Icon corners

[Vlad]

Anyone have any pics of their Icon corners. I am trying to rearrange mine as I am buying some new ones to add and am kinda looking for some suggestions.

[Salpy]

If you click on the "icon corner" tag, below, you may find some threads that are helpful.

[Basil 320]

I use the Church Altar and Icon Screen as a model.  MP to the left, XP to the right, patron saint to the left of MP (Russian style is to the right of XP), cross in the middle, angels on either side, Bible in the middle, prayer books to the left of the Bible, other saints and icons of feasts on the left wall; (there's no wall to the right).

[Vlad]

I use the Church Altar and Icon Screen as a model.  MP to the left, XP to the right, patron saint to the left of MP (Russian style is to the right of XP), cross in the middle, angels on either side, Bible in the middle, prayer books to the left of the Bible, other saints and icons of feasts on the left wall; (there's no wall to the right).

Thanks that sounds like a nice icon corner.

[Vlad]

If you click on the "icon corner" tag, below, you may find some threads that are helpful.

I seem to remember a thread that I read awhile back that had a lot  of pics people put up one was from I believe Schultz and he even had pics of his icon corner at work. I've been trying to find that one with no success.

[Salpy]

Is this what you were looking for?

http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php/topic,12467.msg213248.html#msg213248

[Vlad]

Is this what you were looking for?

http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php/topic,12467.msg213248.html#msg213248

Ha thats it! Thanks so much.

[scamandrius]

This was mine at my old residence.  I've got a new arrangement but no photos yet.  Hope this is helpful to you.

http://picasaweb.google.com/astyanax5/Icons#5363331985453509618

[Gebre Menfes Kidus]

This was mine at my old residence.  I've got a new arrangement but no photos yet.  Hope this is helpful to you.

http://picasaweb.google.com/astyanax5/Icons#5363331985453509618

Beautiful Icons!

Selam

[Alveus Lacuna]

http://picasaweb.google.com/astyanax5/Icons#5363331985453509618

I flipped through some of your other photos.  Do you live in Kansas?

[scamandrius]

^Alveus,

Now I do, at least for another month and then I'm going back to Omaha. 

[Vlad]

This was mine at my old residence.  I've got a new arrangement but no photos yet.  Hope this is helpful to you.

http://picasaweb.google.com/astyanax5/Icons#5363331985453509618

nice

[Alveus Lacuna]

Now I do, at least for another month and then I'm going back to Omaha.

Isn't the church there Western rite?

[samkim]

[Salpy]

That's beautiful!

[Basil 320]

Beautiful and inspiring. (Re.: REPLY #13)

[samkim]

Thanks!

[Altar Server]

Thats amazing. What Saints' icons do you have there?

[samkim]

Thats amazing. What Saints' icons do you have there?

Synaxis of the Holy Angels, the Holy Apostles, Sts. John the Forerunner and Baptist, Cecilia, Seraphim of Sarov, Herman of Alaska, Nicholas (whose memory we celebrate this day), and the Three Holy Hierarchs (John Chrysostom, Basil, Gregory Nazianzus). There are also icons of our Lord, the Mother of God, "Extreme Humility," a crucifix, the Transfiguration, the Resurrection, the Holy Trinity (Hospitality of Abraham), and an Asian Mother of God seated with the infant Lord.

[Altar Server]

 

[Vlad]

Wow thats really beautiful Samkim

[Alveus Lacuna]

[Cymbyz]

I reserve the top of my chest of drawers as a home altar.  On the wall over it are the icons:  the main row with a cross, flanked by Christ and the Forerunner on the right, and Theotokos and St. Eugene of Cherson (personal patron Saint) to the left.  Below that are two rows of various Saints, including the patron Saints of my spiritual relatives.  To be added above the main row in future will be icons of Pascha and the 12 Great Feasts.

[augustin717]

These are all nice&dandy, but, traditionally, Orthodox laity-overwhelmingly peasant, illiterate and poor-never had such a cornucopia of religious artifacts.

[Gebre Menfes Kidus]

Glory to God! Beautiful!

Selam

[Alveus Lacuna]

These are all nice&dandy, but, traditionally, Orthodox laity-overwhelmingly peasant, illiterate and poor-never had such a cornucopia of religious artifacts.

I know many Orthodox people that have converted the sheds in their backyards into chapels and filled them to the brim with such "artifacts."

[augustin717]

Perhaps you are acquainted  with  nobility then, the only class able to afford private chapels.

[Schultz]

These are all nice&dandy, but, traditionally, Orthodox laity-overwhelmingly peasant, illiterate and poor-never had such a cornucopia of religious artifacts.

Last I checked, I (and everyone here most likely) am not a) a peasant, b) illiterate and c) poor.

We are blessed to be able to have these things to help us in our journey.  Perhaps we do rely on them and take inordinate pride in them.  Perhaps we should and could live more like the poor, illiterate and peasant Orthodox laity. 

But I would imagine those same poor, illiterate peasants would not judge those who had these "cornocopia of religious artifacts".

[augustin717]

What makes you think anybody is judging you/
I'm not really judging you, neither am I following you.

[samkim]

I am a literate college student. Socially, I am not a peasant. Only a beggar before God's mercy.

[augustin717]

It's hard for many to understand what I'm saying:you'd have to have experienced Orthodoxy as lived out in a traditional setting, where it is the majority religion and not just one of the many options available on the religious market as it often happens in the USA.

[Andrew21091]

These are all nice&dandy, but, traditionally, Orthodox laity-overwhelmingly peasant, illiterate and poor-never had such a cornucopia of religious artifacts.

