Bright Thursday; The Holy Martyr Eupsichius.
Acts 2:38-43; John 3:1-15.
Read Acts 2:38-43
The Sunday of Orthodoxy was the first Sunday of the Great Fast. In the Gospel of that Sunday, in Nathaniel’s encounter with Jesus he exclaimed, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
The word “orthodoxy” stems from the Greek word orthodoxia (orthos = right; doksa = opinion), which signifies the true faith and the true worship of God.
In today’s reading of the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Peter “exhorted them saying, ‘Save yourself from this corrupt generation.’” And “those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.”
On March 10th, 2026, Rocco Nugent, a writer for the Epoch Times composed an opinion article entitled, “Silent Revolution: Why Millions Now Look to Leave Social Media.” In 2023, the Surgeon General (in the US) issued an advisory declaring loneliness a national health crisis. Nugent then makes the connection to the many who have completely left social media and continue to do so, because intuitively they realized that it has greatly contributed to this grave issue of loneliness. He also described how small rural communities have had the greatest annual population increases; youth, again, intuitively concluded that the fast pace of the city busy-ness world also contributed to this grave issue, therefore moved out of them.
Are not these youth identifying the current cultural context as “corrupt” and definitely not addressing peoples deepest desires? Isn’t that partly how the people of Peter’s time saw life when they accepted his assessment of the context of that time and so many were baptized?
The readings of Bright Week are all about Nathaniel’s proclamation of Christ as the Messiah and the affect that Truth had on lives then as that fact of faith was taken ever deeper into the very depth of being human. Are not the youth of this age, as they free themselves from social media and the insane pace of unhealthy lifestyles seeing similarly that which those newly baptized of Peter’s time saw?
The orthodoxy that was celebrated on the first Sunday of the Great Fast is a universal-catholic orthodoxy, professed by the entire Church of Christ of the first centuries in the battle against the heresy of Iconoclasm (Greek, eikon = image; klastes = a breaker – an image breaking heresy). Returning to our original image is what is put before us as Christians following His Way; the only authentic Way. Now, in Bright Week, we see in the Acts of the Apostles, how through the Apostles’ belief in Who Jesus Truly Is; brought people back to the very truth of who they are. Glory to God!