Writing the Light’s 2-year Certificate, Starts Fall 2026, Applications Open Now.
If we want to see a genuine and widespread flourishing of sacred art in our churches, artists must learn to paint church interiors.
To participate authentically in the sacred liturgy, the environment in which we worship must foster an encounter with Christ in the Eucharist. This requires beautifully celebrated liturgies, as well as music, art, and architecture that harmonise with the actions of the celebrants and the congregation. |
If the sacred art is to play its part in this, we need artists who can paint well and on a large scale, directly onto the walls and ceilings of our places of worship, creating sacred spaces that draw us powerfully into the encounter with Christ.
The Writing the Light School of Byzantine artist practice, under the internationally known icon painter George Kordis, now offers a full 2-year Certificate program. I would encourage all Catholic students who want to learn wall painting to consider this, regardless of the style they eventually hope to paint in. They will come out of the program with a facility in drawing and painting that is so great that they will be able to adapt what they learn to their chosen style. George, who is Greek Orthodox, is exceptionally open and friendly to non-Orthodox students. I attended an icon painting class with him in Crete in the summer of 2025, and about a third of the students were Catholic.
Although preserved most clearly in the Christian East, the Byzantine visual system is not foreign to Roman Catholicism. In fact, it formed the common artistic DNA of the undivided Church, which extended well into the second millennium in the West. Romanesque frescoes, early Gothic cycles, illuminated manuscripts, and even elements of early Renaissance sacred art all share its underlying principles:
● Rhythmic structuring of form
● Archetypal proportions
● Ordered movement of line
● Hierarchical composition
● A focus on theological meaning over naturalistic imitation
For contemporary Catholic artists seeking to recover a unified, theologically grounded approach to sacred imagery, this system offers a way forward.
The Sacred Space program embraces this shared heritage, offering Catholics a way to reconnect with the structural principles that once shaped the visual identity of Western sacred art.
Dr. George Kordis, who heads the program, is regarded as one of the top contemporary master iconographers working in this specialized field today, and it is at the interest and urging of many students around the world that Writing the Light has formed a separate 2-year program for those students who wish to include a special focus on church wall painting in their training. With exposure to a deeper understanding of the role of church painting and the elements of design on a larger scale, students will enter into a two-year program that encompasses theory, methodology, materials, professional best practices, and firsthand apprenticeship experience working with Dr. Kordis, select expert faculty, and learning in real time alongside Kordis’s church-painting team. The select group of students in this limited cohort will engage in the practice of techniques both online and in in-person residencies, culminating in an opportunity to paint a chapel in Greece alongside Dr. Kordis, as well as options for various internship and work/study opportunities.
 |
| Dr George Kordis |
For more information on the entrance requirements, go to https://writingthelight.com/church-wall-painting-program/.
Download this PDF, written by Writing the Light, especially for interested Catholics who are coming to this from a range of Western artistic traditions.
And watch this video of George painting a church in Hungary. Note the extraordinary facility with which he draws from memory:
