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Icons are far more than symbol; they're theology. Like Scripture, icons remind us of the Incarnation of the Word, but icons aid in inviting the viewer into a deeper and more vivid contemplation of this truth and and where it leads. As orderly and beautiful images, they remind us of the reasonable Logos who imparts meaning to creation -- to the "cosmos" that is (in contrast to chaos) both orderly and beautiful. ("Ego eimi Phos kosmou," says the Lord -- "I AM the Light of the world."). Even beyond the theology of beauty, icons are an immediate and accessible representation of ecclesiology, of the Church as those joined through perfect communion in Christ. Finally, in their head-on confrontation with the viewer, icons drive home the theology of personhood -- the theotic link between man reborn in Christ who comes to know and be known by God, and the inner life of the Trinity.

I too started by thinking of icons merely as austere and venerable images, a call to piety. But I've discovered that no one concerned with the theology of the body, with serious interest in ecclesiology as the Body of Christ, or with the Logos who imparts and restores right order in the universe, can be indifferent to the inexhaustible spiritual richness they contain.