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church decor

church decor Proper church décor is necessary for proper worship. Anyone who witnesses an Orthodox liturgy for the first time will be struck by its appeal to the senses. The central actions of the Liturgy are the consecration and distribution of the bread and wine that make up the Lord's Body and Blood, but the images everywhere around are not mere embellishments. Holy icons are an essential aspect of the whole liturgical event. They enhance the beauty of a church. They instruct us in matters pertaining to the Christian faith. They remind us of this faith. They lift us up to the models that they symbolize. They provoke us to imitate the virtues of the holy figures depicted on them. They help to transform and bless us. They serve as a means of worship and veneration (Cavarnos 30). The most obvious function of icons is to enhance the beauty of the church. The church is a house of God, which means that it should be decorated as beautiful as possible. The interior should be especially striking because it is where faithful worshipers gather. The pleasure evoked from the icons must be a holy and spiritual experience. Icons serve to instruct the faithful. The workings of the Lord should be represented through icons because all people are not literate. Sometimes icons are more vivid than written accounts. Icons can present many things simultaneously and concisely. It could take a long period of time to describe the same event in words. We often forget things that are extremely important to us. We may know many things about the Christian faith, but we often forget them because we become preoccupied with everyday worldly matters. Icons remind and awaken us to our Christian faith. We also remember pictures better than we do words. Icons lift us up to the models that they represent. They lift us up to a higher level of thought and consciousness. The people shown in the icons were at a higher level than we are in our everyday lives. When we see their icons, we recall their superior character and deeds. In doing this, we think pure thoughts and experience higher feelings. It is designed to lead us from the physical to the spiritual realm (Whiteford 1). Icons are intended to make us want to imitate the virtues of the people in the icons. The more the icons are seen, the more we want to mimic the people in them. The icons help transform our character and to bless us. They do this by instructing us, reminding us, uplifting us, and stirring us up morally and spiritually. They lead us to perfection. The more we dwell on perfection, the closer we come to it (Whiteford 1). The last function of the icon is a means of worship and veneration. It is a means of worshipping God and venerating His saints. It is symbolic, leading us from the material to the spiritual. When a person enters the Orthodox Christian Church, they light a candle and put it on the icon-stand on which is set the icon representing the sacred person, persons or event specially celebrated by the particular church. Then they bow before the icon, make a sign of the cross, kiss the icon, and say a brief prayer. This is not an act of worshipping the icon. Worship is only given to God. It is an act of honorable veneration (Copple 1). When the functions of icons are ignored and the important distinction between veneration and worship is lost sight of, iconoclasm, the condemnation of icons, is a result. This is what happened in 726. The Byzantine Emperor Leo the Isaurian issued an edict that condemned the making and veneration of icons. The icon is an image or symbol, and it is designed to lead us to that of which it is an image or symbol. The veneration of an icon is not the act of worshipping it. Anyone who would charge of idolatry shows ignorance to the nature and functions of icons. They are intended to help us grow in the image and likeness of God (Copple 1). Bibliography:

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