

(1) The most obvious function of icons is that they enhance the beauty of a church, an idea that appears in the writings of the Holy Fathers. A church is the house of God and a house of prayer. As such, it should be made as beautiful as possible, especially inside, where Christians gather to worship. The beauty of the church must bear the impress of holiness, and the pleasure evoked by it must transcend that of mere esthetics. It must be spiritual.

(2) Icons instruct the faithful in matters pertaining to the Christian faith, a point emphasized by the Greek Fathers. As St. John of Damascus remarks, since not everyone is literate, nor has the leisure for reading, the Holy Fathers agreed that Christ's Incarnation, His association with men, His miracles, His Crucifixion and Resurrection, and so on, should be represented on icons. St. Photios, Patriarch of Constantinople, states that: “Just as speech is transmitted by hearing, so a form through sight is imprinted on the tablets of the soul, giving to those whose apprehension is not spoiled by [evil] doctrines a representation of knowledge constant with piety.” Likewise, St. Basil teaches that “what the spoken account presents through the sense of hearing, the painting silently shows by representation.” St. Photios goes on to add that icons not only teach, as written accounts also do, but in some cases are more vivid than written accounts and thus are superior to the latter as a means of instruction. As an example, he gives the representation of the deeds of the martyrs. Icons present simultaneously and concisely many things: a place, persons and objects, things that would take an appreciable amount of time to describe in words.

Also commenting on the icon's capacity to teach, Leonid Ouspensky and Vladimir Lossky explain that:

The icon contains and professes the same truth as the Gospels and therefore, like the Gospels, is based on exact concrete data, and in no way on invention, for otherwise it could not explain the Gospels nor correspond to them. Thus the icon is placed on a level with the Holy Scriptures and with the Cross, as one of the forms of revelation and knowledge of God, in which divine and human will and action become blended [The Meaning of Icons, p.30].

            The Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council fully concurred. They stated that “by means of these two ways which complete one another, that is, by reading [Scripture] and by the visible image, we gain a knowledge of the same thing.” Thus, the icon is one of the ways God is revealed to man. Through icons, Christians receive a vision of the spiritual world, for icons are windows into that world, windows into Heaven, and they are lights which guide us there.

            (3) Being preoccupied with everyday worldly matters and pursuits, Christians can forget things that are of vital importance — that is, they can fall asleep spiritually. Icons serve as a reminder of the spiritual realm and as a means of awakening people. St. John of Damascus writes in this regard that “many times, doubtless, when we do not have in mind the Passion of the Lord, upon seeing the icon of Christ's Crucifixion, we recall His saving suffering.”

            (4) Icons additionally serve to lift Christians up to the prototypes, to a higher level of consciousness, of thought and feeling. As Dr. Cavarnos explains:

The prophets, Apostles, martyrs, saints in general, enjoy a higher level of being than we do in our ordinary, distracted everyday life. When we see their icons, we recall their superior character and deeds; and as we recall them, we think pure, sublime thoughts and experience higher feelings. Thus, for a while we live on a higher plane of being. As St. John Damascene remarks, “We are led by perceptible icons to the contemplation of the divine and spiritual” [p. 32].

Metropolitan Laurus of Jordanville further notes that:

Orthodox iconography is not realistic, but symbolic. It cannot and should not illustrate anything that is of this world, which lies in evil, disfigured by sin, carrying in itself the stamp of sin and attracting to sin. Iconography should not remind one of anything worldly. On the contrary, it should attract one's thoughts and feelings away from all worldliness and carry us over into another, higher world, the spiritual world. Not only should Raphael's madonnas not be found in Orthodox churches, but also all art that cannot cut us off from everything earthly, art which, even though it might seem to be inspired and beautiful from the point of view of aesthetics, nevertheless portrays only worldly images encountered upon earth and bound up with the world. Iconography, as well as church chant, should completely separate us from the world. Without this it is not Orthodox and cannot instruct us in Orthodoxy [“The Significance of the Practical Study of Liturgies,” Orthodox Life, vol. 45, no. 4, 1995, pp. 46-47].

Dr. Cavarnos goes on to state that the icon's essentially symbolic nature is manifest in its ability to lift Christians up to a higher level. An icon is not an end in itself, it is not merely an aesthetic object to be enjoyed for whatever artistic merits it possesses, but it is essentially a symbol, carrying us beyond itself. It is designed to lead us from the physical and psychophysical to the spiritual realm. Thus, the icon is a pattern (typos) of something heavenly (St. John of Damascus).

