if i could describe my most favorite icon, it would be wonderworking softener of evil hearts icon from belogorye that cries blood and streams myrrh. yeah that academic style softener of evil hearts icon. i own personal attachment to said icon and i own it as travel icon. but i like it aesthetically as well.

i hate to say it but i mostly prefer russian academic style icons.

like of course when you see your average traditional byzantine christ pantocrator or theotokos, it's fantastic, it's most orthodox thing you can see. like, i have my grandmothers old christ pantocrator travel icon along with my softener of evil hearts travel icon. it's bit damaged, but that byzantine style pantocrator silouette makes that travel icon so recognizable. when you see byzantine styled icon, it just reminds you the fact that your first karelian orthodox ancestors saw exactly same icons.


when you remove the riza, you can still recognize the icon. so that's the beauty of traditional byzantine icons.

but at the other hand i just feel like even though byzantine style icons are necessary to keep 2000-year-old tradition going, you can never forget your roots and they look badass, to be honest, sometimes they just look so fucking ugly lmao. okay god will throw me in fucking hell lol. but some of them are so hideous. like i'll give example here:


this is the worst russo-byzantine icon i've ever seen.

this icon is fucking scary. it's literal jumpscare. i thought i had scary hallusinations when i first saw this. this icon makes me think of two things. my church is so conservative that the gang there considers getting a tattoo demonic. well isn't this icon quite from satan? secondly, the purpose of the icon is to help in prayer, and prayer is considered a dialogue with god, which is used to get closer to god. how the hell does this help you get closer to god? this icon is absolutely horrifying.


"yeah this is the god whom i pray every day" like lol how on earth you can take this icon seriously? this icon is like atheist internet shitpost making fun of christ.