The book offered to the generous reader is an experience in the preliminary outline of an essentially new theological science, which can be designated as the Orthodox theory of the image; this science is born at the intersection of dogmatic theology and liturgics. Until now, some (by no means all!) church objects and symbols, vestments of the clergy have been briefly interpreted in our various textbooks on liturgics, which is quite appropriate and natural. However, in these interpretations there was no explanation of many “minor” objects and, most importantly, there was no sufficient theoretical justification for the need for material images and symbols in church life; the spiritual and mysterious nature of the image in the broadest sense of the word was not revealed. Therefore, it turned out to be not entirely clear whether the images and symbols of the Church are an essentially necessary side of the Orthodox faith, or whether they are something “conventional,” purely human, “illustrative,” something that one can completely do without... The latter made it possible for the modern “ Orthodox" ecumenism and modernism to assert that the entire figurative and symbolic structure (that is, essentially the entire liturgical life of the Church) is not the principle and fundamental basis of Orthodoxy.