Icons have an educational role. By their colors, they teach everyone about the Bible, explain the teachings of the Church and increase the believers’ sense of eternal life. They portray to us the events of the Old and New Testaments, as well as our relationship with the heavenlies, and make our souls yearn for glory. Icons are visual sermons and books. They are presented in a simple, universal language that can be interpreted in all languages. The illiterate can grasp their messages as if reading a book or listening to a sermon. Even the educated can understand what the writings are unable to explain. They have been the language of the universal Church through the ages.
One evening, while I was at church, and there was only a dim beam of light coming from the “vigil lamps” in front of the icons, a young man came in. He walked to the door of the sanctuary and stood a little while in front of the icons and then came back with tears shedding from his eyes. He had decided to commit suicide. So, he went out from his house to buy some sleeping pills, planning to swallow them all, in one of the remote dark streets at night, so that no one would see him and rescue him. But while he was sitting on the tram, he spotted a glimmer of light coming out the windows of the church, and he decided in his heart to get off and go pray inside before he moves on with his plan. Within moments and in the very quiet atmosphere of the church, in front of the holy icons, he could not hold back his tears, saying to himself, “Am I going to be prohibited from the friendship and company of these saints in the Lord?” And according to his words to me he said to the Lord: “Even if my burdens multiply, I will never give up!”