How to Create an Icon Corner in Your Home?

Russian Icon
2 min readJun 26, 2020

--

Almost every Orthodox Christian home has an icon corner, a family sacred place dedicated to the worshipping. This distinguishable part of the house comes across as a spiritual core binding every soul into one kindred community. That is why it is vitally important to know how to create an icon corner in your home so that everyone can cultivate communion with God. Let’s look at the basic principles that will help you make an icon corner in your dwelling.

What do you need to make an icon corner?

Initially, you have to build a carcass. Nails and screws (choose some of these considering the wall type of a room) would be a perfect choice for fixing icons and shelves on the wall.

The next step is the construction of the shelves themselves. An ordinary bookshelf will work, but try opting for hanging or corner shelves. This will provide better stability of the construction.

Setting up an icon corner

The selection of icons is so extensive that rules may vary from one family to another. The basics are that you ought to have icons of Jesus Christ and the Mother of God. Then, you will need icons of saints who somehow contributed to your life happiness. As a matter of ritual, also buy some candles (from a church), holy water, incense, palm branches, and a prayer book.

The process of setting up is as simple as it sounds. You choose the most accessible and safest corner in your apartment or house and compose an icon corner. What may still puzzle you is how to arrange icons. Well, there are no strict regulations, but here are two classic principles of the iconostasis: the icon of Jesus Christ should be to the right, and the icon of the Mother of God should be to the left. The whole set is bound to be symmetrical.

Now you know how to create an icon corner in your home. Hopefully, this information will help you build your own sacred place for your family. Good luck!

--

--

Russian Icon

Online gallery of antique Russian icons and artifacts. Professional icon restoration and appraisal services.