The Iconostasis
εἰκονοστάσιον — eikonostasion · eye-kon-oh-STAH-sis
In brief
The iconostasis is the icon-covered screen that stands between the nave, where the faithful gather, and the sanctuary, where the Holy Table stands. It is not a wall shutting the people out but a threshold announcing who is on the other side: its doors and icons proclaim that heaven and earth meet in the Liturgy. Its central doors — the Royal Doors — open at the moments when God comes out to His people.
What you are looking at
Nearly every Orthodox church has one: a screen of icons, sometimes waist-high, sometimes rising nearly to the ceiling, standing before the altar. At its center are the Royal Doors, usually bearing the icon of the Annunciation and the four Evangelists — the message and the messengers of the Incarnation. To the right of the doors stands the icon of Christ; to the left, the Theotokos holding her Son. Beyond them, the patron of the parish and other saints; on the two side doors, angels or holy deacons.
Larger screens stack further rows above: the Twelve Great Feasts, the apostles, the prophets — the whole story of salvation arranged in tiers, with the Cross at the very top. Read from top to bottom, the iconostasis tells one story: God's long descent toward us, ending at the open doors through which He comes out to feed His people.
A threshold, not a barrier
Newcomers sometimes read the iconostasis as exclusion — the holy things hidden away from ordinary believers. The tradition understands it in nearly the opposite way. The screen grew out of the low rail of the early basilicas, and the Church kept and developed it because worship needs a grammar of holiness: the sanctuary is an image of the Holy of Holies, and the veil that once closed the Holy of Holies has become a wall of windows. Every icon on it is an opening, not a brick.
In the Old Testament tabernacle, a veil closed off the Holy of Holies where the Ark stood (Exodus 26:33). At Christ's death that veil was torn from top to bottom, and the Epistle to the Hebrews says we now have boldness to enter the holy place through His flesh. The iconostasis preserves both truths at once: God remains the consuming fire — and, in Christ, the doors open.
How it works in the services
Watch the doors and you can follow the Liturgy's drama. The Royal Doors open for the Little Entrance with the Gospel — Christ coming to teach; they open for the Great Entrance as the gifts are carried to the altar; they open at the end as the Chalice is brought out and the priest says, "With the fear of God, and faith, and love, draw near." (Practice varies — in many Greek parishes the doors remain open through most of the Liturgy.) The deacon's litanies are chanted from the step before them. What the screen conceals at one moment, it reveals at the next — concealment and revelation together are the point.