Homily on the Triumph of Holy Orthodoxy
Hebrews 11: 24-26; John 1: 43-51.
Today we celebrate the great Feast of the Triumph of Holy Orthodoxy. This Feast was proclaimed to celebrate the final defeat of the heresy of Iconoclasm. Iconoclasm was a heresy that first gained popular support under the Byzantine Emperor Leo III in the eight-century causing a great upheaval in the Church. The Iconoclast believed that it was sinful to represent any image of the All-Holy Trinity or the saints because of the Old Testament admonition to not represent anything in heaven. In short, the Iconoclasts, believed that to do so was nothing short of Idolatry (Deuteronomy 5:8).
This heresy, spread through the whole Church, causing many Christians to destroy many beautiful Icons that were created to help the people deepen their faith. Icons prior to this, had not been perceived as idols, but as images that when venerated helped the person in a spiritual way to commune with the Divine. That is to say, connect with the truth portrayed in the image which they are venerating as each icon represents a truth of the faith, and much like the stained-glass windows in the West, teach the faithful about the truths of the faith.
Finally, Orthodoxy prevailed, and the Church once again allowed the use of images in worship thus enriching the spiritual lives of the faithful. Unfortunately, the heresy of Iconoclasm is still alive and well to this day as it was given new life under the auspices of the Protestant movement. This is why in England many of their Medieval Churches were ransacked in the 16th century – destroying over a thousand years of Christian history.
What these so-called Reformers did not understand, is that an icon does not seek to represent reality as we know it. Rather, an icon is a depiction of something that is beyond this realm, something designed to teach us some truth about the faith. This is why in Byzantine icons, the Saints depicted seem other worldly, in that as Saints, who are in Heaven they have passed beyond the realities of this earthly life and become profoundly spiritually connected and sustained by He who is the creator of this world.
This is why, when we venerate an icon of a saint, we are not worshiping the saint, but rather we are humbling ourselves before our Creator praying that we might be given the graces which that particular saint was given by the All-Holy Trinity. This is much like the way a small child will look up to their parents because they want to be like them. This is why the Saints are our role models showing us how we can be better and live lives guided by the love of the All-Holy Trinity.
Also, the saints are on our side, they are our friends who have our back and if asked to pray for us, much like the royal ambassadors of ages past with powerful lords, they have the ear of our Lord and Saviour. The Body of Christ, the Church, is a family and the Saints are our relatives who only seek that which is good for their family members.
This is why Christ made it clear that we can ask His mother, Mary, to intercede for us, for at His crucifixion He told Saint John that Mary was His mother meaning that she, the first Saint of the New Covenant, is a model showing what favour the Saints carry with God.
This is made clear for us in the Divine Liturgy when we sing these words:
It is truly right to bless you, Theotokos, ever blessed, most pure, and mother of our God. More honourable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, without corruption you gave birth to God the Word. We magnify you, the true Theotokos.
This has always been the Tradition of the Church – the Church of Christ has never thought differently about the importance of the Holy Theotokos (The Mother God), this is why we are reminded of this at every Divine Liturgy when we sing the above words.
Moreover, let us never forget that We have been given a mother in Mary who truly loves her children in the Church. She is the one who said yes to the plan of the All-Holy Trinity for our salvation. She by this yes, allowed her very being to be used by the All-Holy Trinity to be the vehicle through which the incarnation was made possible. This is to say, her womb became the throne on which the Lord Jesus descended from on High to be born into this broken world.
What a wonderful gift - that which was weak - our human nature - was united to the Divine source of all strength to become the very Icon of our salvation. What I mean by this is that He who was born in the manger, united His Divine nature with our human nature, making God truly manifest on earth – two natures perfectly united in the one blessed Person.
This is why icons can be used in worship because Christ became man, uniting the Divine with the human, in effect, tearing the veil of the temple in two showing for all that salvation is a gift for all – no matter where we are born. This means that there are no people more favoured than others by the All-Holy Trinity - all are equal in Christ’s Body the Church (Galatians 3: 28).
If we were not to use icons then Christ would have not taken on our human nature and would have been some sort of spiritual being appearing to be human, but in ways not human, thus making the incarnation, death and resurrection a piece of theatre with no real meaning. The point being, that our Lord and Saviour really died on the Cross and really rose on the Third day. This is the great Mystery of our Faith, in that, He who is the Source of all, humbled Himself to the point of death!
There is no room for fakes here He literally felt every moment on the Cross because He loves us and wants His sacrifice to be the offering that brings His family into unity that we may become one in His Body the Church!
Thus, we are all called to be icons of Christ showing His love to all in the world. This is why Jesus tells us to let the world know we are Christians by our love (John 13: 35). Yes, it is true that we are not perfect and will miss the mark (sin), yet we can aim for perfection because salvation is a process where we crucify that which is not of God and through the process of Theois, using the Mysteries of His Church as the means of grace- thus, putting on the new man.
What this means, is that through receiving the Holy Mysteries of the Church we are brought to a deeper life in our Lord and Saviour and are moulded by Him. He is the source of all good and seeks to bring His Children into a deep life-giving communion with Him – much in the same way Adam and Eve were in a deep communion with Him in the Garden of Eden. Ultimately, this process is about the restoration of our human nature to the way it was before the fall of Adam and Eve.
Now, as we have begun the great Fast, let us turn to how we can use this time to grow as faithful Christians. Whilst it is true, that we are not perfect, we are called to become perfect as our Lord is perfect (Matthew 5: 48).
This is why the Saints would live such strict lives filled with much prayer and fasting – they sought to follow these words and become as perfect as they could by obeying His words. For through their spiritual efforts, they were literally shaped by the He who is the Divine Physician and made to be as perfect as they could be.
We are also called to work on ourselves so that we can become as perfect as we can. This is why we have the fasting tradition in the Orthodox Church as it is a way for us to work on becoming perfect and aligning our ways with that of God’s ways. .
Saint Basil puts it in this way –
‘
Beware of limiting the good of fasting to mere abstinence from meats. Real fasting is alienation from evil. ‘Loose the bands of wickedness.’ For give your neighbour the mischief he has done you. Forgive him his trespasses against you. Do not ‘fast for strife and debate.’ You do not devour flesh, but you devour your brother. You abstain from wine, but you indulge in outrages. You wait for evening before you take food, but you spend the day in the law courts. Woe to those who are ‘drunken, but not with wine.’ Anger is the intoxication of the soul, and makes it out of its wits like wine.’
St. Basil, in his homilies on the Holy Spirit
Meaning that if one is only focusing on not eating certain things in the Great Fast of Lent then what good is this effort if we are doing things that are against Christian Charity?
This is the very qualm our Lord and Saviour had with the Pharisees of His day – they followed all the dietary and fasting rules set forth in the Old Law, yet they were spiritually empty because their actions were not geared towards growing in the love of God and Neighbour.
It is vital that no matter what fasting discipline we pursue in the Lenten Fast, that we use this fasting as a way to cut from our lives that which causes us to separate ourselves from God.
Therefore, use this time of the Great fast to grow in love for God and your Neighbours. This period of Lent is a perfect time to start to build new habits that will help you grow in your personal life as well.
For instance, if you have been saying, ‘I need to go to the gym to lose weight’, do it and use the hardships you experience in so doing to be an offering to the All-Holy Trinity that you might become more perfect.
Also, let this time of Great Lent be a time where you heal personal relationships so that when the time comes for the Pascha Divine Liturgy you can truly partake in the Eucharist with peace in your heart knowing that you are in a good way with your brothers and sisters.
Finally, let us pray that this time of Great Lent will be a time of great growth both spiritually and in our personal lives.
