There are only a few comments that I think are important:
1. Icons should be located there, where a person is accustomed to pray. But it’s very good if, entering the house, there is an image to which you can cross.
2. Do not place icons near the TV or on the wall behind it. Nevertheless, prayer and watching television are different actions, and if there is a separation between the place of prayer and the place of entertainment, it’s good.
3. The central icon should be the icon of Christ. But it is quite acceptable if it will be the icon of the Virgin and Child.
4. You should not place icons of saints with you that you are not going to pray. It is unlikely that a person will hold a portrait of a stranger in a family album. We do not honor all saints equally. So why place an icon of a saint whom we don’t worship, whose lives we don’t know and who we don’t intend to pray in our prayer corner
5. It is not good next to icons or even with them to place photos of relatives, honored devotees, even lifetime portraits of saints. The icon is a window into the other world, the spiritual world, and portraits and photographs are not. To pray before life-time portraits is a wrong spiritual practice.
6. It is good when there is a lampada in front of the icons. It is bad when a lot of lampadas hang in the house, besides the fact that the house is not a temple, the products of burning of the lamp oil do not improve the microclimate of the dwelling. For the same reason, do not leave the lampada constantly burning. Or use natural vegetable oil.
7. Icons are not needed for the entourage. If you do not plan to pray before the icons, you should not hang them in the house. It is better to first become a Christian, to church, and only then hang up the icon for regular prayers in front of her.
8. Icons are not taken to be placed in the bath, bathroom or toilet. In the pantry, closet or in the covered courtyard of the house they also do not belong.
9. The icon itself does not sanctify the place; God sanctifies the dwelling of a Christian by His grace in response to a virtuous life and prayer.
10. The “unbreakable wall” icon will not save from thieves, and the “Burning Bush” icon will not relieve from fire just by the fact that they were hung on the wall. Miracles happen in the life of a Christian, but these are miracles, a violation of the usual course of life in response to the deep faith of the Christian. But there are no amulets and charms in Christianity, Christianity is the living faith and living communion of a person with God and His saints.
In the photo: the prayer corner in the cell of the elder Nikolai Guryanov.
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