FAQ

In order to answer your question, it is necessary to clarify the terminology. Following the iconoclastic controversies at the end of the first millennium, all languages of Christian peoples strictly distinguish between worship and veneration.

Worship is our relationship with the person of God. It includes love and adoration, tears of repentance, and the sacred trembling of reverence. It includes gratitude and hope for help, the sorrow of separation, and the joy of meeting. One could probably speak at length about the various aspects of this deeply personal relationship. What is important is that this can only be a relationship with a person—and not just any person, but only with God. Therefore, Orthodox Christians have been saying for more than twelve centuries now, worship is rendered to God alone.

In contrast, veneration is a phenomenon on a completely different scale. We value a photograph of a loved one because it helps us remember their facial features. We will, of course, cherish it, especially if we cannot see our loved one in person and the photograph is the only one we have. In the same way, we carefully preserve and venerate the yellowed photographs of our long-deceased relatives. We also value, by the way, the telephone that helps us communicate with friends who live very far away... But none of us in our right mind and sound memory would say that we love the photograph rather than the person. This is exactly how the veneration of icons differs from the worship of God.

The Bible, like the tradition of the Church, categorically forbids the worship of anything other than God. The concepts of an idol and idolatry in the Bible are far broader than mere images alone. From the perspective of Scripture, to "serve"—that is, to dedicate one's time, efforts, hopes, and trust to anything other than the One—is a grievous sin. The Old Testament speaks of this extensively and in detail. In New Testament times, the sinfulness of idolatry was so evident that it hardly needed to be mentioned. Only occasionally do the apostles, in their letters to Christians from Gentile backgrounds, speak of it as a matter of course.

Christians of the first centuries went to their deaths by the thousands for refusing to worship pagan idols or, more often, the idol of the state (the Roman Empire).

In conclusion, let us quote an excerpt from the Decree of the 367 Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council of Nicaea on the veneration of icons: "...Since [the Lord Jesus Christ, the Most Holy Theotokos, and the saints] frequently become visible through their depiction on icons, therefore those who look upon them [the icons] are moved to remember and love those depicted on them, and to honor them with a kiss and respectful veneration, not with true worship according to our faith, which is befitting only the Divine nature, but with veneration... For the honor rendered to the image passes to the prototype, and the one who venerates the icon venerates the person depicted upon it..."