In Greece, it is a very common and beautiful tradition for the faithful to burn incense daily in their homes. Unfortunately, this practice is sometimes overlooked in the West, especially by those newer to the Faith. Burning incense is a traditional, pious practice that creates a prayerful atmosphere which will hopefully help you to pray more attentively and with more compunction.
If you are wondering how to burn Orthodox incense at home, the most important rule is this: do not overthink it. Orthodoxy is simple, and your prayer should be too.
Here is everything you need to know about setting up a home censer, choosing your incense, and incorporating this ancient practice into your daily life.
1. The Essential Supplies
When learning how to burn Orthodox incense at home, you do not need an elaborate setup to offer incense. A humble and simple offering made with a good intention is infinitely superior to a haughty offering of the costliest incense burning in the most expensive censer. Remember the Widow’s mite, and never feel ashamed of making a simple, heartfelt offering. (Here at our monastery, we use a wide variety of home censers, ranging from the most basic ceramic bowls to ornate metallic ones! More importantly, we don’t choose our censers, but our censers choose us!)
To get started, you will need:
- Pure Orthodox Incense: The heart of your offering. Choose a high-quality, authentic monastic blend that will vaporize cleanly and help to create a prayerful atmosphere.
- A Home Censer: Best for home use. They can be ceramic or metallic—there is no right or wrong option. Simply get what you are comfortable paying for and which you like the aesthetic of. Simplicity is good.
- Charcoal: Specially made incense charcoal discs. (It is also acceptable to break these charcoal discs in half before use to make your supply go further!)
- Charcoal Tongs: Essential for holding the charcoal safely while lighting it.
- Incense Tongs (Optional): Small, fine tongs or metal tweezers for picking up the incense pieces. This keeps your fingers free of the white magnesia dust, preventing it from transferring to your clothes, prayer books, or furniture.
- A Lighter, Matches, or Taper Candle: A nice trick is to keep a thin beeswax taper candle on hand. Light the candle first, and use its steady flame to light your charcoal. This saves you having to replace your lighters so often.
Note: All of these supplies can be easily found at your nearest Orthodox bookstore or church supply shop. Because charcoal and lighters are flammable, we do not ship them from our monastery, but they are widely available online.
2. Preparing and Lighting the Censer
Proper preparation ensures your incense vaporizes beautifully without scorching or making the censer too hot to hold.
Line the Censer with Foil and Ash
We highly recommend placing a small layer of aluminum foil on the bed of your censer. This protects the censer from extreme heat.
Furthermore, as you burn charcoal over a few days, a bed of ash will develop. Do not throw this out! Try to keep a layer of ash in the censer at all times, and place your fresh, burning charcoal directly on top of it. The ash acts as an insulator. It prevents the charcoal from burning out too quickly and provides a softer, more even heat, which allows the essential oils in the incense to release a sweet fragrance rather than a burnt smell.
How to Light the Charcoal
Using your tongs, grab the charcoal disc and hold an upper, outer corner of the disc into your flame. Hold it there until a red glowing line appears in the charcoal. You will likely need to pull it away from the flame to see this line.
There is no need to hold it until the entire charcoal is glowing red. As long as one edge is glowing, the heat will travel across the disc. A small disc of charcoal, lit like this, can last for 45 minutes or more, while a large disc can last for 90 minutes or more.
Safety Note: For best fire safety practices, never leave incense or candles burning unattended when you leave the room or the house.
3. When and How to Burn Orthodox Incense at Home
Once your charcoal is lit and has a red glow, place it onto the ash bed in your censer. Now you can place your incense on it.
Using your fine incense tongs or your fingers, place one to three pieces of incense on the charcoal, depending on your preference. More than three pieces is not recommended, as too much incense will blanket the charcoal and extinguish it. As you place the pieces, lightly push them down onto the charcoal for a few seconds. This helps them stick firmly to the coal and aids in releasing the essential aromas. This is a good habit to get into, because if you ever have to prepare the censer at church and the incense is not stuck to the coal, it can fall off when the priest or deacon swings the censer. You can always add more pieces as the first ones finish burning.
Usually, when first burning the incense, you can hold the home censer and hand-cense the room you are praying in, or even walk through and cense your entire house. Afterward, place the censer in front of a beloved icon to burn while you read your prayers.
When should you light it?
