Iconostasis & Church Furniture

          What could be more helpful to beautify your church than a hand-crafted iconostasis made from handsome Wisconsin hard-woods and custom designed to fit your space, graciously show your principal icons, and so enhance your visual sight with the richness of fine wood-working?  Our own iconostasis was made predominantly with a mixture of cherry and walnut hardwoods shaped and carved, turned and finished, then assembled to make this wonderful iconostasis a stunning central showpiece to surround the holy principal icons on it.  It is covered by a clear finish that brings out the luster of the wood, and it is finished on both sides, so that the Holy Altar inside is just as beautiful as outside.

Three priests and three laymen artisans came together on the design, carving the panels, turning the columns, and building the frame and assembling this iconostasis, and they agreed that it was a most fulfilling work that they would like to do again soon.  Unlike the carving of iconostases made overseas, which are made of soft woods easy to carve, these carved panels are solid cherry wood and can be made with some transparency if so desired.  The columns are solid cherry wood too, as are the edges and trim, while the large solid faces are walnut.  This is just an example of what can be done, and we can work up almost any design with you for a fine wood iconostasis to fit your church’s special space.  Please look carefully at the pictures and then call us and ask about what would be best suited for your church.  We would be glad to help.
 

Church Furniture: The Holy Altar Table and the Proskomede Table

Preparing to consecrate our new church here at the Skete brought to our awareness the scarcity of known fine furniture builders readily available in the U.S. with traditional designs and exacting skills to build such items as Altar and Proskomede Tables.  We even ordered a Holy Altar Table from Russia, but when it arrived it was made out of inferior woods and inexact workmanship, so that we turned to a local artisan to finish the design and fine woodwork needed for such an important and essential part of the church, where the Holy Relics would be installed, and the Holy Mysteries would be offered and sanctified during the Divine Liturgy.  It is a wonderful piece of workmanship, made out of sold cherry wood without any nails or fasteners.

In the Greek and Bulgarian traditions a metal box is constructed and installed just in the center of the altar table top large enough to take the relics in a smaller box and the Act of Consecration (listing all the names to be remembered) and covered and filled with the wax mastic during the Consecration.  The top cover (made out of the same material as the top) is also sealed in by the wax mastic.  In the Russian tradition the box for the relics is placed in a special reliquary on top of a center column not far up from cross bracing near the floor.  The same relics and names are placed there immersed in wax mastic.