A commonly held fallacy about Iconographers

Something that I need to get off my chest. The fact that a person paints icons and even has been doing so for decades does not mean they are holy. There is a commonly held fallacy that goes around saying that icon painters are as holy as monks. This fallacy is based partly if not mostly in a book written around the 16th C by a Russian Monk called “The Way of the Iconographer.” This simply is not true. Unfortunately, many Orthodox are taught such an erroneous thing by their priests and fellow parishioners and in their piety believe this misconception. Iconographers are simply people who God has chosen to paint icons. Yes the process of painting an icon is a very prayerful process and the end result is something which is holy because of the prayers that go into it, and as long as it is not on the walls of the church, the painted icon does not in essence need blessed, even though many chose to have them blessed. However, that being said, that does not mean that the iconographer is him/herself any more holy than your average person. We all struggle with sins and vices. We are human just like every other person and we all fail just like every other person. Hopefully the study of icons and the lives of the saints will bear fruit and light in the lives of those who paint them, but that does not make us some form of “ubermensch” super human person who is free from sin. We are on the same journey as everyone else. To believe anything else is simply unscriptural and not in line with the teaching of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church. Lord, have mercy upon us all.