It is good to light incense every time you pray, and many Greeks do exactly this. If you are reading the Daily Office at home, it is traditional to cense at these specific moments:
- Morning Prayers / Matins: During the reading or chanting of the Magnificat (the hymn beginning “More honourable than the Cherubim…” that takes place towards the end of matins, after the reading of the canons).
- Evening Prayers / Vespers: During the chanting or reading of “Let my prayer rise up as incense before Thee…” which takes place towards the start of vespers.
- Paraklesis: At the appointed time when the priest would normally cense during the Supplicatory Canon to the Mother of God.
4. Disposing of Holy Ash
Because the incense and charcoal have been set aside for holy use, the remaining ash should not be dumped into your regular kitchen trash.
When your censer is full, dump the cooled, used ash in your garden in a place where nobody walks. You can also place it in a dedicated “things for burning” bag. Used lighters, matches, and empty incense packaging (boxes, plastic bags) can be placed in the regular trash, provided there are no icons or crosses printed on them. Anything with a cross or an icon should be set aside for burning.
5. Choosing the Right Incense (And What to Avoid)
When purchasing incense for your home, it is always preferable to buy from a known Orthodox source.
Unfortunately, much of the cheap incense found today—even in famous gift shops at pilgrimage sites—is mass-produced in sweatshops by laborers who do not even believe in Christ, let alone know how to make the sign of the cross.
Other manufacturers, particularly holdovers from former communist countries, continue to use cheap fillers like industrial talc because it protects their high-volume machinery. They ignore the fact that it smothers the fragrance and pollutes the air.
The best incense a person can buy is from a real Orthodox monastery, made by real monastics. (If you are curious about the traditional methods we use in our workshop, you can read our complete guide on how Orthodox incense is made). Buying such incense ensures you are receiving pure, traditional ingredients, and it serves as a dual blessing: a blessing for you, and a blessing for the monastery which is sustaining the ancient craft of Orthodox incense making.
Which Scents Should I Choose?
Do not get bogged down in worrying about which type to buy. There is no such thing as using the “wrong” aroma for the “wrong” occasion. All pure incense is suitable for any prayer and any service; be it a funeral, a baptism, the divine liturgy, or simple prayer at home. Just pick the fragrance that jumps out to you the most at the time and use it. Again, simplicity is best.
If you are unsure where to start when picking incense to buy, we highly recommend Monk Symeon’s Curated Selection. You can even tell us a little about which icons you’ll be burning the incense in front of, or which types of prayers you’ll be making, and our resident incense expert, Monk Symeon, will create an incense collection especially tailored for your needs.
We also invite you to build a Custom Sampler if you have a number of incense varieties in mind that you’d like to try. This allows you to try a handful of varieties without committing to a large purchase of just one type in particular. These also make perfect gifts for your parish, or for someone who is just starting to learn how to use incense at home.
If you would like to follow traditional themes, we recommend our Marie Antoinette blend for feasts and services dedicated to the Mother of God. The inspiration for this fragrance was the absolute pinnacle of perfumery originally crafted for an earthly queen, which we have adapted as an offering for the Queen of All. We also highly recommend our signature Holy Cross blend for use on Wednesdays, Fridays, and during services dedicated to the Holy Cross.
6. A Note on Gifted Incense
What should you do if a well-meaning friend gifts you incense, and you do not know its origins or purity?
Never inquire about it, lest you risk insulting their generosity. Follow the same rule the Apostles gave regarding food: eat with a good conscience. When benefactors donate incense to our monastery, we thank them warmly and use it ourselves without a second thought.
A simple old man once made a pilgrimage to a monastery he had loved his entire life. It being a fasting period, he laid out his hard-earned money on a great, huge bar of fasting halva to bring to the brotherhood as a gift.
After making the difficult trip to the monastery carrying his halva, the man was greeted by the brethren. The monks, seeing his gift, began interrogating him about where he had sourced it from. Not happy with the man’s answers, they took his gift and dumped it into the sea right in front of him.
They would have suffered no spiritual harm by simply thanking the man and eating what he had made them; instead, they did the opposite, harming themselves and wounding their benefactor. Do not emulate those monks. Be grateful for every gift of incense given to you and use it without concern.
Ultimately, knowing how to burn Orthodox incense at home is about knowing how to foster an atmosphere of simplicity and humility in your prayer life. May God bless your efforts to offer incense unto Him with a pure heart and in a spirit of humility!