Father Mark, you mentioned linseed oil and its use in preparing icon boards. Is it also used in preparing paint that the iconographer uses?
I remember using linseed when I was a child to paint our cedar wood fencing, which we did annually in the late summer or early fall to protect them from the fall-winter-spring weather.
I did a little research and found this information too:
Is Flaxseed Oil the Same as Linseed Oil?
There has been some confusion between these. Flax oil is also called linseed oil which is sold in hardware stores as varnish. Flaxseed and linseed are often used interchangeably but there is an important difference. North Americans use flaxseed to describe flax when used for human consumption and linseed to describe when it has been processed for industrial purposes.
http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natu ... xseed-oil/
Then I found this article, which clarified that flax seed or linseed is derived from the flax plant that is allowed to go to seed, and linen comes from processed flax stems. During the apostolic times and even until the 18th and 19th centuries, the flax plant was used for making vestments for the priests, and its oil was used for painting. Today, many of our Orthodox priests wear hot unbreathable garments made of polyester, a plastic derived from crude oil. Would not linen be more apostolic and also cooler?
Linen
Linen is a natural fabric obtained from the fibers of the flax stem. These fibers undergo many processes to be converted finally into linen, which is used to make apparels, tablecloth, and bed sheets. Linen is soft, flexible and full of luster. It is considered to be more superior than cotton and a status symbol as it is very expensive. However, it is only the best quality flax fabric that goes into making apparels while the lower quality of linen is used to make ropes. Before the arrival of wool and cotton, linen fabric was the most important fabric. Even today, it is considered to be a royal fabric used only by rich people. Ancient Egyptians made heavy use of linen fabric, and it is only as late as 19th and 20th centuries that the western world has come to realize the superiority of linen over cotton.