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WEDDING ICONS

In a Beginning Home icons
Icon in the house
Calm my grieves
Christening ceremony
Icons in the name of patrons
Family icons

The sacrament of matrimony is of great importance for Christians. It is exercised in the church at the where Cross and Gospel are placed. The parents of the fiance bless him with the icon of Our Lady and the parents of the bride bless her with the icon of the Saviour. First the betrothal is exercised in the Church and then the marriage ceremony is taken place. A priest blesses the couple three times by the lighted candles and gives these candles to them as a sign of love to each other blessed by God. After prayers to God to grant good and welfare to the young couple the priest blesses them and puts wedding-rings on their hands. The rings should be consecrated beforehand.

The fiance and the bride take the wedding-rings as a sign of security and inviolability of their marriage. Then comes the wedding ceremony when the priest prays God to bless the marriage and to give grace to them. As a sign of their gratitude he puts on the fiance and the bride the crowns which are heavy as a married life (lets remember the crown of the Saviour), and are beautiful as a heaven's gift for those who overcome difficulties.

The priest blesses them together three times saying: "God, by honour and fame wed them!" And leads them around the lectern as a sign of a spiritual happiness and triumph.

The sacrament is beautiful and solemn. The icons which the newly married couple is blessed with are called the wedding icons. These icons should be placed on a special shelf hanging on the east wall of the house where the newly married couple lives. In case of troubles occurred in a family life we can always turn for help to Our Lady and the Saviour due to icons the marriage was blessed with. These icons are the symbols of the unity of the husband and the wife. They protect the marriage. In front of these icons the souls of the husband and the wife are uniting in a prayer for God and their marriage becomes integral and inviolable.

These icons are painted as a wedding pair. Creating the sacred image of the Lord Omnipotent we based on Moscow traditions of the icon-painting and on the works of art of Andrei Rublev. Besides we looked through our archives. The subject is very popular and the painting of the image of God is restricted by the Canon. But if we look more attentively we can distinguish a difference between the icons painted by different artists. The style of an artist can be traced in a spiritual aspiration to God. People differ as they have a diverse spiritual experience and so the icons can't be identical.

On the sacred image of Holy Our Lady we can see the angels holding the items of God's passions as the sufferings of God- a cross, a spear and a club. Any icon of Our Lady can be used for wedding ceremony.

Icons live their own life. Their life can be different. For example the icons of the Lord Omnipotent and Holy Our Lady were painted especially for wedding but they didn't become the wedding pair. The first sacred image is a property of Mr. J.P. Miroshnichenko ("Stolitsa" fund- Moscow government). The second icon is a property of Mr. J.M. Luzhkov- the mayor of Moscow.



©Екатерина Ильинская
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