Dear in Christ Brothers and Sisters,

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

Today we celebrate the final and complete restoration in 843, during the reign of the Empress Theodora, of the veneration of icons within the Byzantine Empire. Remember that already in the year 726, the Emperor Leo the Isaurian remembered the Old Testament commandment against images and began to promulgate a new teaching that icons were no different from pagan idols, and, as a consequence, were to be banned. The Orthodox patriarch of the time, St. Germanus, was deposed from the patriarchal throne of Constantinople and replaced with an iconoclast. In 754, a council of bishops confirmed this heresy. In the following years, not only churches and icons fell victim to the iconoclasts, but martyrs also began to appear. Near the end of the 8th century, in 787, the Empress Irene convened an Orthodox Council of bishops, under the presidency of the new Orthodox patriarch Tarasius, which confirmed the ancient Church traditions of icon veneration and condemned the iconoclasts. It would seem that with this council, the Seventh Ecumenical Council, everything was settled and peace within the Church was to reign, but it was not destined to be so. Throughout the following fifty years, the Church continued to suffer from the iconoclastic heresy. But in 843, on the first Sunday of Great Lent, icons were solemnly returned by procession to the cathedral of St. Sophia in Constantinople. It is this triumphant event in the life of the Church that we mark today.

Apart from the historical reasons for celebrating the Triumph of Orthodoxy today, perhaps there is also another reason. The Church battled for nearly 120 years with the iconoclastic heresy. Many saints, including the Holy Hierarchs Germanus, Nikiphorus, and Tarasius, the martyr Stephen the New, the holy fathers John of Damascus and Theodore the Studite, spoke out in defense of icons, but none of them saw the final victory of the Orthodox. It seemed that the Church had become mired in an eternal struggle with the heretics.

After the first week of Lent, when we tried very hard to keep the fast, talk less, pray more, attend church services more often, we are tired, even very tired. Perhaps some of us have even had thoughts that we are struggling in vain. It seems that there is little change in my spiritual life, but I’m left hungry and tired. There are still six weeks left of Great Lent. Maybe it’s not worth it. Today’s feastday proves that these types of thoughts wrong. For many years, several generations of saints fought against the iconoclasts without seeing any results, but finally the day of the Triumph of Orthodoxy dawned. It will be the same with us, if only we don’t give up. Through the prayers of all the saints, may the Lord help us in this!

priest Alexis