Church Tat - I is for Icon

(Confession – Letters J&K are proving to be impossible to find a piece of Tat for, if possible we will return to this letters later on in the year!)

An icon (from Greek ε ἰ κών , eik ō n, "image") is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

In Eastern Christianity and other icon-painting Christian traditions, the icon is generally a flat panel painting depicting a holy being or object such as Jesus, Mary, saints, angels,
or the cross. Icons may also be cast in metal, carved in stone, embroidered on cloth, done in mosaic or fresco work, printed on paper or metal, etc. Creating free-standing, three-dimensional sculptures of holy figures was resisted by Christians for many centuries, out of the belief that demons inhabited pagan sculptures, and also to make a clear distinction between Christian and pagan art. To this day, in obedience to the commandment not to make "graven images", Orthodox icons may never be more than three-quarter bas relief.

Christianity teaches that the immaterial God took flesh in the form of Jesus Christ, making it possible to depict in human form the Son of God. It is on this basis that the Old Testament rules against making images were overturned for the early Christians by their belief in the Incarnation. Also, the concept of archetype was redefined by the early church fathers in order to better understand that when a person shows veneration toward an image, the intention is rather to honour the person depicted, not the substance of the icon. As St. Basil the Great says, "The honour shown the image passes over to the archetype." He also illustrates the concept by saying, "If I point to a statue of Caesar and ask you 'Who is that?', your answer would properly be, 'It is Caesar.' When you say such you do not mean that the stone itself is Caesar, but rather, the name and honour you ascribe to the statue passes over to the original, the archetype, Caesar himself." So it is with an Icon.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, only flat or bas relief images are used. The Greeks, having a long, pagan tradition of statuary, found the sensual quality of three dimensional representations did more to glorify the human aspect of the flesh rather than the divine nature of the spirit and so prohibitions were created against statuary. The Romans, on the other hand, did not adopt these prohibitions and so there is still statuary among the Roman Catholics to this day. Because the Greeks rejected statuary, the Byzantine style of iconography was developed in which figures were stylized in a manner that emphasized their holiness rather than their humanity. Symbolism allowed the icon to present highly complex material in a very simple way, making it possible to educate even the illiterate in theology. The interiors of Orthodox Churches are often completely covered in icons.