A Byzantine icon is a sacred image of Christ, the Virgin Mary or a saint, painted in the style that developed in the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. Icons are still at the heart of prayer in the Orthodox Church and in the Eastern Catholic Churches, and they are loved by many Roman Catholics and other Christians too.
What makes an icon different from a religious painting?
An icon is not meant to look like a photograph or a realistic scene. It is a window onto heaven, so it follows a long tradition of symbols and colours rather than the artist's personal style:
- Gold backgrounds stand for the light of God, a world outside ordinary time and space.
- Calm, still faces with large eyes show people transformed by grace, not caught in a passing emotion.
- Reverse perspective, where lines widen as they move away, draws the viewer into the image instead of looking into a distant scene.
- Colours carry meaning. Mary usually wears a deep red outer garment over blue, a sign of her humanity clothed in divinity. Christ usually wears the reverse.
The letters on icons
Most icons carry short Greek inscriptions:
- IC XC = the first and last letters of the Greek words for Jesus Christ. With NIKA ("conquers") it reads "Jesus Christ conquers".
- MP ΘY = "Mother of God", the title used for the Virgin Mary.
- Saints are named in Greek or Church Slavonic beside their halo.
How icons are made
Traditional icons are painted in egg tempera on a prepared wooden panel, with gold leaf for halos and backgrounds. Iconographers often speak of "writing" an icon rather than painting it, because an icon is read like a text. Each stage is done with prayer, and many follow patterns handed down for centuries.
A short history
Christian images go back to the early Church. In the 8th and 9th centuries the Byzantine Empire went through the Iconoclast controversy, when icons were banned and destroyed. Their use was restored in 843, an event the Orthodox Church still celebrates each year as the Triumph of Orthodoxy. From Constantinople the tradition spread to Greece, the Balkans, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and beyond.
Icons in everyday life
In Orthodox and many Catholic homes, icons sit in an "icon corner" where the family prays. People also carry small icons with them, in a wallet, on a chain or in the car. Wearing or carrying an icon is a way of keeping a quiet reminder of faith close through the day.
That is the idea behind Souls of Saints: Byzantine-style icons of the saints and the Theotokos on clothing and phone cases, so the tradition goes everywhere you do. Explore the full collection or the Theotokos icon phone case.