---
title: "How to Read an Icon — Church history"
description: "Basics of iconography: types, colour, perspective, inscriptions. The Orthodox Church calendar, icons, prayers, lives of saints and Church history on spas.life."
url: "https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/history/icon-how-to-read"
language: "en"
---

Icons

# How to Read an Icon

Basics of iconography: types, colour, perspective, inscriptions.

## Contents

1. [What an icon is](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/history/icon-how-to-read#s1)
2. [The language of icons](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/history/icon-how-to-read#s2)
3. [Inscriptions](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/history/icon-how-to-read#s3)

## What an icon is

An icon is an image that raises the mind to its Prototype; the honour paid to the image passes to the Prototype (St Basil the Great). An icon is not a “portrait” and does not guarantee the result of prayer: prayer is addressed to God and the saints, not to board and paint.

## The language of icons

Inverse perspective gathers space toward the viewer; the gold background signifies divine light; the halo, holiness. Colours: gold and white — divine glory, red — sacrifice and kingship, blue — the heavenly, mystery; colour meanings are an interpretive tradition, not strict dogma.

## Inscriptions

Inscriptions authenticate the image: IC XC (Jesus Christ), ΜΡ ΘΥ (Mother of God), “Ο ΩΝ” (He Who Is) in Christ's halo. The saint's name is written beside the figure.

## Related

- [Christ Pantokrator (Almighty) — iconographic type](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/icons/type-pantokrator)
- [Eleousa (“Tenderness”) — iconographic type](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/icons/type-eleousa)
- [Hodegetria (“She who shows the Way”) — iconographic type](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/icons/type-hodegetria)