In the icon, what you see is human beings and situations as they are in the light of God's action. . . .
The reverence — as any Eastern Christian will tell you — is not because the icons are seen as magical objects but because in their presence you become aware that you are present to God and that God is working on you by his grace, as he does in the lives and words of holy people, supremely in the words of Scripture and the person of Jesus.
— Rowan Williams, The Dwelling of the Light