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Every year, the first Sunday of the
Great Lenten Fast is called "Orthodoxy Sunday." It is dedicated to the Restoration of Icons on the first
Sunday of the Great Lent/Fast in the year 843. It is always celebrated as a
"Triumph of Orthodoxy," a triumph over those who sought to defeat and
undermine the Orthodox Faith of the Apostles and the Church Fathers by
prohibiting the use and veneration of icons. Thousands of devout Orthodox
Christians were martyred for their Faith during the approximately 125 years
that the Holy Orthodox Church endured the imposition of iconoclasm.
In the United States, because of
the presence of various different ethnic expressions of the one Orthodox
Faith, it has become traditional in many cities on Orthodoxy Sunday,
especially in large metropolitan areas, for Orthodox Christians of all
ethnic traditions and jurisdictions to come together and witness to, and
proclaim the unity of the Faith of the apostles, the Faith that has been
maintained in the Orthodox Church for 2,000 years.
How can we
understand the meaning of this day, this Triumph or Feast of Orthodoxy? How
can the victory over iconoclasm be a triumph of Orthodoxy itself? The
triumph of icons
is
a triumph of Orthodoxy: without icons, there is no Orthodox Christianity.
Icons affirm the basic principle of the preaching of the Gospels ---
interpreted in the decisions of the Seven Ecumenical Councils --- namely,
that God became man in Jesus the Christ, in order to reconcile the world to
Himself. It is precisely because God took on a material form in Jesus, that
we can make images of Jesus and of His true servants, the saints. These
images or icons furthermore affirm that the material world participates in
salvation --- that is, in the process of the transfiguration and
resurrection of humanity and of all the cosmos. The material world is good,
because God created it and incarnated in it, and He continues to manifest
Himself to us in material form --- especially in the Holy Mysteries
(Sacraments), in icons, in the Gospels and the cross. We do not
worship
these things, for worship is given only to God. Neither is it their
material substance which we venerate when we kiss them; rather, our
veneration is passed on to the prototype. We can express our love for Jesus
by kissing His icon or cross, but it is
Christ
--- not paint and wood --- whom we venerate
by means of
His icon or cross.
1st Sunday of Great Lent
Troparion (Tone 2)
Advancing from ungodliness to the true faith, and illumined with the light
of knowledge, let us clap our hands and sing aloud, offering praise and
thanksgiving to God; and with due honor let us venerate the holy icons of
Christ, of the all-pure Virgin and the saints, whether depicted on walls, on
wooden panels or on holy vessels, rejecting the impious teaching of the
heretics. For, as Basil says, the honor shown to the icon passes to the
prototype it represents. At the prayers of Thine undefiled Mother and of all
the saints, we beseech Thee, Christ our God, to bestow upon us Thy great
mercy.
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This icon commemo-rates
the restoration of the icons by the ever-rememorable rulers of
Constantinople, the Emperor Michael and his mother, the Empress
Theodora, during the patriarchate of St. Methodius the Confessor. Those who
denied the true humanity of Christ and His incarnation went about smashing
icons. They gained power in and over the Church. The Seventh Ecumenical
Council was called and addressed this heresy. In 787, the Church affirmed
the incarnation of Christ and the use of icons. Wicked rulers and subverters
of Orthodoxy however gained power and continued smashing the icons. The true
Church was practically driven into hiding and many saints were martyred. On
the First Sunday of Great Lent, March 11, 843, Empress Theodora ordered the
Patriarch to hold an assembly in the Church to restore the Holy Images and
Crosses which had been in hiding. |
