Icons speak a visual language that’s meant to show you heaven, not photograph earth. Every color, gesture, and strange bit of perspective exists to tell you something true about God.
When you walk into St. Michael’s and see Christ Pantocrator looking down from above the altar, you’re not seeing a realistic portrait. You’re seeing theology in paint. The gold background isn’t sky. It’s the light of the Kingdom. Christ’s face doesn’t follow normal proportions because He’s not being depicted in His earthly state but in His glorified one. The blue outer garment over the red inner one? That’s the divine nature clothing the human. It’s a sermon you can see.
We say icons are “written,” not painted. That’s not just poetic language. An iconographer isn’t expressing personal creativity or trying to capture what Jesus might’ve looked like walking around Galilee. They’re following a tradition handed down through centuries, writing out the Church’s faith in color and form the same way Scripture writes it in words. The icon of the Theotokos holding Christ follows patterns established by St. Luke himself. When you change those patterns, you’re not being creative, you’re saying something different, maybe something wrong.
The symbolism works differently than you might expect if you grew up with realistic religious art. Western paintings from the Renaissance onward tried to make biblical scenes look like they were happening right in front of you. Caravaggio wanted you to feel like you could walk into the room. Orthodox icons do the opposite. They flatten perspective. They enlarge eyes. They make buildings look architecturally impossible. This isn’t because Byzantine artists couldn’t draw realistically, it’s because they were showing you a transfigured world, not a photographic one.
Take the Theotokos. In most icons she wears a red or earthen-colored outer garment over a blue undergarment. That’s the reverse of Christ’s clothing. She’s human bearing the Divine within her. Christ is Divine taking on humanity. The colors preach the Incarnation before you read a single word of Scripture.
Red shows up everywhere in icons, but it doesn’t always mean the same thing. On a martyr like St. George, it’s blood and sacrifice. On the young and beautiful, it can mean youth itself. Context matters. Gold isn’t just pretty, it’s uncreated light, the radiance of God that can’t be captured in any earthly color. When you see that gold background, you’re being told this event or person exists in God’s presence, outside normal time.
The Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787 settled the question of whether icons were even allowed. Iconoclasts wanted them destroyed, claiming they violated the commandment against graven images. The Council said no. Because Christ became visible, He can be depicted. The Incarnation changed everything. God took on flesh, and that flesh had a face. To refuse to depict Christ is to deny He really became man. Icons aren’t just decoration, they’re a defense of the Incarnation itself.
You’ll notice inscriptions on most icons. They’re not optional. The name identifies who’s depicted, anchoring the image in a real person. Christ Pantocrator means “Ruler of All.” It’s not just Jesus looking thoughtful, it’s the Lord of heaven and earth. The letters IC XC (Greek abbreviation for Jesus Christ) and the halo confirm His identity. Without those markers, you’d just have a painting of a bearded man.
Gestures matter too. When Christ raises His right hand in blessing, the fingers form the letters IC XC in Greek. His left hand usually holds the Gospel book, sometimes open to a specific verse. Everything teaches. Nothing’s arbitrary.
If you’ve been to a Catholic church or seen European religious art, Orthodox icons probably looked strange at first. Stiff, maybe. Flat. But spend time with them and something happens. That flatness starts to feel like stillness. Those elongated faces start to look less weird and more holy. You realize the icon isn’t trying to manipulate your emotions or tell you a story with drama and shadow. It’s inviting you into prayer, into the presence of the person depicted.
Next time you’re at Liturgy, look at the icons with this in mind. The Theotokos in the apse above the altar, holding Christ in her womb, that’s the Church herself, bearing Christ to the world. The saints lining the walls aren’t dead heroes. They’re alive in Christ, present with us, watching us worship. The whole building becomes a window into the Kingdom, and the icons are how we see through.
