Христосъ воскресе!
We recently completed building a new Orthodox church. We have been working toward this as a community for 17 years. Once the building was completed, it was time for us to move in. One thing that wasn’t part of the building project is the iconostasis. An iconostasis is a wall that separates the nave from the sanctuary that has icons facing the nave. Wikipedia article on iconostasis here. Father coordinated some volunteers for the design and the building project was mostly handed to me to complete.
With the help of a few other volunteers, we have made good progress in time for Pascha. We inherited the icons from another church that, sadly, closed several years ago. The icons were written on Mount Athos and are quite beautiful.
We began by building out from the walls by anchoring some 2x boards to the wall and building a box/column around them. Then another box/column was added next and screwed to the previous one. Some door frame material was cut to the right dimensions for the archangel doors and nailed and screwed in place. The next section towards the center is actually a piece of our original “temporary” iconostasis that a parishioner made several years ago. It is installed onto a new base that is anchored to the concrete. The main icon sections are attached to the two side columns with two 2x4s stacked on top of one another and screwed together to add some rigidity and provide the top of the door frame. A top rail was attached to the face of the main icon sections to tie everything together.
The archangel doors were pretty narrow, so in our new church we wanted to make them wider so it is more comfortable for Father to walk through them with vestments on and holding the gifts. I laminated some oak boards together to match the thickness of the door and screwed them to the sides of the door before mortising the hinges and installing.
This has taken several weeks so far. Finding time and energy during the fast has been difficult at times, but I am very happy with what we have accomplished. Thank God!
