Description
Byzantine Panagia Kandili – White
The candlestick symbolizes the Light of the Lord that he emits to the faithful. It is a very nice and beneficial practice of believers to reverently keep the Lord’s Light in their home. Through the lamp His Light bathes the inhabitants of the house.
The lighting of the candle symbolizes that it is offered as a sacrifice of respect and honor to God and his Saints. It also symbolizes the light of Christ that illuminates every person, as well as the well-known order of our Lord that we, the Christians, should be the lights of the world.
The oil, that is, the oil that burns in our candlesticks, “the oil of God appears as oil” writes Saint Simeon of Thessaloniki, the mercy of God that was manifested when Noah’s dove returned to the Ark to signal the end of the flood, having in its beak of the olive branch, or when Jesus, as he prayed extensively, watered with the clots of his sweat the olive tree, under the branches of which he knelt on that night of martyrdom, on the Mount of Olives. The oil symbolizes the infinite mercy of God, but also the candles symbolize the Church which is contagious of Divine mercy and enlightening.
Of course, they symbolize the saints themselves whose Light shone, according to the word of the Lord, “before men, so that they may see the good works and glorify the Father in heaven”.