            (5) Icons serve to inspire people to imitate the virtues of the holy ones depicted on them. Icons help in this way because of their capacity to instruct in the Christian faith, to remind people of its truth, aims and values, and also because of their ability to lift viewers to the prototypes. Thus, one of the decrees of the Seventh Ecumenical Council states that “the more continually holy personages are seen in icons, the more are the beholders lifted up to the memory of the prototypes and to an aspiration after them.”

            (6) Icons have the ability to transform one's character, one's whole being. Icons help sanctify people. As Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos points out, the Synodikon of Orthodoxy proclaims that by bowing before holy icons and looking at them, the eyes are sanctified and the nous (a term the Holy Fathers used to designate the eye of the soul) is lifted up towards the knowledge of God. Dr. Cavarnos adds that icons help solve the problem of human transformation and regeneration “by instructing us, reminding us, and stirring us up morally and spiritually.” This function of the icon is based on the principle that we become like that which we habitually contemplate. True icons focus the distracted, dispersed soul of man on spiritual perfection, on the divine, and they arouse in him the desire to emulate those who have achieved spiritual beauty. Icons incite the beholder “to see more clearly and steadily Him Who to see is to love, and loving Whom one becomes what He originally intended us to be.” By dwelling steadily and lovingly on such perfection, the professor concludes, we come to partake of it more and more.

            (7) Icons have a liturgical function, serving as a means of worship and veneration. Like sacred music, the icon is used as a means of worshiping God and venerating His saints. As such, Dr. Cavarnos explains, it is “essentially symbolic, leading the soul from the visible to the invisible, from the material to the spiritual, from the symbol to the prototype or original which it represents.” The professor sums up the liturgical function of icons in his notation that:

Neither God nor the saints, of course, need the honor which we offer them, be it by means of icons, or by means of hymns and music. But it is only proper for us to do so, as the adoration of God and the admiration of saints are expressions of a soul that sees and loves the beauty of holiness, of spiritual perfection, and feels grateful to the Deity and to holy men for their many benefactions to mankind. Such a response is not merely something proper for us, but it is also conducive to our salvation. The following remark of John Damascene calls to attention this point, and at the same time it has a bearing on several of the functions served by icons: “I enter the common place-of-therapy of souls, the church, choked as it were by the thorns of worldly thoughts. The bloom of painting attracts me, it delights my sight like a meadow, and secretly evokes in my soul the desire to glorify God. I behold the martyr, the crowns awarded, and my zeal is aroused like fire; I fall down and worship God through the martyr, and receive salvation” [p. 34].

Iconoclasm, the condemnation of icons, results when the important function of icons is not understood, and when the crucial distinction between honorable reverence and worship is overlooked. The failure to differentiate between these two categories was the cause of the Byzantine Emperor Leo the Isaurian's issuing an edict in 726 that condemned the making and veneration of icons as contrary to the Second Commandment, and as idolatry.

            Following the upheaval against iconography on the part of the Iconoclasts, the Seventh Ecumenical Council expressed the dogma of the veneration of holy icons in the following words:

We therefore... define with all certitude and accuracy that just as the figure of the precious and life-giving Cross, so also the venerable and holy images... should be set forth in the holy churches of God [for veneration].... For by so much more frequently as they are seen in artistic representation [that is, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Theotokos, the angels and saints who are depicted in the icons], by so much more readily are men lifted up to the memory of their prototypes, and to a longing after them. And to these should be given due salutation and honorable reverence [Greek: timetike proskynesis], not indeed that true worship of faith [Greek: latreia] which pertains alone to the divine nature; but to these... incense and lights may be offered.... For the honor which is paid to the image passes on to that which the image represents [Eerdmans Seven Ecumenical Councils, p. 550].

The Greek Fathers distinguish very sharply between “honorable reverence” which is accorded to icons, and “worship.” The veneration of icons is reverential respect or admiration, whereas worship is accorded only to God. Moreover, the Fathers emphasized that the veneration given to icons goes to the prototype that it represents — that is, to Christ, the Theotokos, to some martyr or other saint. In the words of St. Basil, which were repeated by St. John of Damascus and other defenders of icons, “The honor which is given to the icons passes over to the prototype.” That is, in venerating icons, the honor one renders to the images passes to the person represented on the image. Therefore, the charge of idolatry shows gross ignorance with regard to the nature and function of icons.

