Homily for the First Sunday of Great Lent
The Triumph of Orthodoxy
By Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev
The Triumph of Orthodoxy
By Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!
The Holy Church, on the first Sunday of Great Lent, allows us — all those who have passed through the first week in repentance, in the awareness of our kinship with the first man Adam, in the consciousness that in each of us is the image of the ineffable Glory of God, though covered with the sores of sins, and in the penitential cry to the Lord: “Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me” — to approach now the great joy, for today is a day of joy, a day of the Triumph of Orthodoxy.
It is not without reason, not by chance, that this week begins with such a day.
If we, the faithful, were all the time in the state of the first Adam, weeping, repenting, and crying out: “Lord, have mercy on me, the fallen one,” — together with him in a state almost of despair, and then only with distant hope that someday “the Seed of the Woman will crush the serpent’s head” — then we would still be in the Old Covenant. But we are already in the New.
The Holy Church arranges the Triumph of Orthodoxy in the second week to remind us that we already have this promise fulfilled, that we are already in the New Covenant, that we, though covered with the sores of sins like the first man, have had the Savior on earth, and not only was He here, but He also left us His Body — the Church — and we, glorifying Him, celebrating His coming, confess Him in Orthodoxy.
But why is this timed with the Triumph of Icon Veneration, and all the stichera we sang yesterday speak of the veneration of icons?
Why, in this week, when it was necessary to give us joy, does the Holy Church give it to us through the icon, through the Triumph of Icon Veneration?
Why do we glorify the most pure image of the Savior?
The struggle for the icon is the struggle for the reality of Christ, for His actual existence, for the fact that He truly came to earth and lived on it not only as God but also as man. “He did not live in imagination,” as the Holy Fathers say, but truly was in the flesh. And so the struggle for icon veneration continued for a whole century and tore the Church into irreconcilable enemies: those who defended icon veneration and those who rose against it.
And has this ended even now?
What are attacks on icons?
They are attacks on the existence of Christ. This is a matter essential to Christianity. If we turn to the Holy Fathers who fought for icons, we feel kinship with their age.
When Theodore the Studite wrote against the iconoclasts, he pointed out that if God had not been on earth as a man, it would be impossible to depict Him, that is, to paint Him. And now there is no reason why He should not be depicted: “Let him (the iconoclast) arise and teach what physical basis he has and what reason there is for such indescribability. Did not Christ take our form? Was not His body made of bones? Were not the pupils of His eyes protected by the eyelids and brows? Were not His ears formed with winding passages? Were not His nostrils adapted for smelling? Was He not adorned with blooming cheeks? Did He not speak with His mouth and tongue, lips and teeth, did He not eat and drink? Was He not provided with the joints of shoulders, elbows, and hands? Did He not have by nature chest and spine with shins and legs? Did He not move when walking, up, down, inward, outward, right, left, around? Did He not have hair on His head and clothe His whole body with a tunic? If He unquestionably showed all this, the depiction of which in bodily form serves as a true Image of Him, then it is audacious to claim that Christ is indescribable.” (Letters of Theodore the Studite, Vol. 7, II, p. 99)
“If Christ is a man,” concludes Theodore, “then it is evident that He can be depicted on an icon, for the first property of man is to be depictable; if He is not depicted, then He is not a man but bodiless, and Christ has not yet come, as the Jews empty their words.” (ibid., p. 75)
Thus ends the Holy Father, and for us even now, the struggle for the icon is the struggle for Christ, for the Savior, for Him Who was not only foretold to the first man that the time would come when "the Seed of the Woman will crush the serpent’s head," but also came, and being God, was also a perfect man, and as a man, from the Indescribable becomes Describable, from the Incomprehensible — Comprehensible, from the Great becomes also Small.
And the Holy Church found nothing better than to give to us, as the Triumph of Orthodoxy — the restoration of icon veneration, the restoration of the true teaching of Christ, that the Lord came to earth as God but also as man in the flesh.
And our time, which tries to prove that Christ never existed, goes primarily against icons, against icon veneration, despite its favor toward painting and art in general. The entire reason is that they want to deny Christ, to reject Him, and therefore they attack icons.
We are usually told: “You make many gods for yourselves and worship them.” Is this so?
If we believe that Christ delivered us from the state of Adam, weeping over the lost Paradise, and leads us into the Holy Church, if He accepts us as prodigal children and not only slaughters the lamb but gives us His Body, clothes us in the first garment of incorruption and holiness, then on this day of the Triumph of Orthodoxy we must understand why we venerate icons.
“For the honor of the icon ascends to the Prototype,” says Saint Basil the Great, and those stichera we heard yesterday.
What does this mean?
It means that if we have any image of the Lord, that image — a likeness — gives us the opportunity to relate to Him Himself, to the Prototype, just as a portrait of someone causes us to lift our mind to the person depicted. Everyone knows that if a photograph stands there, we say: “This is Mom, this is Dad,” and no one doubts it, though all know it is cardboard, paper, a photographic card; for through this image, we ascend to the prototype and see them in the photograph.
So also with icons, through the image of Christ we ascend to Him: “For the honor of the icon ascends to the Prototype.”
For us, for those who venerate the holy icons, it must be known the definition of the Seventh Ecumenical Synod, whose memory we celebrate today, for it confirmed the true teaching on the icon:
“We decree that holy and venerable icons be presented (for veneration) exactly as the image of the honorable life-giving Cross, whether they are painted with colors or made of mosaic or any other material, whether they are in the Holy Churches on sanctified vessels and vestments, on walls and panels, or in houses and by the roads, whether they are icons of the Lord Jesus Christ, or the Lady Theotokos, or the honorable Angels, or all the saints and righteous. The more frequently through icons they become objects of our contemplation, the more those who behold them are stirred to remembrance of the Prototypes themselves, acquire more love for them, and receive more incentives to give them reverence, honor, and veneration, but not the true worship which according to our faith belongs only to the Divine Nature.” (Acts of the Ecumenical Synod, VII, 593)
True worship we perform not to the icon but to God, and the icon is that which is necessary for us, as that through which we raise ourselves to the Prototype. This is how the Seventh Ecumenical Synod teaches.
For us, who have passed the first week of Great Lent, who, if we have not had repentance and tears, reproach ourselves for it, it is necessary to join those who had these tears of repentance, the ascetics, and especially the composer of the Great Canon and the Venerable Mother Mary of Egypt.
For us, there can no longer be the despair of the Old Testament, nor the courage of which Andrew of Crete speaks: “I have brought all of the Old Testament soul to likeness: imitate the godly deeds of the righteous, but avoid again the deceitful sins.”
They did not yet have the joy of the proclamation of Christ’s birth, but we not only have this and know it, but today we have received His Most Pure Body and Blood. We not only know, as a parable, that the Lord will accept us, but know that we are again accepted by Him, again clothed in the garment of incorruption. And all this is so because Christ was and is in the Church, and hence faith in icons, in that we can measure the Immeasurable Christ, and the Indescribable can be described.
And the joy of this day should lead us to the awareness that in Christ we are a new creation: “If you are baptized into Christ, you have put on Christ.”
Let us remember that the fast is not yet over, but only begins, and we, having passed through the repentance of Adam, clothed in the garment of incorruption, will continue along the path revealed by the Holy Church, through the illumination of the Tabor light, to the joy of life in the Lord. Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
