Why do you use icons?

[lighthousekid]

Do you worship them? Pray to them? Pray through them? Nothing of the above? Do you need to use icons or are they optional? Do you need to buy them? Can you paint them yourselves? Are icons downloaded from internet OK? only if you print them?

and most importantly why?

[Ioan cel Nou]

Do you worship them?

No. Worship is due only to God.
Pray to them?

No. We pray to the one depicted in them, though this means something different if the one depicted is a saint rather than Christ.
Pray through them?

That's about the most accurate. We also venerate them the honour we show being shown to the one depicted not the depiction (think of who/what you are honouring if you salute a flag, for instance - it's not the cloth, is it?)
Do you need to use icons or are they optional?

You don't need to use them but you do have to accept that they are valid and good. Denying that is considered tantamount to denying the Incarnation. It is basically saying that God does not work through material things.
Do you need to buy them?

No. Several of mine have been gifts. You don't have to have just hand painted ones, though (though these are preferrable). You can also by mounted icons which are often really quite cheap.
Can you paint them yourselves?

Some people can (we have a couple of iconographers here) but you really need to learn it properly, not just play at it and there's more to it than simple painting. Others here can certainly tell you more.
Are icons downloaded from internet OK? only if you print them?

As a start, many of us get icons this way. You can mount them yourself and even get them blessed (at which point they would be more han just pictures) by a priest. I never did, strangely enough, do this though I know many people who did. My first couple of icons were gifts and were both proper hand painted ones so I never really wanted anything less (though I have had to settle on mounted ones quite often down to simple economics).


and most importantly why?
Because they remind us of the cloud of witnesses who pray with us, because they help us focus on prayer, because the fact that we can depict Christ shows that God really was Incarnate, and because they are an affirmation that God works in the material world. There are probably many things I've missed and I'm sure those more qualified will correct me if I err, but those or some of the reasons that stand out to me.

James

[lighthousekid]

Thanks, one more question, do you need to be orthodox to use them?
what do you think about people having them as normal pictures, hanged to walls?

[Ioan cel Nou]

Thanks, one more question, do you need to be orthodox to use them?
what do you think about people having them as normal pictures, hanged to walls?
You don't have to be Orthodox necessarily (I know RCs and Anglicans who use them). As to having them hung on walls I presume you mean just as decoration? I don't think that's right. They should be used, not just admired. We have at least one icon hanging in almost every room of the house, but they are venerated, not just left there (and believe me they are very frequently venerated - my 2 year old daughter makes me carry her round the house so that she can kiss each one almost every evening that I'm at home!)

James

[Orthosdoxa]

Good answers, James. :)

Welcome, LHK. :wave:

[lighthousekid]

Thanks James. :)

[nutroll]

James provided some excellent answers to your questions. I would just like to add something here. Your questions seem to point to something disturbing in how icons can be perceived to those outside the Orthodox Church (I'm not saying that this is how you think, but that perhaps you have picked up on this perception which would make you justifiably concerned).

To those who are unfamiliar with our practice, it can often seem that we regard icons as "magical" items. Some people claim that we worship them, some people think that we use them as good luck charms, some think that we think that they have special powers. The reality is quite the opposite. We use icons to direct our worship, not toward material objects, but toward God. It is for this reason that icons often look "strange" to those who are unfamiliar with them. Their facial features, bodies, clothes, and backgrounds are "otherworldly." They don't attempt to replicate what we see around us, but rather to show a transfigured reality. A spiritual reality that is often missed because we focus so much on the physical. Because they help us to focus on God and on the proper worship of God, miracles are frequently ascribed to the icon. This however, is really a shorthand way of saying that God works a miracle in our lives in the presence of the icon. The icon itself does nothing in and of itself, but rather in its ability to focus our prayer, it facilitates the action of God in our lives. It is for this reason, then, that people are so eager to surround themselves with icons, not because they expect the icons to give them anything, but because they expect that it will help them to pray more perfectly, and therefore make them more accepting of the freely-given Grace of God in their lives.

Unfortunately, the distorted view of icons has crept into the Orthodox Church to a certain extent, and it can be found in rigid insistence on using certain materials (egg tempera rather than other media) or in strong attraction to incorrect images (which I would rather not get into at this point). However these distortions are based, not in the teachings of the Church, but in an individual's misunderstanding or willful rejection of the Church's teaching.

