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Jul 5th, 2025
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Joined: Mar 2012
Posts: 42
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A brand of fragrant incense-on-a-stick often sold in stores catering to Indian-Americans and Indians recently immigrated here, is "Nag Champa". I wouldn't buy from them...a little creepy. Stick to the Christians.
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 7,461 Likes: 1
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As the domestic church is itself an icon of the parish church, I always recommend starting out with the same two main icons as the iconostas of the parish church - Christ and the Mother of God. For these primary icons, try and get either nice reproductions and ideally hand-painted, even if they are smaller due to budget. Many families start out with the icons of Christ and the Mother of God that are given at the crowning (wedding).
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Joined: May 2009
Posts: 1,208
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I admit that the Nag Champa brand rather savours of Hinduism somehow. At least it don't stink...in general I find stick incense to be overpoweringly sweet and cone incense never smells like anything in particular to me. Having grown tired of burning our fingers we recently obtained: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molcajete to burn our devotional incense in, in our icon-corner. It's highly inelegant but works well.
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Joined: Mar 2012
Posts: 42
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I admit that the Nag Champa brand rather savours of Hinduism somehow. At least it don't stink...in general I find stick incense to be overpoweringly sweet and cone incense never smells like anything in particular to me. Ehh, the problem is that some crazy hindu may have tried to "bless" it, ala Monastery Icons. Creeper city, honestly. On the topic of Icons, please avoid "Monastery Icons".
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Joined: May 2012
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Monastery Icons are lame. They're like the Warner Brothers of iconographers. St. Isaac's Skete has a great selection, and Printery House actually has some nice icons, too...I was surprised.
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Joined: Aug 1998
Posts: 4,339 Likes: 24
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Joined: Aug 1998
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Desert Fathers Incense gets a big thumbs up from me, very high quality.
My cromulent posts embiggen this forum.
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Joined: Jun 2012
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Ehh, the problem is that some crazy hindu may have tried to "bless" it, ala Monastery Icons. Creeper city, honestly.
On the topic of Icons, please avoid "Monastery Icons". I heard some bad things about that company. Really a shame, since they seem to have such a good, affordable selection.
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Joined: Mar 2012
Posts: 42
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Monastery Icons are lame. They're like the Warner Brothers of iconographers. St. Isaac's Skete has a great selection, and Printery House actually has some nice icons, too...I was surprised. I like the Printery House's. Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Massachusetts has AWESOME icons. They made my Pope St. Gregory V. And yeah, I was on a Catholic website recently, and I saw a Monastery Icons ad. I shot them an email with a link, a paper written about Monastery Icons by an Orthodox Priest. SCARY STUFF. I like St. Isaac's too.
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Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 10,090 Likes: 16
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Joined: Oct 2003
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I don't want to stifle discussion but, if anyone has specific questions about Monastery Icons or any of their affiliated entities - Sacred Arts, etc - please open a new thread. BUT, BEFORE YOU DO THAT, read this thread, as it likely will answer most any question that you have about Monastery Icons, short of Abbott George's current weight. Past experience has taught us that discussion of Monastery Icons and its foibles and follies can easily hijack and overwhelm a thread - and, frankly, the topic is neither worth the bandwidth nor the time invested in writing and reading about it. To paraphrase what I posted back then, in locking that thread: there are hundreds of topics related to iconography, iconic media, iconographers, and icons ... which are effectively neglected when the attention of those visiting this sub-forum is hijacked by this topic. Many years, Neil
"One day all our ethnic traits ... will have disappeared. Time itself is seeing to this. And so we can not think of our communities as ethnic parishes, ... unless we wish to assure the death of our community."
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Joined: May 2009
Posts: 1,208
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I visited http://desertfatherincense.com/ and found it intriguing - especially since it seems to have been established by a former hippie. Ex-hippies tend to make great Eastern Christians.
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Joined: Jun 2012
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I visited http://desertfatherincense.com/ and found it intriguing - especially since it seems to have been established by a former hippie. Ex-hippies tend to make great Eastern Christians. I thought that was interesting, as well. I ordered a sampler pack of both "Byzantine" and "Floral" and I'm looking forward to their arrival. It's nice to find companies I feel good about supporting.
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Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 1,760
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Hannah, I purchased my home incense burner very inexpensively from the gift shop of a local Greek Orthodox church, but I've also seen them available through a number of Orthodox religious goods shops online. They also sell little "bite size" charcoal briquettes that fit inside them.
I find it's pretty economical because one box (or hermetically sealed "coffee bag" as the case may be) of church incense is going to last a home user an eternity, really, since you're only burning a few grains at a time, and I know in my own case I'm not burning incense every day of the week.
Of course, the advantage of stick incense or cone incense is that you don't need charcoal and a burner, but in my experience cones or sticks always smell too...college dormey, I guess.
"I was just thinking, if all these Roman Catholics (myself included) on this forum who are basically Eastern in ideology and practice actually went through a rite change, more Byzantine parishes would have to be built!" I've never seen "phimiam carbon censing candles" but for anyone who doesn't own a censer it may be a good option for home use. The cost isn't bad. They are available here: http://www.istok.net/phimiam-carbon-censing-candles.html Maybe someone else is familiar with "censing candles" and can give an opinion on their worth.
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