The Byzantine Empire, successor state to the Roman Empire, lay to the East of Rome and, at the zenith of its influence, under the Emperor Justinian (527-656 AD), stretched from Italy, through Greece and the Balkans, across Asia Minor and on to Mesopotamia. All in all, it would last a thousand years, until 1453, when the Ottoman Turks, under Muhammed II, captured Constantinople.

Sometimes known as the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire took its name from its capital city, ancient Byzantium. When the city was rebuilt by Emperor Constantine I in 330 AD, it became Constantinople, the center of culture, art, politics and religion in its time.

The Empire was Christian and much of its art and culture took its form from within Christianity. Although there were some differences. The most important of these were the Icons of Christian Orthodoxy

Early Christian art had avoided, to a great extent, the actual depiction of Christ and the saints, confining itself to symbolic representations. But, in the eastern part of the Roman Empire, following the conversion to Christianity of Constantine I, religious pictures began to be accepted.

And these pictures of God, Christ and the saints were seen as reflections of the originals; therefore, as "real" as anything else we can see. Popular religion and contemporary philosophy agreed that people could pray or talk to an image and expect that the original would hear and the Icons became part of the public worship within the church.

Icons owe much of their development to "oriental" influences. The figure in an Icon is generally represented frontally with little concern for realism. Large, staring eyes with little or no background detail indicate that the individuals were pictured to encourage communication.

Icons could be created in any medium. Most were in encaustic technique, with the paint, a mixture of pigments, beeswax and resin, fixed, at the end of the process, by heat. Typically, Icons were painted on wood panels.

Icon painting flourished under the leadership of Justinian and continued until 726 AD. Then, at the direction of Emperor Leo III, Icons were declared to be idols and, as such, were banned. The Iconoclasm, as it is known, led to the intense persecution and the destruction of Icons and those who had painted and used them. The Iconoclasm ended in 843 AD and the Golden Age of the Icon began. This is the period, until 1453, when the habit of adorning churches with Icons was established. And in was during this Second Period of the Byzantine Icon that its influence spread to Italy, Russia, Greece, Syria and other eastern countries.

Hagiographer Evangelia Psaltakis, born on the island of Crete, has been creating Icons for more than 12 years. In her effort to preserve the traditions of a civilization that is still resisting the challenges of the present, she has been deeply influenced by the illustrative variety of the Cretan School and its motifs, in which artists enrich their paintings with borrowed detail from Italian Art. Paltakis has exhibited her art five times in recent years and many of her Icons can be found in private collections, as well as churches, in Greece and other countries.

Her Icons, in addition to being objects of religious respect and worship also constitute a collective work of art that goes beyond religious and national borders.

Her Icons are executed on 2-cm thick wood; painted with egg-tempura and are 24-carat gold-leafed.