The Icon Fund, Orthodox Iconography

The Icon Fund, founded by Master Iconographer Elias Damianakis is most easily understood as a scholarship program, started in over ten years ago to meet the liturgical requirements and beautification needs of parishes. Elias is dedicated to building a bridge for the faithful to come together and celebrate the art of the written icon. With the key goal “to preserve our monumental ecclesiastical inheritance and enrich our future” Elias hopes to promote awareness and heighten appreciation for the need for excellence in the restoration and rendering of new iconography throughout the Orthodox community. To be effective and faithful stewards of our faith it is imperative to include the care and reverence for the individual icon. Its reverence and place in any beautification project is essential to Orthodox worship.

The Icon Fund was established to support this ministry ideal and to put forth a viable program. Applications for The Icon Fund are accepted upon interview with the iconographer. The program focuses specifically on the needs of each applicant and requires Elias Damianakis established as the iconographer in resident. Additionally the benefits are in-kind and are not redeemable in a monetary format. The primary goal of the icon fund is to make restorations and new iconography more affordable not to eliminate the shared responsibility the community has.

Elias is always innovating and developing important new platform styles enabling the church faithful to connect directly with their rich history, local area parishes, as well as local and national chapters of non-profit Orthodox church organizations. Through workshops, educational programs and other outreach activities Elias makes it possible to enable local parishes and chapters to collaborate on the beautification projects and to showcase the rich iconographic heritage in their local parishes and worldwide restoration drives. The Icon Fund has undertaken one of the most ambitions programs to date which will continue to provide grants for iconography to communities, parishes and non-profit church organizations.

For additional information on The Icon Fund please visit the website http://www.theiconfund.org/ or visit http://www.orthodoxiconography.com/. For any other iconography needs or to ask about Elias’ lecture series including guidelines and a detailed outline of future programs please contact Elias Damianakis at iconographer@tampabay.rr.com.