Indeed, many icon corners for them only included one icon and a simple lamp (not as fancy as the ones many have now)

[Schultz]

What makes you think anybody is judging you/
I'm not really judging you, neither am I following you.

Perhaps I am just being argumentative myself or reading into your initial post.  I honestly took it to mean that those of us who spend the time and money to beautify our homes with an icon corner are being "extravagent" or somesuch. 

If you did not mean it that way, then please forgive me.

[Michał Kalina]

These are all nice&dandy, but, traditionally, Orthodox laity-overwhelmingly peasant, illiterate and poor-never had such a cornucopia of religious artifacts.

I don't agree with you. My grandmother, although she can read, in her icon corner has more icons, crosses, books and other stuff than there are in many of the American Parishes (from what I can see in the pictures on the net).

I've also read an ethnographic book about Polesian Belarusians from the beginning of the 20th century, where there was written that amount of the icons in peasants' homes was associated with the family's prestige. People could not read, were poor but they had as many icons as they could afford despite the fact they even did not know who on the icons was portrayed.

[Alveus Lacuna]

It's hard for many to understand what I'm saying:you'd have to have experienced Orthodoxy as lived out in a traditional setting, where it is the majority religion and not just one of the many options available on the religious market as it often happens in the USA.

Fine, whatever.  I was letting people here into a private part of my life, because I have been blessed by the other pictures that people have posted.  I wanted to share something real.  I'm sorry that I don't have all of your authentic culturally Orthodox credentials as an American convert.  I rely on my priest for guidance, and he explained to me that having an icon corner is traditional practice and beneficial for my soul.

People in this country waste thousands of dollars on plasma widescreen televisions and fancy, fast, sexy computers.  Many elements of these things are cancerous.  I invested a small amount of money in my icon corner for my spiritual benefit.  I saw it as an investment in my spiritual life.  None of it was very expensive, and now I have a place I can go in a quiet corner of my house to prayer and connect with God.

You really don't have to be so condescending.  If there was some level of pride at play in displaying the corner, then please forgive me.  My honest intention was to bless others in the way that their pictures have blessed me.

[augustin717]

I ask you to forgive me, as I was, I realize now, way too harsh and, in a way, presumptuous . I should learn to not judge people's intentions/motives. Forgive me, please.
At the same time, this is not something I'm used too. I've been in enough old old people's homes in Transylvania, Romania. On entering many of these modest houses one could think he stepped back in time by a couple of centuries-no electricity, no running water, no modern device whatsoever etc. On the eastern wall there would be a small, lithographed icon, or one painted on glass, sometimes a little Cross, but nothing that lavish as I see around here in America. To each his own, but I still think that there is still something more authentic in what I've experienced there. But that, perhaps, has more to do with the fact that there were no aesthetickal concerns  involved, not much choice involved, not much awareness about it, just a custom followed out of a most blessed inertia, rather than  with the number of the icons, in itself, I would say.

[DaveInCSA]

That's beautiful.

I'll have to show that to my wife.

[Andrew21091]

To each his own, but I still think that there is still something more authentic in what I've experienced there. But that, perhaps, has more to do with the fact that there were no aesthetickal concerns  involved, not much choice involved, not much awareness about it, just a custom followed out of a most blessed inertia, rather than  with the number of the icons, in itself, I would say.

Have you seen Blessed Elder Cleopa's cell at Sihastria Monastery? It is filled with icons and not just in the corner. I'd say he was pretty authentic. I don't see why having a lot of icons isn't authentic.

[Vlad]

Very beautiful. Who is the Saint in the middle between Christ and the Theotokos?

[Vlad]

To each his own, but I still think that there is still something more authentic in what I've experienced there. But that, perhaps, has more to do with the fact that there were no aesthetickal concerns  involved, not much choice involved, not much awareness about it, just a custom followed out of a most blessed inertia, rather than  with the number of the icons, in itself, I would say.

Have you seen Blessed Elder Cleopa's cell at Sihastria Monastery? It is filled with icons and not just in the corner. I'd say he was pretty authentic. I don't see why having a lot of icons isn't authentic.

Now THATS lots of Icons.

[Alveus Lacuna]

Very beautiful. Who is the Saint in the middle between Christ and the Theotokos?

My patron and protector: Venerable Matthew, Clairvoyant of the Kiev Caves.

[Irish Hermit]

Very beautiful. Who is the Saint in the middle between Christ and the Theotokos?

My patron and protector: Venerable Matthew, Clairvoyant of the Kiev Caves.

Beautiful icon.  Have you just had it painted?  IIRC, you were asking for information about his icon several months back.  Looks like you found a very good iconographer.

[Alveus Lacuna]

Beautiful icon.  Have you just had it painted?  IIRC, you were asking for information about his icon several months back.  Looks like you found a very good iconographer.

I had it commissioned about five months ago, and I got it in the mail just recently.  At some point I will take it to the university with me so that I can scan the image for display.  When I do, I'll resurrect that thread.

[Irish Hermit]

These are all nice&dandy, but, traditionally, Orthodox laity-overwhelmingly peasant, illiterate and poor-never had such a cornucopia of religious artifacts.

Not at home, but they had the bountiful and supportive cornucopia of living in a culture saturated with Orthodoxy.    The churches everywhere, the monasteries, the monks and nuns, the pilgrimages, the holy relics and the holy shrines to visit, the beauty of the church services, the support of the yearly cycle of feast and fasts, the feeling that they were all of them fasting and feasting together.    It was, and still is in Orthodox countries, a very rich Orthodox lifestyle.

People in the West who lack that can make an effort to incorporate some of it into their daily lives by building up a beautiful icon corner or even turning a garden shed into a tiny chapel.

[GregoryLA]

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