Why do Orthodox churches have icons?

Orthodox Christians view icons as visual representations of the people and stories of the Bible. Orthodox Christians view icons as visual representations of God and do not believe that the images have a spiritual quality.

Can Orthodox have Catholic icons?

Answer: There is no rule against Roman Catholics keeping or honoring the presence of icons or a norm restricting them to Eastern Christians.

What are icons in the Catholic Church?

Icons are considered an essential part of the church and are given special liturgical veneration. They serve as mediums of instruction for the uneducated faithful through the iconostasis, a screen shielding the altar, covered with icons depicting scenes from the New Testament, church feasts, and popular saints.

What makes Greek Orthodox different?

Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox believers both believe in the same God. 2. Roman Catholics deem the Pope as infallible, while Greek Orthodox believers don’t. Roman Catholic priests cannot marry, while priests in the Greek Orthodox can marry before they are ordinated.

What is the difference between Greek Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox?

Historically, the term “Greek Orthodox” has been used to describe all Eastern Orthodox churches in general, since the term “Greek” can refer to the heritage of the Byzantine Empire. Thus, Eastern Orthodox came to be called “Greek” Orthodox in the same way that the Western Christians came to be called “Roman” Catholic.

What is the difference between icons and statues?

As nouns the difference between statue and icon is that statue is a three-dimensional work of art, usually representing a person or animal, usually created by sculpting, carving, molding, or casting while icon is an image, symbol, picture, or other representation usually as an object of religious devotion.

Why are icons important in the Catholic Church?

Did the Eastern Orthodox Church believe in icons?

Eastern Orthodox believe these qualify as icons, in that they were visible images depicting heavenly beings and, in the case of the cherubim, used to indirectly indicate God’s presence above the Ark.

What is the importance of icons in the Catholic Church?

Did the Roman Catholic church believe in icons?

An icon (from the Greek εἰκών eikṓn ‘image, resemblance’) is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, the Roman Catholic, and certain Eastern Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; “an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion”.

Why do Orthodox Christians use icons instead of statues?

For many westerners, and in the Orthodox folklore, icons are the Eastern substitute for statues commonly, and erroneously, believed to the forbidden in the Orthodox Church. Actually, statues are by no means forbidden in Orthodoxy and were always a regular part of the decorative and devotional furnishing of the sacred space, the church interior.

Are statues allowed in the Orthodox Church?

Actually, statues are by no means forbidden in Orthodoxy and were always a regular part of the decorative and devotional furnishing of the sacred space, the church interior. Icon, now commonly used as a technical term for the flat, perspective less devotional pictures of oriental Orthodoxy is simply the Greek word for “image.”

What happened to the Orthodox Church’s art?

The same may be said of the practical disappearance of statues as opposed to icons over large areas of the Orthodox Church. The lingering memory of the Iconoclasts encouraged reticence and the Moslem conquest froze Orthodox art in its most limited form.

Should we bow to icons in church?

Yet in Eastern Orthodox churches, bowing down to icons is required. I know that in the Russian Orthodox Church, bowing to an icon is part of the baptismal and christening process for adult converts.