Start with an icon corner. That’s the heart of it.
An Orthodox home isn’t just a house where Orthodox people happen to live. It’s a little church, an extension of the liturgical life you experience on Sunday mornings. The Church Fathers called the family “the domestic church,” and they meant it literally. Your home becomes a place where prayer happens daily, where the rhythms of fasting and feasting shape your week, where icons remind you that you’re surrounded by that great cloud of witnesses.
But let’s be practical. You don’t need to transform everything overnight.
The Icon Corner
Find a spot on an eastern wall if you can. East matters because we pray facing the direction of Christ’s return. But if your house faces weird (and plenty of houses in Beaumont do), don’t stress about it. Pick a corner or wall in your main living area where the family naturally gathers. Some people use a bedroom if that’s where morning and evening prayers happen. I’ve seen beautiful icon corners on bookshelves, mantels, and repurposed side tables.
You need three things to start: an icon of Christ, an icon of the Theotokos, and a light source.
Place Christ on the right as you face the icons, the Theotokos on the left. That’s the traditional arrangement. Add your patron saints as you go, the saints you and your spouse and kids are named after, plus any saints you’ve grown close to. If you’re still a catechumen, you might add the saint you’re thinking about taking as your patron. A vigil lamp or candle helps. Oil lamps are traditional (olive oil with a cork float and cotton wick), but if you’ve got small kids or you’re working offshore half the month, a battery-operated light works fine. God cares more about your prayer than your lighting setup.
Don’t overthink the aesthetics. I’ve seen icon corners that looked like something from a monastery and icon corners that were two paper icons blu-tacked to an apartment wall. Both were doing their job.
Prayer Happens Here
The icon corner isn’t decoration. It’s where you pray.
Start small if you’re new to this. Five minutes morning and evening. Say the Lord’s Prayer together as a family. Add the Trisagion Prayers when that feels natural. Eventually you might use a prayer book, the Jordanville Prayer Book is solid, or ask about the prayer books the parish uses. But don’t let “doing it right” keep you from doing it at all.
Face the icons when you pray. Make the sign of the cross. If you’ve got kids, let them see you pray. They’ll absorb more than you think. Even toddlers can learn to cross themselves and say “Lord have mercy.”
Pray before meals too. The Orthodox table blessing is short: “O Christ our God, bless the food and drink of Thy servants, for Thou art holy, always, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.” Say it before you eat. Thank God after. It changes how you think about food, especially during fasting seasons.
Beyond the Icon Corner
You can put icons in other rooms. Bedrooms are good for personal prayer. Some people put an icon near the front door, St. Michael the Archangel is popular for that, given our parish patron. Just don’t put icons in bathrooms or kitchens where they’d be treated casually. Icons aren’t magic talismans. They’re windows into heaven, and we treat them with the respect we’d show the people they depict.
Have your priest bless your home. This usually happens around Theophany in January, but you can ask anytime. He’ll go through each room with holy water and prayers, sanctifying the space. It’s not superstition. It’s asking God’s protection and presence in the place where you live your daily life.
The Rhythms
An Orthodox home follows the Church’s calendar. You’ll fast on Wednesdays and Fridays (no meat, dairy, or eggs). You’ll keep the fasting seasons, Great Lent, the Dormition Fast, the Nativity Fast. You’ll feast on feast days. This isn’t legalism. It’s letting the Church’s rhythm shape your family’s rhythm, so your home life and your church life aren’t two separate things.
Read Scripture together. Even a few verses at breakfast. The Psalms work well for this. Celebrate name days and feast days with special foods and extra prayers. Light incense during evening prayers if you want (and if it won’t set off your smoke detector). These small practices add up.
A Book Recommendation
If you want more practical guidance, get Blueprints for the Little Church by Elissa Bjeletich and Caleb Shoemaker. It’s published by Ancient Faith and it’s full of concrete advice for families trying to figure this out. They get that you’re not a monastic and you’ve got jobs and kids and a mortgage. The book walks you through building an Orthodox home one piece at a time, which is exactly how it should happen.
Your home won’t become an Orthodox home all at once. You’ll add practices gradually. Some will stick immediately. Others will take years to feel natural. That’s fine. You’re not trying to achieve some perfect standard. You’re trying to make your home a place where Christ is present, where prayer is normal, where your family grows together toward theosis. Start with the icon corner. Pray there daily. The rest will follow.
