On the Veneration of Holy Icons
March 29
(Commemoration of our Venerable Father and Confessor Eustathios, Bishop of Bithynia)
By Archpriest Victor Guryev
March 29
(Commemoration of our Venerable Father and Confessor Eustathios, Bishop of Bithynia)
By Archpriest Victor Guryev
Our Venerable Father and Confessor Eustathios, Bishop of Bithynia, lived in the time of the iconoclasts, that is, of those who rejected the veneration of holy icons. For his veneration of the holy icons he endured from them threats, spitting, beatings, imprisonments; he witnessed many disturbances and uprisings among his flock; he was struck with rods and clubs and, finally, was deprived of his episcopate and condemned to exile. In the latter he spent many years and was insulted, mistreated, deprived, suffering hunger, thirst, and nakedness, and in such afflictions he died. And Eustathios was not the only one who endured such torments from the iconoclasts. Not only thousands, but tens of thousands of Orthodox Christians, for the veneration of the holy icons, suffered from them the same as Eustathios.
What does this mean, that the iconoclasts treated the holy icons with such hostility? Could it be that they were right in rejecting them? No, brethren, they were not right, and this we shall now prove to them.
In Orthodox theology it is written:
“Reliable tradition testifies that the Evangelist Luke, who was a physician and a painter, painted and left behind icons of the Mother of God. In the first three centuries of Christianity, although the use of icons was not so universal due to the constrained circumstances of the Church, it is nevertheless certainly known that images of Jesus Christ were in use. In the fourth century, with the triumph of the Church, there appear everywhere, together with icons of Christ the Savior, also icons of the saints of God, as the most fitting adornment of churches and as objects of veneration. Saint Basil, in his discourse on the martyr Barlaam, wishes that this martyr be depicted on a panel, and together with him Jesus Christ crowning him. Saint Athanasios calls proud and foolish those who reject the images of the saints. Further, in the unhappy times of iconoclasm, when a terrible persecution was raised against the veneration of icons, this dogma was sealed by the blood of many great and holy men of the Church, namely Confessors, and was finally decisively affirmed by the common voice of the Church at the Seventh Ecumenical Synod, where excommunication was proclaimed against those who reject the holy icons and call them idols" (Archbishop Anthony of Kazan, Dogmatic Theology, p. 25).
Thus, the iconoclasts, those who reject the holy icons and call them idols, are not correct. We are not idolaters; we venerate icons, but we do not worship them as gods. When we look upon the holy icons, we honor them, lifting our minds to God and to His saints; but we honor not the wood, not the colors, not the artistry, but the persons depicted — and not in themselves, but for the sake of those whom they represent. We show reverence and bow before the icons, but our veneration we direct to God and to His saints, our intercessors before Him (Archbishop Eusebius Orlinsky, On the Orthodox Faith, part 3, p. 315).
Let the iconoclasts know this and cease their blasphemies against the holy icons and against us who venerate them. Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
