When visiting an unfamiliar temple, it is often difficult to navigate. There are many icons in the temple, but is there an image among them that you wanted to pray before. Seek help from temple staff or members. But if there is nobody to tell, you can look at the type of image and independently determine what kind of image.
Celebrate Celebrated Event
If on this day an event is celebrated from the life of the Savior or Our Lady, or a saint whose icon you want to approach, then in the center of the temple this image is usually laid out on a lectern. This icon is considered festive. If the temple does not have a separate icon of the event commemorated on that day or the saint, then they put a Minea on the lectern, i.e. monthly icon. This saint or event will be depicted on it among all the saints and events of this month. On Sunday, the image of the Resurrection of Christ is always located on the lectern.
Find the icon of the Virgin
There are many options for depicting the Virgin. Types of iconography of the image of the Virgin are divided into several groups.
Type "Tenderness" - in Greek icon painting this type is called "Sweet kissing." Mother of God and baby clung to each other with faces, Christ hugs Mother by the neck with his hand. Also to this type are icons, where the Virgin is depicted alone. These are the icons of the Mother of God - Tenderness (Diveevskaya), Vladimir, Don, Pochaev, Recovery of the dead, Feodorov.
Type "Hodegetria" - from the Greek "Guide". The Virgin Mary is depicted frontally and points her hand at the baby sitting on her other hand. At the same time, he blesses with a hand. These are the icons of Our Lady - Iverskaya, Kazan, Smolenskaya, Three-handed.
Type "Sign" - from the Greek "Praying" - the Virgin Mary with raised hands, the half-figure of Christ in youthful form is located in a sphere at the level of the breast of the Virgin. These are the icons - the Sign of Novgorod, Korchemnaya, Kursk-Root, Tsarskoye Selo.
Find the icon of the saint
To do this, you need to know who he is: reverend, martyr, healer, apostle, saint, etc. Each rank of saint has its own obligatory iconographic attributes. One of the markings is clothing. The color of the clothes of the martyrs is usually red, and those of the saint have dark shades of clothing.
Evangelical apostles are portrayed writing the Gospel, martyrs usually hold a cross or instruments of torment — a wheel, a sword, etc., beserebrenny doctors hold a jar of medicine or a spoon, pillars are depicted standing on a pillar.
It is advisable to know the portrait traits of famous saints: for example, Nikolai the Miracle Worker, Seraphim of Sarov, Panteleimon the Healer, St. George the Victorious, and the Royal Family are almost always recognizable.
You can pray and light a candle for your saint and / or several saints in front of the icon "All Saints".
