What is an Icon?
Icon is a Greek word that means image. The word has come to usually mean sacred image, though it really means much more than that. For most of this document we will be talking about icons as sacred images, but in order to fully understand what we mean, we'll start with a much more specific and narrow definition. When God created humans (see Gen. 1&2) he endowed our forbearers with His divine image and likeness. (Gen. 1:26-27) In the discussion that follows, when we talk about the Icon as an "artistic representation", we are ultimately talking about the attempt to represent that "image of God" in and through the person of the one portrayed. With that in mind, let us consider the icon as an artistic and spiritual representation of a sacred person or event.

Given that context, the subject of an icon is some person such as Christ, Mary the Theotokos (mother or bearer of God), an Old or New Testament figure such as Abraham, the Prophet Elija, or an Apostle, etc., some hero of the Church, such as St. Nicholas or St. Cyril of Alexandria, or some event from salvation history, such as the the Nativity of Christ, the Resurrection, or an Ecumenical Council. And Iconography is the spiritual art of expressing the spiritual reality of these people and events using sacred symbolic forms and mystical colors. An icon, in fact, manifests our human participation in the divine through its symbolic pictoral language. The Incarnation of Christ (God made man, and thus visible) is the theological foundation of the icon which seeks to reveal the divine through visible and familiar content. In this sense, the icon has been called "a meeting between heaven and earth".

The painting (more properly called writing) of icons is a special vocation. The iconographer is expected to fast, pray, and live a holy life so as to be capable of expressing sacred and divine mysteries. Thus the icon becomes, in a way, the fruit of the Holy Spirit, containing spiritual power. Since the 9th Century, the Orthodox Church has established a set of technical rules, or canons for the artistic form of icons.
Icons have a very prominent and important place in the worship and piety of the Orthodox Church. They are deeply rooted in the gospel, and have been cherished and venerated by Christians from the earliest times.

Icons in the Church and Home
The tradition of placing icons in the church and home developed mainly from the necessity in the early second century to counteract the false Gnostic teaching that Christ was only a shadow and not really and fully human. The Christians countered this incorrect teaching by emphasizing the reality of Christ as the God-Man, for: "...the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14) The Christians emphasized the human nature of Christ in pictures, writings, hymns, and prayers, and thus the portrayal of Christ developed in the course of time into the icon. The Christians began to place the icon of Christ in the church, where it was later joined by icons of the Theotokos and all the saints. The tendency of people to honor their beloved ones in pictures was reflected in their desire to have the pictures of Christ and the Saints out of respect and honor, for "the honor which is given to the icon passes over to the prototype", the person himself.

The lighting of a candle, the making of the sign of the Cross, and the kissing of an icon should not be misinterpreted as being made to the physical picture itself. These gestures pass over from the icon to the person depicted. Among other things, the icon should remind us of the person depicted, that, since death does not end life, the person depicted is "alive in Christ", and should help us to "imitate their virtues and to glorify God."

Kissing the icon, bowing towards it, making the sign of the cross, while they all seem foreign to the western mind are all simple means of showing love, honor, and respect to the one portrayed. These customs all represent proper forms of greeting one's superiors in the cultures that are the home of Orthodox Christianity. In doing these things, we are reminded of the high spiritual values and virtues of the holy ones depicted, and encouraged to persue those same values and virtues ourselves.

In Orthodox tradition, icons are not intended to be realistic paintings of people and events (though they cannot do violence to the physical reality), but rather are symbolic interpretations of the great spiritual qualities of the saints... such as sacrifice, humility, devotion, faith and love. In all cases, the Icon will tell the rank and something of the deeds of the person depicted in the icon.