Domestic Prayers
Icon Corners
The second step to sanctifying a home, after placing it under the protection of your family’s patron saint is, just as with our parish church, adorn it with Icons. Icons are more than just pretty pictures of Christ, Panagia, and the saints. You can read more about icons and their role in Orthodoxy here.
Choose a space to set up your own Icon Corner in your home. It does not have to be in a corner, that is just a common term for it. The best is an Eastern wall in a conspicuous place. The best of the best is the place where you will actually use them during prayer.
There is no real ‘wrong way’ to set up an icon corner, but here are some general guidelines just to get your started:
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The highest icon should either be a cross, the crucifixion, or the “Hospitality of Abraham” Icon.
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The Theotokos should always be displayed to the viewer’s left of Christ, His right, just as on the iconostasis at church.
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Try to keep your Icon corner symmetrical and well organized, or else it will distract you during prayer.
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Each family member’s patron should be found in the Icon Corner. The Slava Icon should have a central place as well.
If you can afford only an icon of Christ or the Panagia (which is of course, also an Icon of Christ) that is fine. Start with what you can and work up as or if you are able. Orthodoxy, remember, is first of all about our hearts and relationship with Christ, not how many icons we can fit into our corner.
Unfortunately in this day and age not all Iconographers are seeking the true doctrines of Orthodoxy. A popular website for Icons is known as "Monastery Icons." Please read here about issues with this seller. Some better sellers of Icons include Damascene Gallery Icons, Orthodox Christian Supply, Skete.com, or many, many others.
Here are a few Icon Corners from around the world:
As you can see there are often other things than just icons in the icon corner. Candles, flowers, special towels, and palms from Palm Sunday all can find their way into an Icon Corner. This is fine. Secular, decorative statuettes, everyday books, basically non-religious things should not be in the Icon Corner. We should remember that some things are special and devoted to God, and maintaining our icon corners as a space just for things relating to God reinforces that idea.
But what are all these things which can be included? They might be:
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Holy Water, which Orthodox get on Theophany, and keep to drink throughout the year when someone is sick.
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Incense and a censer. Here’s how to use one
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Special towels called “Rushnyky,” Here’s a bit about them.
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Candles or oil lamps. Here’s what some have written about maintaining a candle or oil lamp all through the day (but some families only light them at Feast Days and Sundays). Here's how to make an oil vigil lamp.
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Flowers, which help make the Icon Corner beautiful, and are especially appropriate on Feast Days (Children especially can love learning that they can ‘give flowers’ to Christ, the Theotokos, and their saints). Putting flowers in the Icon Corner is an act of love and veneration, not actually an ‘offering’ of some sort.
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Bits of Antidoron brought home from Liturgy on Sunday, a little bit of which each family member eats every morning. (To follow this practice, place the antidoron somewhere or in something where it can still dry out. If it is kept somewhere air tight it will grow moldy and will have to be disposed of in this manner).
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Prayer Books and Bibles.
It is also appropriate to have an Icon of one’s Patron saint (Name saint) in your bedroom (especially for children, so they learn their saint is always praying over them).
St. Euphrosynos or St. Lawrence, patrons of cooks, should be hung in the kitchen, where their presence will help to sanctify the food we make three times a day, and remind us of God and Holy Communion, which our family meals reflect, as we live our day to day lives.
Orthodox Prayers
Once Icons are in place it’s important to actually pray before them. Families should start with trying to say at least an Our Father together before the Icons in the morning and the evening. Gradually build up, adding the Trisagion Prayers, Morning and Evening Troparia (Or the Troparia of the Feast) and other prayers in any Orthodox Prayer Book. (Or listed below)
This is also when parents should bless their children. To bless a child form your hands in the manner in which we make the Sign of the Cross: thumb, pointer, and middle finger together, pinky and ring finger pressed into the palm (all of the right hand). Then make a cross in the air over the child saying a prayer that God will bless them. In our family we use the Aaronic Blessing from The Book of Numbers 6:22-27:
“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and grant you peace.”
We can also make the Sign of the Cross this way over our food during Mealtime Prayers, over our bed before we go to sleep, or other things which are under our care.
Finally, during Evening Prayers on Sundays (although for some reason I know someone who does it on Fridays) there is the pious Greek tradition of the father taking the incense burner and leading his famiy through the house 'blessing it with smoke.' During this time he chants any number of prayers, most commonly Psalm 50, but we have heard of chanting saints Troparia, Festal Troparia, and even St. Patrick's Lorica.
Here are links to prayers for Orthodox Christians:
An Online Orthodox Prayer Book OCA's Online Prayer Resources Prayers from the "Little Red Prayer Book"
It is especially important to get in the habit of praying before we eat, thanking God and recognizing that all we have comes from Him. This habit is lost among many today, and it should not be so. Even in restaurants we should always pause before we eat, make the Sign of the Cross, and bless our food.