Wide-eyed figures, often viewed as “windows to the eternal,” have long peered from rustic churches and chapels inside of Alaska’s Russian Orthodox churches. More recently, however, a growing number are appearing in local Catholic parishes as well. These haloed, somber-looking forms are sacred icons, believed to be capable of reflecting the holiness of heaven into the earth, explains the Catholic Anchor.

While long familiar to Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic traditions of the East, the increased presence of icons within Western Christianity, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, is part of what Deacon Charles Rohrbacher sees as a renewed interest in sacred art.

“I often ask theologians and church leaders why there has been a resurgence in icons,” he said in a telephone interview with the Anchor. “They most commonly tell me that it is due to a deep hunger for transcendence.”

It is a hunger that Deacon Rohrbacher has seen cut across denominational lines as modern Christians seek deeper spiritual realities in an increasingly secular world.  “The icon is a healing image,” he said. “So many modern images we see do not heal — they wound us. They are of terror and abuse. In the icon, Christ, Mary and the saints look on us in love and invite us to contemplation.”

Dominican Father Francis Hung Le, pastor of the cathedral, said he hopes the icon will bridge the wide cultural and linguistic diversity within the church and point the faithful to the transcendent truth reflected in the sacred image.  “We have so many languages at the cathedral but icons can speak a universal language,” he told the Anchor. “You don’t just look at icons, you pray with them, and we need to relearn that as Roman Catholics,” he said. “People find that sitting with an icon can help them focus and help them set aside the noise of this world.”

The Christian belief that heavenly realities can be experienced through physical forms and images dates back to the first centuries of the church. Theologically, icons are rooted in the understanding that God took on physical form through the incarnation of Christ. And while icons are not considered holy in their own right, they are believed to be sacred because of the spiritual realities which they reflect. The icon is also linked closely to traditional Christian beliefs about the sacramental nature of the world, a world where bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ and where water becomes holy and spiritually transformative through baptism.