First Sunday of the Great Fast – Sunday of Orthodoxy, Tone 5; The Holy Venerable-Martyr Eudocia (98-117)
Great Fast Day 7. The Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great is celebrated today.
Read
Hebrews 11:24-26,32-40; 12:1-2; John 1:43-51
The First Sunday of Great Lent is kept as the anniversary of the restoration of the Holy Icons to veneration and honour after the final defeat of the iconoclast heresy. The Seventh Ecumenical Council in the year 787 condemned the iconoclast heresy, but the final restoration of the Holy Icons did not take place until 843, with a solemn procession on the first Sunday of Lent in that year. Ever since then, all the churches of the Byzantine tradition, including our Ukrainian Catholic Church, remember that event joyfully. The reference to “Orthodoxy” in the title of this First Sunday of Lent is not denominational; it refers to all those who venerate the Holy Icons properly in divine worship. The Catholic Church fully accepts the Seventh Ecumenical Council and the proper veneration and use of the Holy Icons. So the restoration of the Holy Icons is a cause of joy for all Christians who accept the proper use of the Holy Icons. In our own times, we rejoice further to see an increasing appreciation of the importance of the Holy Icons among Anglicans, Lutherans and other Western Christians.
The veneration of the Holy Icons is based on fundamental Christology, on our belief in the incarnation of the Son of God, and on our understanding of salvation for the Holy Mother of God and the saints. In the Incarnation, God did not simply speak to us, or come to us intellectually; God became Man. The Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son, by the Will of His Father and the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, took on Himself a human nature in the body of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who thus became Theotokos, the Holy Mother of God.
The human nature and the divine nature of Jesus Christ, Who is always One unique person, are never separated. Instead, human nature is redeemed by Christ’s assumption of that human nature. When Jesus Christ ascended into Heaven, He did not leave His human nature behind; He brought that redeemed human nature with Him, and thus accomplished the plan of our redemption. Thus it became right, appropriate, and necessary to venerate the humanity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Likewise with the Blessed Mother of God and all the saints. To be a saint means that a Christian gains such holiness, such deep union with God, that the image of God in that person, given at creation, shines in and through that person without distortion. In venerating the icons of the saints, then, we venerate the image of God in the saints.
The root of iconoclasm, the denial of the Holy Icons, is a false Christology: either the iconoclast denies the full humanity of Christ, and therefore cannot venerate that humanity whose very existence he does not accept, or the iconoclast denies the full divinity of Christ, and naturally cannot give divine honours to someone whose divinity he does not recognize. But our Christian faith teaches us that Jesus Christ is True God and True Man, One Person incarnate in two natures.
So we venerate the Holy Icons; we love them and we take pride in them. In the twentieth century, there has been a remarkable revival of good iconography. Authentic icons are a powerful means of preaching the Gospel, of elevating our souls to God. Of course, we wish to have the best icons in our churches, but icons should also be present in our homes. Every family can surely have at least one fine, hand-painted icon, in a place of honour, expressing our faith and reminding us of God’s protecting love.
Naturally, we venerate and enjoy the holy icons throughout the year. But Sunday of Orthodoxy is a day when we remember this in a special way.
From Our Paschal Pilgrimage by Bishop Basil Losten)