Unfortunately, there are two general reactions to this misunderstanding of icons. The first is to reject images outright, rather than to countenance any distortion that might take place. The second is to allow images, but to treat them as mere decoration. Personally speaking, I don't really have a problem with people treating them as decoration, because I know from experience that icons have an effect on us even on an unconscious level. The way that icons look has been refined through the centuries, through the work of many holy iconographers, through the direction of the Holy Spirit (so much so that when an icon is signed, which they usually aren't, it is signed "by the hand of..."). This refinement is such that an icon speaks a language that might not be instantly perceptible, but which subtly speaks to those who gaze upon them. Properly executed, and icon will have a great effect on those who own them, even if they don't intend to get that effect from it. As such, I would prefer that people who are disturbed by their perception of the Orthodox use of icons view it merely as decoration rather than reject it outright. Only in rejecting them outright, are we denied the positive effect that they have in directing our prayer to the Creator of all.

[Sacrum Silentium]

Great answers given here. :)

LHK, consider icons to be a telephone. When you pick up a telephone and talk to someone, and for instance, say that you love that person. Are you telling the phone you love it? Or are you using the phone as a means to send your love?

The phone is just the means of communication, something tangible to reach what's intangible. It's the same thing with icons.

[lighthousekid]

Would it be OK for me to use an icon? Which one? How?

[Sacrum Silentium]

Why do you want to use one?

[Orthosdoxa]

If you're on a path towards Orthodoxy, of course.

I personally wouldn't be in favor of someone doing it as novelty or anything like that. They are holy and must be treated with utmost respect.

Have you been to an Orthodox parish yet?

[lighthousekid]

If you're on a path towards Orthodoxy, of course.

I personally wouldn't be in favor of someone doing it as novelty or anything like that. They are holy and must be treated with utmost respect.

Have you been to an Orthodox parish yet?
No, I live in a very small island. There are only catholics and evangelicals around here.

[Orthosdoxa]

Really? An island off the coast of the US, like Bainbridge? Or an actual island country somewhere else?

[lighthousekid]

Really? An island off the coast of the US, like Bainbridge? Or an actual island country somewhere else?
An actual island, off Africa.

[Mary of Bethany]

Does your family run the lighthouse?

Welcome, btw. :wave:

Mary

[lighthousekid]

Does your family run the lighthouse?

Welcome, btw. :wave:

Mary
No, builders, but it's like when I look a lighthouse I think about God. Maybe it is stupid, but that is how I feel.

[Bushmaster78FS]

May I ask, what triggered you to ask the questions in the original post?

[Dorothea]

No, builders, but it's like when I look a lighthouse I think about God. Maybe it is stupid, but that is how I feel.
Wow. It sounds like you live in a really pretty place, lighthouse. :) And no, I don't think it's stupid for thinking what you think. :)

[JuvenalyMartinka]

No, builders, but it's like when I look a lighthouse I think about God. Maybe it is stupid, but that is how I feel.

I think this a very valid point. Let us look at the Life of the Great Martyr Barbara (http://www.orthodoxyordeath.com/stbarb.jpg). (Icon of Great Martyr Barbara in link)

She was born and raised as a pagan and when she would look up at the Heavens she knew that there had to be more to the world and that man could not have created the Heavens and the Earth and so this basic understanding led her to the Church.

Kinda like that?

Stupid? No. You are on the right track my friend.

[Ioan cel Nou]

Would it be OK for me to use an icon? Which one? How?
Given the sorts of things you've said in this thread, I think that you're being sincere so I would say yes, you could use an icon. I certainly don't think it could do any harm.

If I were you, I'd start with either an icon of Christ Pantocrator (see the image at the top of TAW for an example) or of the Theotokos with Christ child (there are a lot of different versions of these - one of them was my first icon). Generally speaking, when we venerate an icon we cross ourselves and kiss it and then pray before it, using it as a focus for our prayer (this is one of the reasons I suggest an icon of Christ - unless you are from a Roman Catholic background 'praying to' saints might seem wrong to you).

God bless you in your search and please hang around and ask us more questions if you need to.

James

[KatyaMartinka]

I just wanted to say that this thread has been very helpful to me, as an inquirer, even though i've already been around icons for some time and have learned the whys and the whats and all that.
My husband has an icon corner in our home, and even though I do not use it as of yet, I understand what it is for, I just have a little bit of a ways to go still before I am comfortable with using it, myself.
Thank you all for your insightful answers on this thread. They've helped me, as well.