Do Orthodox Christians worship icons?

People often are thinking about the icons as if this is something where we are showing special favor to the icons, that we are putting the icons in a place in the church. Many times people come to the Orthodox Church and they're like, oh, you venerate these icons, or even sometimes people say, oh, you worship the icons, you put them in this position of authority within the church, where you're censing them and all these different things. But the honor and the reverence and the love that we show to icons is twofold. Number one, the holy fathers tell us, when we venerate the icon we are actually showing reverence to the prototype. When we kiss the icon of Christ we are not kissing mere wood or painting, as people are prone to think, but we are showing affection to his image. We obviously do not worship wooden boards with religious paintings on them. This is not what we do. We worship Jesus Christ. But we understand that within the icon is this grace, the energies of God are present even within the icons, and it's this grace that comes and ministers to us. We had the wonder-working icon of Hawaii, the Iveron icon, here recently, the myrrh-streaming icon, and Deacon Nectarios is fond of saying that all icons are wonder-working. We have some icons that have special significance for a multitude of reasons, and the power of God is shown maybe more fully in them, but it is the case that all icons have this energy of God. All icons are ministering out to the faithful. They are, as we often say, the window into paradise. We are not here merely venerating the icons as if they are something detached from us or detached from our faith. Rather we are showing veneration to the one who is depicted within the icon, and this grace is transmitted to us when we kiss the icons, when we bow our heads, when we pray.