            As the same charge of idolatry is sometimes repeated today, it is necessary to emphasize that Orthodox do not approach icons as idols, but as the spiritual image of the one to whom the soul addresses itself in prayer. It is also necessary to point out that the strict prohibition in Scripture against the making of idols and the worship of them does not apply to Christian icons. Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky explains that the images of false gods, and people's worship of them, entailed the worship of demons (or else imaginary beings that have no existence), and thus it entailed the worship of lifeless objects themselves (wood, stone or gold). Scripture strictly instructs that one is to put a difference between holy and unholy, between unclean and clean (cf. Lev 10:10). The person who cannot see the difference between sacred images and idols blasphemes and defiles icons. Such a person commits sacrilege and is subject to the condemnation in Sacred Scripture, which warns: “Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?” (Rom 2:22).

            St. Nikolai Velimirovich also addresses the charges of idolatry made against Orthodoxy over its veneration of icons. The bishop asks:

Who has waged war against idolatry through the ages, if not the Orthodox Church, millions of whose faithful have sacrificed themselves in this victorious battle? Who else has destroyed idolatry? So how could the Church that has destroyed idolatry be idolatrous? [Homilies: a Commentary on the Gospel Readings for Great Feasts and Sundays Throughout the Year, vol. 1, p. 137].

A hieromonk notes that Calvinists disdain icons, based on their rejection of the Seventh Ecumenical Council. However, as he goes on to point out, as the fundamental concern of all the Ecumenical Councils was Christological and soteriological, the obdurate refusal to recognize even one of them signifies in and of itself a major departure from basic Christian doctrine. Also, as another hieromonk explains (one who entered Orthodoxy from the Episcopal Church), after Protestants threw icons out of their churches through the doors, they brought them back in through the windows. That is, icons were reintroduced into Protestant churches through stained glass windows. And, the hieromonk adds, Protestants do not regard these icons as graven images.

            No doubt the most rabid attack against icons comes from the Jehovah's Witnesses, even though these people have pictures — icons — of their loved ones in their wallets and homes. Once when a Greek bishop was reviled by one of the witnesses over the matter of icons, the bishop asked the witness to show him some pictures of his family members. When the witness produced pictures from his wallet, the bishop reminded him that the Jehovah's Witnesses are against icons, meaning that he should tear up all these pictures, as well as all his pictures at home. When the witness replied that he does not worship these pictures, the bishop stated that likewise, neither do the Orthodox worship images. The Orthodox, he explained, honor and kiss icons, which is passed along to the archetype, as the Fathers and teachers of the Church have stated. The bishop continued, saying that when the witness' mind and heart go out to his loved ones in the pictures, he does not call this idolatry. Neither therefore can the Orthodox be accused of idolatry because they venerate icons. The icon itself is not an object of worship.

            There are many idols in the modern age, among which are luxury, wealth, recognition, and many other things to which people attach more importance than God.  Some who spend their entire lives in the pursuit of these and other idols of the world, and in serving mammon rather than God, would accuse Orthodoxy of idolatry because of its veneration of icons. However, the obvious fact remains that icons are not idols.

            The attack on icons now seems to be abating. For some time, there has been a return in the West to the icon, which was forgotten for the space of so many centuries.

            The use of images has its beginnings in Old Testament times. During the forty years of wandering in the desert, the Hebrews made camp on Mount Sinai for a whole year, and there, at God's command, they constructed a tabernacle, a transportable sanctuary, in the form of a tent. Inside the tabernacle's holy of holies was the Ark of the Covenant, which was a wooden chest covered inside and out with gold, and upon which were two golden images of the Cherubim (Exodus 25:18-22). St. John of Damascus traces the origin of iconography back to this time, to the Mosaic people, who “venerated on all hands the tabernacle, which was an image [eikon in Greek] and pattern of heavenly things, or rather of the whole of creation” [Migne, PG, 1864, vol. 94, cols. 1168-76]. (The word icon is a transliteration of the Greek eikon. In Greek it means image, likeness, representation).

            It is important to note here that the same Moses, through whom God gave the commandment against graven images, received at the same time an order from God to place representations of the Cherubim in the inner part of the temple to which people turned for the worship of God. Therefore, the fact that God Himself gave instructions to include images — icons — in the place of worship completely nullifies the mistaken notion that all images are prohibited by the Second Commandment.

