Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord and the Triumph of Orthodoxy, as well as the completion of the first week of Great Lent!

Today’s epistle reading began with Moses preferring the difficult life of slavery, in the earthly understanding of this word, of the Jewish people instead of the comfortable and easy life of the Egyptian royalty. Following this, we heard a long list of the Old Testament saints and the ascetic struggles that they undertook for the sake of faith in the true God. At the conclusion of today’s excerpt, St. Paul admonishes all of us to take note of the struggles of these saints, who surround us as if they were a cloud, to throw off sin, and to continue on our path towards the Kingdom of Heaven, not taking our eyes off our goal, i. e. Christ.

Today we celebrate the final triumph of Orthodoxy over the iconoclasts, i. e. those who believed that it was impermissible to have icons in churches and homes and to pray before them. The theological battle for icons continued for a very long time. Iconoclasm as an official teaching appeared in 726 and lasted until 843 when, on the first Sunday of Great Lent, the veneration of icons was reestablished and with a triumphal procession icons were returned to the churches. Throughout these 120 years many saints struggled for the reestablishment of the veneration of icons. Some of them were even martyred for their beliefs. Today, when we heard in the Epistle reading about the labours of the Old Testament saints, we in spirit attach to them those saints who guarded the Orthodox faith against the iconoclasts.

The words of this day’s Epistle reading also have a direct bearing on us today. Last Monday we entered into Great Lent, put aside everything that is pleasant in this world, and throughout the week participated in long church services, did prostrations, read prayers and psalms. You could say that we, like Moses, refused to be called the sons of Pharaoh’s daughter, that is we refused to participate in a sinful life, and instead have chosen to suffer affliction with the Jewish nation, i. e. to keep the fast and to deaden our passions, etc. This is of course good, but now we cannot forget the concluding words of today’s reading, and take as an example for ourselves the saints, continue our spiritual journey and to always have before us an image of our goal – the Saviour. If we act in such a manner throughout the remaining weeks of Great Lent, we will worthily meet the risen Christ on the day of His bright Resurrection.

priest Alexis