ABSTRACT
One of the stumbling blocks to our understanding of Orthodoxy has been our natural tendency to confound the ideas and customs of the Orthodox Church with familiar parallels in Roman Catholicism. Any Western observer of an Orthodox service will immediately notice the special importance the pictures of saints have for the Orthodox believer. Many Orthodox believers consider it sheer blasphemy to exhibit icons in a museum. Orthodox liturgy reaches its height in the celebration of the Eucharist. A large number of Orthodox monasteries and churches not only in Russia but in other Orthodox countries were founded on the spot hallowed by the discovery of some such icon "not made by hands." Along with the figures of the Evangelists and saints, the images of angels have a prominent place in Orthodox iconography. The direct relationship between icon and liturgy is of crucial importance. The New Testament lacks any such direct dogmatic basis for the icons of Mary.
