Religious Icons​—Their Ancient Roots

“Icons are a way of joining us to the goodness and holiness of God and His Saints.”​—GREEK ORTHODOX ARCHDIOCESE OF AUSTRALIA

ON THIS sultry August day, the sun’s rays beat down on the cement steps that lead up to the monastery of the “Most Holy Mother of God,” on the island of Tínos, in the Aegean Sea. The scorching heat does not dampen the determination of the more than 25,000 devout Greek Orthodox pilgrims who inch along trying to reach the heavily decorated icon of the mother of Jesus.

A young girl, lame, obviously in pain and with a desperate look on her face, crawls on her badly bleeding knees. Not far from her, an exhausted old lady who has traveled from the other end of the country struggles to keep her tired feet going. An eager middle-aged man perspires heavily as he anxiously tries to make his way through the jostling crowd. Their goal is to kiss an icon of Mary and prostrate themselves before it.

These deeply religious people are no doubt sincere in their desire to worship God. How many, though, realize that such devotion to religious icons traces its origins to practices predating Christianity by centuries?

The Prevalence of Icons

In the Orthodox world, icons are everywhere. In church buildings, icons of Jesus, Mary, and many “saints” occupy a central place. Believers often honor these icons with kisses, incense, and burning candles. Additionally, almost all Orthodox homes have their own icon corner, where prayers are uttered. It is not uncommon for Orthodox Christians to say that when they worship an icon, they connect with the divine. Many believe that icons are imbued with divine grace and miraculous powers.

Those believers would likely be surprised to learn that first-century Christians did not favor the use of icons in worship. The book Byzantium states: “The early Christians, inheriting from Judaism a repugnance toward idolatry, had looked askance at any veneration of pictures of holy persons.” The same book observes: “From the Fifth Century on, icons or images . . . became increasingly prevalent in public and private worship.” If not from first-century Christianity, from where did the use of religious icons originate?

 Tracing Their Roots

Researcher Vitalij Ivanovich Petrenko wrote: “The use of images and its tradition comes from well before the Christian era and had an ‘ancestry in paganism.’” Many historians agree, saying that the roots of icon worship are found in the religions of ancient Babylon, Egypt, and Greece. In ancient Greece, for example, religious images took the form of statues. These were believed to be invested with divine powers. People thought that some of these images were not made by hands but had fallen from heaven. During special festivals, such cult images were taken in a procession around the city, and sacrifices were offered to them. “The cult image was considered by the pious to be a deity himself, although attempts have been made . . . to distinguish between the deity and his image,” said Petrenko.

How did such ideas and practices seep into Christianity? The same researcher observed that, in the centuries after the death of Christ’s apostles, especially in Egypt, “Christian ideas were confronted by the ‘pagan amalgam’​—made out of Egyptian, Greek, Jewish, Oriental and Roman practices and beliefs which were practiced alongside Christian confession.” As a result, “Christian artisans adapted [an interfaith] method and made use of pagan symbols, putting them within a new context, although not purifying them totally from pagan influence.”

Soon icons became the focus of both private and public religious life. In the book The Age of Faith, historian Will Durant describes how this came about, saying: “As the number of worshiped saints multiplied, a need arose for identifying and remembering them; pictures of them and of Mary were produced in great number; and in the case of Christ not only His imagined form but His cross became objects of reverence​—even, for simple minds, magic talismans. A natural freedom of fancy among the people  turned the holy relics, pictures, and statues into objects of adoration; people prostrated themselves before them, kissed them, burned candles and incense before them, crowned them with flowers, and sought miracles from their occult influence. . . . Fathers and councils of the Church repeatedly explained that the images were not deities, but only reminders thereof; the people did not care to make such distinctions.”

Today, many who use religious icons would similarly argue that images are merely objects of respect​—not worship. They might claim that religious paintings are legitimate​—even indispensable—​aids in worshiping God. Perhaps you feel the same way. But the question is, How does God feel about this? Could it be that veneration of an icon really amounts to worshiping it? Can such practices actually pose hidden dangers?

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What Is an Icon?

Unlike statues widely used in Roman Catholic worship, icons are two-dimensional images of Christ, Mary, “saints,” angels, characters and events of the Bible, or events in the history of the Orthodox Church. Usually, they are painted on portable wooden boards.

According to the Orthodox Church, “in Icons of the Saints, the pictures do not look like pictures of ordinary flesh and blood.” Also, on icons “perspective is back to front”​—the picture does not get narrower as it goes into the distance. Usually “there are no shadows, or ways of showing day and night.” It is also believed that the wood and paint of an icon can “become filled with God’s presence.”

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The use of images can be traced to pagan practices

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