            While there are numerous depictions on the walls and curtains of the Old Testament Temple, there were no depictions of the departed righteous ones like those seen in the Christian Church. The reason for their absence is because the righteous ones of Old Testament times were awaiting their deliverance, were waiting to be brought up out of hades. This deliverance was accomplished by the descent into hades and Resurrection of Christ. As the Apostle Paul writes: “They without us should not be made perfect” (Heb 11:40). The righteous ones of the Old Testament were glorified as saints only in the New Testament.

            Christ, the Incarnate God, sanctified the use of icons through a miraculous image He sent to Abgar, the ruler of the neighboring kingdom of Edessa. Abgar, who had leprosy, had heard of Christ's preaching and miracles during His public ministry and had heard that He was not welcome by many in Judea. He therefore sent his court artist, Ananias, to invite Jesus to come to his kingdom. If He did not come, then Ananias was to paint His portrait so that at least the king could see an image of His face, for he felt that if he could just see what this remarkable Individual looked like, somehow he would be healed.

            Ananias, upon seeing the Lord-Healer, tried several times to capture His image. However, he was unable to set His face down on the linen, for Jesus' face gave out rays of some unearthly light, it is said. At that time, Jesus, knowing all things, and knowing the sincere desire of the king, pressed a cloth to His face and imprinted the character of His divine image upon it. He then gave the image to Ananias with the message that one of His disciples would visit King Abgar to heal that which the image did not heal.

            When the king beheld this sacred image, the first Christian icon, he was cured of his leprosy, save for one small spot on his face. Later, after Christ's death and Resurrection, the holy disciple Thaddeus of the seventy went to Edessa and preached the Gospel of Life to the king and those with him. Having received enlightenment and knowledge of the True God, all of them received Baptism, at which time the last spot of leprosy left the king.

            This sacred image of Christ was carefully preserved in Edessa for many centuries, even during the persecution of the Church. It was subsequently transferred to Constantinople in 944, where it was brought out in procession and veneration once each year. Later, during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the image disappeared and was never revealed again.

            (In the Fourth Crusade, for three days Orthodox Christian blood ran in the streets of Constantinople as a massive amount of art, treasures and monuments were stolen from churches and carried off to the West as plunder. In this officially sponsored robbery, the Latin marauders placed prostitutes upon the altars of Orthodox churches as they went about a wanton spree of murder, pillage and sacrilege. To assuage their notorious greed for booty, they tore to pieces the altar and iconostasis of the Church of the Holy Wisdom in Constantinople and brought mules into the sanctuary to carry the gold and silver away. This systematic looting was undertaken by the Latin clergy, to whom it proved an irresistible chance of a lifetime to enrich Western Europe's abbeys and monasteries with Byzantium's holiest relics — reputedly Christendom's finest collection).

            All icons of Christ were made from the same prototype and pattern of this holy napkin until its disappearance in the Fourth Crusade. Moreover, as it is shown with this first Christian icon, icons are Apostolic, they are healing, and they even pre-date the Gospels being written down.

            The Evangelist Luke painted icons, the first of which was the Vladimir icon of the Mother of God holding the Pre-Eternal Child. There still exist today many icons painted by St. Luke.

            Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky states that it is natural to suppose that in the early history of Christianity, the first need was that the people be drawn away from pagan idol-worship, and only later could there be brought into being the idea of the fullness of forms for glorifying God and His saints. Among these forms there is a place for glorification in colors, in sacred images.

            The use of icons by Christians, as was noted, goes back to the first century of Christianity. Ecclesiastical archaeology has found that in the ancient Christian Church, there were sacred images in the catacombs and other places of assembly for prayer. A rudimentary art existed among Christians of the first two centuries. It employed such forms as the dove (a symbol of the peace of Christ), the fish and the Shepherd (symbols of Christ), and the peacock (a symbol of the Resurrection). Also, as early as the first century, Christians used representations of events in Holy Scripture on their tombs, and pictorial representations of events from the life of Christ, dating most likely from the early part of the second century, have been found in catacombs of Rome and Alexandria. Until the outbreak of Iconoclasm in 726, iconographic representations increased with each succeeding century, and iconography became more refined.

            Before a board has the countenance of Christ portrayed on it, it is only a piece of wood. Once the image of Christ is painted on it, however, the wood becomes sanctified and is a source of sanctification for people, even if the wood is of inferior quality. This ability to sanctify is seen in the beginning of the repentance and con of the Bulgarian people to Orthodox Christianity, something that happened because of an icon of the Last Judgment. When St. Methodius showed it to King Boris and explained it, the icon made such an impression on him that Boris, and along with him all the Bulgarian people, came to believe in Christ. Something this extraordinary could happen because, as St. Seraphim of Sarov explains, the grace of God works through icons. The saint goes on to state that icons heal sinners,

... and not only their bodies, but their souls, too, so that even sinners, according to their faith in the grace of Christ present in the icons, were saved and attained the Kingdom of Heaven.

