Icons are the beautiful materialistic representations of two different wolds human and divine. their Their main purpose was not material but spiritual. Icons depict the ideals of the faith. Icon is an essential part of the Orthodox Church and it is a very important part of our religion.

I believe that first of all any icon is a holy depiction a person can focus on and think about things that bother him and try to find the answer. Or, just to feel calm and think his/her life over. I think that the main purpose of every icon is to call one's attention and be the first step on the right way.

An icon is a unification of the heavenly and the earthly, of the divine and the human. This unification comes to the immediate grasp of the soul open to God. An icon is not the portrait of God or His Son or a holy person, but the mediator in the process of the communication between a believer and God.

Icon has a great cultural, religious and ethical meaning. Believers understand the essence of Christian religions through icons. The history of iconography tells us that icons came from Hellinistic portraits, so they can be analyzed as works of art. Icon is an image of God or saints, and it highlights the importance of the fact that people have been created after the image and likeness of God.

By Rina and Asya
We'd like to comment upon some of the ideas mentioned, that is an icon is the means of personifying the appeal to God. So that we pray to some Saint and not to God directly.
All icons are purely symbolic. Not only the images are important for comprehending its meaning, but also colours and position of the Saints serve to transmit its hidden sense.