Holy Icons in Orthodoxy

One who visits a Orthodox Church for the first time will immediately notice that the Church is full of paintings. 

Some paintings are made on wood and others are painted on the walls of the Church. But why do we have these paintings and what is their purpose?

These paintings are called icons, and they depict certain figures who we consider saints of the Church and they also depict certain events which are significant in Church history. Think of icons of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, His mother the Theotokos, St. George the Great Martyr, the Archangels Michael and Gabriel and many other great prophets, saints and angels. But also things like the Nativity of our Lord, His baptism, His transfiguration and crucifixion, but also the hospitality of Abraham and many other Church events are depicted on these icons.  

The word icon comes from the Greek word (eikṓn) and the meaning of it is image or resemblance. The first time that this word appears in the Bible is when God made Adam, and said: "Let Us make man, in Our "image", in Our likeness..." (Genesis 1:26) 

So we as humans are made in the image of God, in a sense we are all icons of God.

If we look at the New Testament we see that Jesus is the exact icon of God the Father (Colossians 1:15)

But not only that, the whole creation of God comes from the mind of God and the creation itself is a icon of His wisdom.

But let us go back to the icons which are made by human hands and which we as Orthodox Christians use in our Church services, in our Liturgy and also in our homes. Isn't this idolatry? Are we not violating the second commandment like it was given to us by God through Moses by depicting God's creation, and by "worshiping" and "serving" these icons? (Exodus 20:4-5)

Yes, it would be considered idolatry if we would worship or serve the icons or the one's depicted on it.

But we don't do that. We don't worship or serve the icons. Worship is exclusively and only done towards God, and God alone is to be worshiped. What we do is venerate the ones' who are depicted on the icons, so we aren't worshiping or venerating the matter, like the paint, the wood or the wall. But the ones' who are depicted through the icons. I have to clear up some of these things before explaining our view on this matter.  Let me start with the difference between worship and veneration, like I said before, we only worship God. Worship is the highest form of honoring and respecting someone or something and in this case we do this only towards God. Venerating someone or something, is a high form of honoring and respecting that specific person or thing, but it isn't the highest form there is. So if we would go back to the Ten Commandments we also see that we should honor our father and our mother (Exodus 20:12), do we by honoring our parents automatically also worship our parents? No, these are two very different things, so here we have a indication between the different levels of honor, some kinds are indeed a manner of worship, but others are not more then mere signs of respect. 

But now you can ask yourself, how does it not violate the second commandment of God if He told us not to depict any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath or that which is in the water under the earth. So to understand this commandment we have to look at the context and why it was given to the People of Israel. First off all, God here is speaking about idols, not mere images. Because if this was the case and we would be obligated to hold strictly to this commandment, we also shouldn't watch television, YouTube, or wouldn't be allowed to make pictures of our families and friends etc. The Israelites came from Egypt and the Children of Israel were 400 years influenced by Egyptian culture. The Egyptians were used to worship idols, like known from archaeological founds that we made and from history. But not only the Egyptians were idol worshipers, but all the surrounding nations did worship idols, and God wanted to prevent this from happening for His chosen people. So He forbid them to worship any other false gods and idols, except for Himself so this was the main reason God gave this commandment. Because not long after this commandment, God also commanded Moses to build Him the Ark of Covenant which had the image on it of two golden cherubs facing each other (Exodus 25:17-22)  and on another occasion He commands Moses to make a bronze serpent (Numbers 21:8-9) aren't cherubs heavenly creatures and aren't serpents earthly creatures? Doesn't God Himself violate His own commandments? But the real question should be, were these images or items, worshipped? No, they weren't.... But they were venerated to a certain degree, the Ark of Covenant was in the center of worship and also when they worshiped, they worshiped facing the Ark which contained the tablets with the commandments. Also only the priests were allowed to come near the Ark, it was forbidden for the laymen to come near it. The bronze serpent Moses made was lifted up and everyone who only looked at it was healed of the poison that God in His wrath send down to them for their disobedience. And after everyone was healed, Moses destroyed the bronze serpent to avoid that the people would take this bronze serpent as one of their god (idol). Another significant reason we believe that God didn't forbid the use of all images what we can conclude from the Bible, is the fact that the Temple of Solomon which was the main place of worship, was full of iconography (1 King 6:23 & 1 Kings 6:29 & 1 Kings 6:35)

Also if we look at some archaeological  finds, like the synagogue found at Dura-Europos, which was uncovered in 1932 in present day Syria, which is one of the oldest synagogue discovered till now, we see that this Jewish house of worship was full of wall Biblical paintings and iconography. Not only that, but even the layout of the synagogue resembles the layout that we as Orthodox Christians use for our Churches, but that's an different topic for another time. But what is also interesting, is the fact that there was also found a house Church at Dura-Europos, one of the oldest house Churches uncovered by archaeologists, and guess what? It also contained Biblical depictions in it's building. So we can easily conclude from all of this information that it was customary for Jewish and also for the early Christians to make use of depictions as long it was used correctly and didn't lead to idolatry. And from all of these facts we can also conclude that iconography wasn't a later innovation that was invented by the Church, but actually derived from Judaism itself and was commonly used by the early Christians. 

There are seven main purposes why the Church uses icons according to St. John of Damascus.

• Icon are a means of honoring God, His saints and holy angels.
• They serve as a means of instructing in matters.
• They serve to remind us of this teaching.
• They lift us up to the prototypes, to the holy personages whom they depict, to a higher level of thought and feeling.
• They promote virtue and the avoidance of vice.
• They are literally conducive to our sanctification.
• They enhance the beauty of Churches.

I would recommend everyone who wants to know more about this topic, to read the book of St. John of Damascus; On Holy Images and his explanation how the incarnation of the Son of God made it possible for us to depict God, Him being the visible icon of the invisible God. 

With kind greetings in Christ.