St. John of Kronstadt further instructs that:

If anyone would ask you why you pray to soulless icons, what profit you derive from them, say that we derive incomparably greater profit from our icons than we do from the kindest and most benevolent living persons; say that blessed power and help to our souls always comes to us through the icons, saving us from sins, sorrows and sicknesses, especially from the icons of the Savior and of the Mother of God; that one single look with faith upon them, as upon the living and those who are near to us, saves us from cruel sorrows, passions and spiritual darkness; that if touching the Savior’s garment, and the garments and handkerchiefs of the Apostles could restore health to the sick, much more are the images of the Savior and the Mother of God powerful to heal believers of every affliction, in accordance with their faith in the Lord and His Mother.

Archimandrite Panteleimon of Jordanville explains that the most powerful witness to the holiness of icons is the innumerable signs and miracles that the Lord condescends to accomplish through them, especially through those termed miraculous. Orthodox Russia abounded with these icons, and several have been brought to North America. Fr. Panteleimon notes that these icons are fountains of healing and have cured people of many afflictions — some from despondency, some from passions, some from life's sorrows, and some from bodily illnesses, and he notes that these icons have healed each and everyone alike from wounds of the soul, from sins.

            To have icons and venerate them by honoring them is an Apostolic Tradition, one that Christians are bound to revere and observe. However, this tradition refers only to holy (or Byzantine) icons — that is, icons of the solemn, spiritual and hieratic style that depict deified humanity. Through their spiritual expression, these traditional icons inspire compunction and raise people up from the world of matter to the world of spirit, to the holy prototypes, and to God. Traditional icons are faithful to the highest degree to the spirit of Apostolic Tradition.

            There is a great difference between Orthodox iconography and Western religious painting. Since the Italian Renaissance of the fourteenth century, the Latin Church began to abandon the sacred art of the ancient Christian period, and it began to employ naturalistic, carnal religious paintings that hold mankind captive to the world of matter and flesh. In this new Western religious art, sacred subjects served as a pretext to express the subjective feelings and ideas of a painter, and oftentimes crudely sensual and sentimental elements would creep into the features of the subjects, giving an insipid quality to the art. Commenting on the West's great deviation from Orthodox iconography, Protopriest Victor Potapov writes that:

In the Orthodox notion, an icon depicts the world glorified; in it there ought not to be anything earthly or worldly. Therefore, the techniques of depiction are altogether different from those that are used in realistic painting.

Rome has completely departed from classic Byzantine fundamentals. This was expressed particularly forcefully during the epoch of the Renaissance. The very philosophical direction of this period hymns man's egoism and powerfulness, his self-perception in the surrounding material environment. As a result, the ecclesiastical art of the West also headed along this path — along the path of free creativity, independent of the Church and its enactments. A free attitude toward Church ideas and a mixing of Church traditions with contemporary reality resulted in Western religious art allowing the distortion of the sacred image by striving toward human, earthly sensuality.

That which the ancient Church so painstakingly avoided — the influence of antique pagan painting and realism — was in full measure reborn in Western Christianity and has covered the walls of the largest Catholic churches and cathedrals. Naked bodies, contemporary dress and decor became the norm, while spiritual beauty was reduced to something worldly and everyday [Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy].

            The great chasm between Byzantine iconography and Western religious art can be seen in a Western madonna, where the Mother of God is depicted as a woman no different from all other women. (At times, it is even blasphemous. An example is a painting by Fouquet in which the king's mistress is used in place of the Mother of God). On the other hand, an icon of the Theotokos imparts the fragrance of sanctity and communicates the divine motherhood. In the Mother of God of Vladimir, for example, one can feel the spirit of faith, the imprint of Orthodoxy. Likewise, where the Pre-Eternal Child is shown in Western paintings as a baby indistinguishable from all other babies, an Orthodox icon shows the teaching of the Church on the Incarnation of God and Divine Wisdom.

