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For the tremendous service the icons
performed in the religious education of Russians, they became popularly known
as "Bibles of the illiterate. "Since they replaced the reading of
holy books, whose text had to remain unchanged, the icons too had to be
reproduced with strict authenticity and in accordance with prescribed rules
contained in a special manual to assure that this special form of
"Reading" be always understood in the same way. Though originally
confined to churches and monasteries, icons quickly spread throughout Russia
and in time hardly any home could be found without one or several icons in it.
For the Orthodox world the icon itself, and not only the personage or the holy
event it portrayed, became an object of veneration. As this was the case with
the Serbs, in Russia too the Orthodox Church identified itself with national
aspirations and unity and became the strongest defender of its traditions. In
this respect only Judaism remained unsurpassed.
Russian people went farther than any other Orthodox nation in attributing
to icons divine presence and miraculous powers. Even today one can understand
their devotion to the holy pictures just by visiting a church and attending
services. Russians pray and bow in front of icons, they kiss them and
repeatedly cross themselves, some people kneel, implore and weep. It is a very
stunning experience. In the past there was hardly an important church or
monastery that did not have its miraculous icon and the people believed
sincerely in their divine ability to help and cure, as the French believed of
Saint Bernadette of Lourdes. It was not without reason that Russian tsars were
crowned in front of what used to be the most miraculous of all icons - The
Virgin of Vladimir which, according to legends, saved Russia and Moscow from
destruction by foreign plunderers several times. Russian religious feelings
cannot be properly understood without paying attention to the extraordinary
role that icons played in the history of the Russian Church and among millions
of its believers.
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