Icons and Saints of the Eastern Orthodox

Explore the extensive imagery and fascinating stories of hundreds of Orthodox Christian icons and saints.

An icon (from the Greek word eikon, "image") is a wooden panel painting of a holy person or scene from Orthodox Christianity, the religion of the Byzantine Empire that is practised today mainly in Greece and Russia. It was believed that these works acted as intermediaries between worshippers and the holy personages they depicted. Their pictorial language is stylised and primarily symbolic, rather than literal and narrative. Indeed, every attitude, pose, and colour depicted in an icon has a precise meaning, and their painters—usually monks—followed prescribed models from iconographic manuals.

Featuring over 400 colour images, Icons and Saints of the Eastern Orthodox catalogues the vast heritage of images according to iconographic type and subject, from the most ancient at the Monastery of Saint Catherine in the Sinai to those from Greece, Constantinople, and Russia. Chapters focus on the role of icons in the Orthodox liturgy and on common iconic subjects, including the fathers and saints of the Eastern Church and the life of Jesus and his followers.