Early Christian icons may have derived some of their stylistic elements from pagan religious portraits, according to some historians. Credit: Ministry of Culture
Religious icons of Christ, the Blessed Mother Mary, and the saints are integral to the religious practices of Orthodox Christians. The tradition was largely handed down to modern Christians by the iconographers of the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire.
However, the practice may have evolved from earlier pagan religious rituals. That the peoples of the ancient world worshipped statues and figures of their gods is well known, but newer evidence suggests that they also commissioned portraits of their gods to be venerated in their own homes, not unlike Orthodox Christian icons.
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