            In eighteenth-century Russia, and then among the Greeks after the Revolution of 1821, innovative icons modeled after Roman Catholic paintings of the Renaissance were introduced. Like their Western prototypes, these icons were ostentations, worldly and devoid of spirituality. The outstanding Russian philosopher and gifted writer, Prince Evgenii Nikolaevich Trubetskoi, examines these realistic paintings of the Western models and notes that they depict Christ and the saints with “puffy faces,” “red mouths,” “thick arms,” “fat thighs,” and the like. He remarks that “icons must not be painted from living people,” because an icon is not a portrait, but a prototype of the future man-within-the-Church.” [Icons: Theology in Color, pp. 20-22.] As Dr. Cavarnos further remarks, the aspect of the figures depicted must be unworldly, ascetic, their features refined, spiritualized.

            Western icons patterned after Western religious paintings are not only unrelated to the Orthodox Christian faith, but are contrary to it, since their expression is carnal, not spiritual. The tradition to honor icons does not apply to innovative icons modeled after Roman Catholic paintings of the Italian Renaissance. In fact, it is an infringement of Apostolic Tradition to use worldly icons.

            Fortunately, the deviation from iconographic tradition has largely ceased, and Byzantine icons are replacing innovative ones. Traditional iconography, with its unsurpassed spiritual beauty, has commanded such high respect that Byzantine icons are sought-after throughout the world, even by the non-Orthodox. As Michael Whelton, a convert to Orthodoxy, writes, even when he and his wife were still Roman Catholics, “iconographic art always struck us as a more mature religious art form.” [Two Paths... p. 15.] Mr. Whelton's observations are echoed in Herbert Reed, a famous English aesthetician and art critic, who wrote: “Byzantine painting is the highest form of religious painting that Christianity has known.” [The Meaning of Art, p. 117].

            A Greek monk remarked in a lecture that Satan, realizing that the Church has saved countless souls through the centuries through icons, presents a parody of icons — that is, fallen, evil images, on TV and in the movies. As another monk noted, whereas icons, being windows into Heaven, remind one of the importance of the spiritual life, thus sanctifying and saving a person, the evil images presented on TV, being windows into hell, accustom people to terrible sins without showing the disastrous results. As he went on to state, fallen visual entertainment has come to dominate the world to an incredible degree, and brainwashing people and changing their outlook on life as it does, it gradually destroys a person.

            Because the Orthodox Christian home is like a family Church (Rom. 16:5), an Orthodox chooses an eastern wall or corner of a room in which to set up an icon corner. In this area are icons of Christ, the Theotokos, and those saints to whom one regularly prays. According to a tradition dating to the time when Christians held their services in the catacombs, oil-burning lampadas are kept lit in front of the icons (never votive candles).

            At the Russian monastery in Jordanville, New York, the flames burning in front of the icons throughout the churches were brought over from those burning before Christ's tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The Russian monks at Jordanville, following the practice of the monks on Mount Athos, instruct that the flames of the lampadas should be low, or what they call passionless. That is, the flames should burn steadily and not flicker. With a low flame, one is not distracted when one prays before icons.

            It is an ancient custom to take icons on journeys. Recently the remains of a Russian ship, the Slava Rossii, which went down off the southern coast of France in 1870, were discovered. Recovered from the wreckage were over eighty small metal icons used by the sailors in their daily devotions. One authority writes of this find:

Why were such metal icons so numerous aboard the Slava Rossii? Ever since the early Christian period, icons had functioned as palladia — that is, as protectors. The sailors were probably no more pious than other members of Russian society, and in carrying such icons were probably expressing their native devoutness and the natural desire to be kept safe from harm [Diane Le Berrurieur, “Icons from the Deep,” Archaeology, vol. 41, no. 6, 1998, p. 27].

Like the Russian sailors, one ought to maintain this ancient custom when traveling by taking along a small diptych or triptych icon. When one stops for the night or takes a rest during one's travels, one should determine the direction of east and pray facing in that direction before the icons. Praying facing east is an ancient Christian custom mentioned by St. Basil the Great in his treatise On the Holy Spirit. This Holy Father writes that “we all look to the east in our prayers, but few of us know that we are seeking our own old country, Paradise, which God planted in the east.”

            In venerating icons, one should approach them with the same reverence and love that one reserves for the Holy Cross and Holy Scriptures. One venerates icons in order to communicate the reverence, respect and love that one holds for the subject of an icon. As it is not unusual for people to kiss the pictures of their beloved ones, so likewise Christians, as pilgrims in this fallen world, should reverently kiss the images of the holy persons in Heaven — the Savior, His All-Pure Mother, and the martyrs and other saints.