SS
#0
I am wondering how Orthodox use icons as aids to prayer and communion with the Holy Spirit, the Heavenly King, the Comforter; how?
What I happen to manage when I look at an icon every now and then is to make the sign of the Cross. Sometimes, I say a spontaneous prayer in my heart; like the Jesus Prayer, or a Kyrie Eleison (LORD have mercy) in English.
Is this a fair question; if one had only ten
icons to place on one\'s prayer corner,
which ten icons should be in every Orthodox Christian\'s collection?
I believe of course there should be
Christ of Sinai and some kind of icon of
the Blessed Theotokos.
Which scenes from the Gospel, and which
Saints should one have?
Or is this all basically a matter of freedom?
There are different answers to this \\
question which all could be in keeping
with an Orthodox Christian collection of icons?
I just wonder what common ground there
is between different Orthodox icon
collections.
I believe I need to be more careful about
icons; as I unwittingly ordered some icons
which I later learned were from an heterodox source, Monastery Icons.
See: www.orthodoxinfo.com and read their
article of warning about this icon controversy. I tossed my entire collection
of Monastery Icons, due to this article.
I want to avoid doing anything wrong.
Take care.
:confused:
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EC
#1
You really only need a few. In church, you must have an icon of Christ the Pantocrator (Almighty) and one of the Theotokos minimum in order to have a Liturgy. But in the home, one of these two plus one of one\'s patron Saint or the patron Saint of your parish are fine. I like to have a few others, of my personal favorites, like St. Romanos the Melodist and St. Herman of Alaska.
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dmitri mosier
#2
I have the Savior and Theotokos, personal patron, parish patron and then St. Patrick (I\'m mainly of Irish heritage), The Royal Russian Martyrs (they kept following me!), St. Eleutherios (I was chrismated on his feast day) and the Heavenly Bodiless Powers.
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Ji
#3
I would think a minimum would be an icon of Christ (not necessarily Sinai Christ - to me, the most sublime icons of Christ would be the 13thC icon from the Chilandar Monastery, and the mid-16thC Christ of the Deesis series of the Dionysiou Monastery. But this is personal preference.), an icon of the Mother of God, and of one’s patron saint as a bare minimum. Over and above that, it’s completely up to you. By all means, having icons of saints to whom you feel closest to, or have been most inspired by, is a good idea. There are no hard and fast rules as to which icons one SHOULD have.
And, contrary to the views of some pontificating iconographers, a mass-produced, printed mounted icon is no less worthy or holy than one hand-painted using egg-tempera. One only needs to consider the story behind the myrrh-streaming icon of St Nicholas, which I had the great privilege of seeing and venerating a few years ago. A wonderful example of “the stone that the builders rejected ...”, proof that God’s grace can show itself through a humble mounted icon, as much as in an egg-tempera masterpiece such as Vladimirskaya, Kursk-Root, or the Holy Trinity painted by Andrei Rublyev.
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JK
#4
Shocking, but not true.
\"Sacred Arts Foundation is pleased to announce its acquisition of the Monastery Icons collection of sacred art ­ a unique, modern testimony to the timeless ancient, classical tradition of Christian iconography.\"
(http://www.monasteryicons.com/info/index.hzml)
Sacred Arts is a very professionally run orginization, and although they are Catholic, I don\'t think they would sell Buddhist items. Here is an email from someone online who had contacted them:
Dear Friend,
Thank you for contacting us. About ten years ago competitors and enemies of Monastery Icons perpetrated the spurious information cited in Fr. Nelson?s letter, in an attempt to compromise the business of Monastery Icons. Fortunately the sacred arts ministry of Monastery Icons was not harmed by this attempt, and most people recognize the letter for what it is: a bizarre conglomeration of lies, fantasy, and misinformation.
Further, Sacred Arts Foundation acquired the Monastery Icons sacred art collection three years ago. The Monastery no longer manufactures the icons nor does it own the Monastery Icons business. The icons from Monastery Icons are not blessed with any rituals, “occult” or otherwise. Thank you again for your interest. If you have any further questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely
Richard
Monastery Icons
Customer Service
1-800-729-4952
Now, this letter may be completely faked from beginning to end, but I find that equally as likely as Fr. Anthony simply being misinformed. No offense meant to Fr. Anthony, and I\'m sure he did come in contact with some weird cult in Oklahoma, but it appears they aren\'t connected with Monastery Icons at all.
Please, guys, try to do a little research on your own before spreading rumors like this!
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Manoli Maginas
#5
BlackK wrote:
such as Vladimirskaya, Kursk-Root, or the Holy Trinity painted by Andrei Rublyev.
The famous icon of the Holy Trinity was WRITTEN by Andrei Rublyev, not PAINTED.
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Kristina
#7
In addition to the icons mentioned (Christ, Theotokos, patron saints) I also like having an icon of at least one angel when I\'m praying. It\'s nice to look at the icon of the Guardian Angel when saying the prayer to our guardian angel. Our prayer corner includes many other icons that are significant to us, such as the Wedding at Cana (for married folks) and icons of our godchildren\'s patron saints. The vast majority are replications from St Isaak of Syria Skete\'s icon catalog.
I\'ve seen a wide variety of the use of icons in homes. Sometimes people just have a few, while others have their entire walls covered. The important thing is that we take the time to pray, no matter how many icons we may or may not have.
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PM
#6
Just go to monasteryicons.com and look...the icons are horrible and not canonical anyway, so who cares about letters and rumors. Just a cursory glance by an Orthodox Christian would be enough to let one know that this is not an appropriate source for icons!
No difference between writing and painting icons! Fr. Andrew Tregubov, one of the best iconographers living in America today, just laughs when he hears this distinction. The root words are all the same, it is just an unimportant semantic difference. His website is
http://www.iconmotif.com/store/
God bless,
Priest Matthew
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Ji
#8
Thank you, Fr Matthew, it has been a great source of consternation for me to continually have to explain to people that icons are PAINTED, not WRITTEN! A basic knowledge of Greek is all that is required to see why this \"writing\" icons business is at best a semantic misunderstanding, and a pompous affectation at worst.
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KK
#9
Ten icons?! That seems like a lot for a minimum collection. I\'ve been Orthodox from birth and I only got my 10th icon this year. I\'m sure it would be wonderful to have so many. It\'s just different from what I\'m used to.
I\'ve had an icon of the Theotokos (my patron) since my baptism. Now that I\'m married we have an icon of Christ in our bedroom and in the living room along with icons of our patrons. We have a small traveling set that goes on vacation with us. I also have two icons from each of my graduations, high school and college.
In the house I grew up in, we had an icon of Christ and the Theotokos in the icon corner and each person had his or her patron\'s icons in his or her bedroom. My great-grandmother also one or two others in her bedroom.
I laughed at the Orthodixie blog the other day when Fr. Joseph joked: \"I learned early on: When you go to a Convert\'s house to do a house blessing -- they have so many icons on the walls, all the walls, that you have to ask, \'Where is the icon corner?\"
\"Oh yeah, funny guy? Well what do you encounter when you go to bless a Greek\'s house?
\"Oh! That\'s easy! You have to take your own icon!\"
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