Do the Orthodox not believe that all creation fell with Adam and Eve's fall? If so, then there are no incorruptible materials to use for the icons, which are themselves only pointers or reflections of the actual sanctity. Paint flecks, wood rots, stone crumbles. Moth and rust doth corrupt.
In any case, it could be the tattoo itself, not the person bearing it, that is considered to be the icon.
In any case, it could be the tattoo itself, not the person bearing it, that is considered to be the icon.
All persons bleed at one point or another, and especially for accidental reasons.
In the end, the human body is fallen because of ancestral sin. The question of emission is but one point in the greater scheme of humankind's fallen nature. The ancestral sin of the "first parents" in the Genesis primeval history and its tangible effects in the world precludes human beings as a canvas for the living images of God.
The body and the soul are merging towards sanctification (theosis), but are never at that point on earth. Would not an icon on a body suggest an exclusion from ancestral fallen nature that is not yet available for mortals?
Catholics often have the Sacred Heart or Our Lady of Guadelupe tattooed onto themselves. Catholicism has no problem with this given its Augustinian post-lapsarian theology.