3 The functions of an icon

At the end of Iconoclasm, it was established that the primary function of an icon is to represent saintly persons and events faithfully, so Christians can recognise them. As mentioned in Section 2, this was of vital importance especially for the day of the Second Coming: by having seen Christ’s face in an icon, His true ‘likeness’, the believers would be able to recognise Him at the Last Judgement. As such, the icon functions as a window that facilitates a preview of the heavenly world. It is a door through which the faithful enters a supernatural sacred space and time. Descriptions that have been used to identify icons as ‘inferior’ art – e.g., flat, not anatomically correct, lacking perspective – all point to their function as a portal to a spiritual world, where the laws of nature (gravity, shadow, weight, perspective, etc.) are irrelevant. This spirituality is accessible via the icon regardless of the environment in which it is placed: sacred (e.g., church), secular public (e.g., governmental building) or private (e.g., personal household).