St. Nikolaj Velimirovic:
It is inconceivable to you why the Orthodox Church allows such adornment - in precious icons, in silver vigil lamps, in golden chalices, embroidered vestments and other expensive items. Because it wants to use that temporal gloss to remind the people of the eternal brightness of the heavens.It wants to break them free, even if for a moment, from their earthly misery, and to remind them of the other world, of their heavenly motherland, of the kingdom of eternal happiness and joy.
It wants to present to them - as much as dust can accomplish such a thing - in a material and symbolic way that extravagance and those riches with which the spiritual world abounds and with which the soul of a Christian should abound while enclosed in a body, just as all the church's glamour is enclosed in the stone walls of the temple.
But this is only a reminder. However, each object with its shape, color and patters has a special spiritual meaning in an Orthodox church. So, collectively and separately all this expresses a lesson, the path to salvation, the salvific drama of the life of Christ, the promise of Christ or some other mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven.
You think that all this could be turned into bread and eaten! And what then - after it is eaten? If the body consumes both the spiritual and the physical food, what will the soul feed on then? Have you not heard how the godless people in Moscow have turned everything into bread, ate it and now they hunger - and they hunger now like Russia has not hungered since the times of Askold and Dir. Man shall not live by bread alone, which is to say bodily bread, but also by spiritual bread. And all those things and vessels in the holy church are, by their meaning, spiritual food for human souls.
Enter more deeply into the Christian teaching which is more important for us, earthly sojourners, than any other teaching, and you will understand. And then, having understood, you will discard your current thoughts and replace them with correct ones.
Peace and blessing to you.