We kiss icons to greet and honor the person depicted, Christ, His Mother, or one of the saints. It’s veneration, not worship. The honor passes through the image to the person represented.
If that sounds like splitting hairs, it’s not. The distinction matters because it’s rooted in the Incarnation itself.
When God the Son became flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, something changed forever. The invisible became visible. The untouchable took on skin and bone. Matter itself was sanctified because God united Himself to it. This means we can now depict Christ in images, something impossible before the Incarnation. You can’t paint the invisible God, but you can paint Jesus of Nazareth, fully God and fully man.
Icons proclaim this truth. They’re theology you can see and touch. When we kiss an icon of Christ, we’re affirming that He really became one of us, that He had a face you could recognize, hands that blessed children, feet that walked dusty roads. To refuse to venerate His icon is to edge dangerously close to denying His humanity.
The Seventh Ecumenical Council settled this in 787 AD. The bishops gathered at Nicaea declared that venerating icons isn’t idolatry. The honor we show doesn’t stop at the wood and paint. It goes through the image to the person. Think of it like kissing a photograph of someone you love. You’re not kissing paper and ink. You’re expressing affection for the person in the picture.
But icons do more than photographs. They’re not just historical records or memory aids. They’re windows into heaven, painted according to ancient tradition that shows us the transfigured reality of the saints. When you venerate an icon of St. Michael the Archangel here at our parish, you’re not just remembering some distant spiritual being. You’re greeting him, acknowledging his presence, asking his prayers. The Church teaches that icons are bearers of grace, that through them we encounter the living presence of those depicted.
This probably sounds strange if you grew up Baptist or Church of Christ. I get it. Most folks in Beaumont learned that images in church are dangerous, maybe even sinful. But that’s based on a misunderstanding of the Second Commandment. God forbade making images of false gods to worship them. He never forbade depicting what He Himself made visible. In fact, He commanded Moses to put images of cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant. The difference is what you’re doing with the image and who it represents.
We use a Greek word for what we do with icons: proskynesis. It means reverent honor. There’s another word, latria, that means worship in the fullest sense, adoration that belongs to God alone. We give latria only to the Holy Trinity. Icons receive proskynesis, a relative honor that acknowledges the holiness of the person shown. It’s similar to how you might stand when a judge enters the courtroom or remove your hat in church. You’re showing respect, not worship.
When you walk into an Orthodox church, you’ll see people crossing themselves and kissing icons. They’re not performing some superstitious ritual. They’re greeting the saints as living members of Christ’s Body. The Church isn’t divided into the living and the dead. We’re all alive in Christ, and the saints who’ve gone before us are more alive than we are. They see God face to face. Kissing their icons is how we acknowledge that communion, how we say, “Pray for me.”
The icon of Christ holds a special place. When we venerate it, we’re touching the hem of His garment, so to speak. We’re drawing near to Him through this tangible means He’s given us. Christ didn’t save us by remaining invisible and untouchable. He became matter, and through matter, water, bread, wine, oil, yes, and painted wood, He continues to meet us and heal us.
Metropolitan Kallistos Ware writes about this beautifully in The Orthodox Way. He explains that icons aren’t meant to be realistic in a photographic sense. They show us the Age to Come, the transfigured creation. That’s why the perspective often looks odd to Western eyes, why saints have those golden halos, why Christ’s face is so solemn. We’re seeing through the material world into the spiritual reality behind it.
So when you see someone kiss an icon, understand they’re doing something deeply Christian. They’re affirming the Incarnation. They’re communing with the saints. They’re letting matter be what God made it to be after He united Himself to it, a means of grace, a meeting place between heaven and earth.
