Triumph of Orthodoxy
1st Sunday of Great Lent
Hebrews 11:24-26; 32-40; 12:1-2; John 1:43-51
The Lord Jesus Christ spoke thus and testified about the purpose of His coming to earth: "I was born for this and came into the world for this, to testify to the Truth. And everyone who is of the Truth has heard My voice" (John 18:37).
Christ came to earth to testify to the Truth of Faith, to teach that Truth of Faith to people, so that it permeates their souls, senses and minds, so that the Truth of Faith grows and becomes established in people and becomes the source, the basis of their salvation.
Consequently, both the apostles and the Holy Fathers of the Church of the first centuries of Christianity took special care of preserving, defining and affirming the Truth - the basic truths of Christ's faith in the hearts and souls of believers. (Great efforts have been invested in defining the Symbol of Faith / The Creed.)
Accordingly, even at the end of the Evening or Morning Dispatch, a solemn co-request was introduced:
"Confirm, O God, the Holy Orthodox faith and all Orthodox Christians forever and ever." - This is so that Christians are always reminded, so that they are aware that no matter what Service to God we serve, no matter what pious songs we sing, no matter what rites we perform, only the preservation, strengthening - affirmation of the True, Essential Faith in oneself is the basic necessity for our salvation "for ever and ever".
From the very beginning of the existence of the Church of Christ, there were people who tried to introduce false, misleading teachings into the Church of Christ. But as long as the faith of Christ, the Church of Christ was persecuted in the countries where Christianity increased (and this is mainly in the territory of the vast Roman Empire), few people entered into the Church of Christ who could be seduced by the deceptions of the devil, heretical teachings. Believers had to defend their faith, their convictions, at the cost of their lives.
However, when in 313 the freedom to profess the Christian faith was proclaimed by Constantine the Great in the so-called Edict of Milan, and when Emperor Constantine himself, with his mother Elena and his court entourage, joined the Church of Christ, then, in order to preserve their privileged positions in the state, people with false intentions, with dubious moral reputations reached out and became members of the Church of Christ.
Outwardly, those officials obviously had to undergo catechization, but the acceptance of the foundations of the Faith of Christ was often insincere, hypocritical. In their souls, many of the aforementioned remained either pagans or unbelievers in general.
And, taking advantage of this relaxation of moral and religious requirements, various false teachers, wolves in sheep's clothing, appeared in the Church of Christ.
The will to profess Christianity, and the privileges granted to the Church of Christ by the state authorities, dulled in people the instructions and warnings of Christ (Matthew 7,15) and the apostles (Acts 20,29).
When the famous presbyter Arius of Alexandria emerged, he taught that Jesus Christ is not God - not equal in glory with the Father. Other false teachers of the faith appeared. Among those teachers and preachers of faith were influential people, good eloquent people, armed with the developed Greek philosophy of that time, and they were able to lead many astray.
The Ecumenical Councils of the Church of Christ that met irregularly from 325 to 787 seven times, were mainly convened to preserve purity and confirm the Truth of Christ's faith, which the Lord Jesus Christ brought to earth. Those Councils defined the main truths of Christ's faith, exposed and removed the wolves in sheep's clothing. Even so, there was a very critical time in the Church of Christ, when false teachers swayed Leo III, the emperor of the Byzantine Empire in 717-740, to their side.
The aforementioned emperor Leo III, using the combination of state and church power that existed at that time in the Byzantine Empire, issued an order in 726 to remove icons from all churches and public places of the empire.
Here it must be understood that the emperor Leo not only wanted to satisfy the human rationalizations of false teachers of faith within the Church of Christ, but also wanted to find an understanding with the Mohammedans -- who were then a fanatical young force opposed to any religious image -- with that edict.
In 729, emperor Leo issued a second edict against the veneration of holy icons, establishing severe punishments against those people who continued to venerate holy icons, images of the Holy Cross of the Lord.
The cruel persecution of icon admirers continued under the successors of Leo the 3rd; the oppression continued for 60 years. The tyrannization was carried out by the powerful state apparatus, including with the help of the army.
All true believers of God who revered holy icons were removed from public service, and their places were occupied by people who brutally persecuted the true confessors of the faith of Christ, or, as we say, Orthodoxy.
And, despite cruel punishments, persecutions, prohibitions, True faith was preserved in the hearts of believers. The icons were mostly destroyed, but the Spirit of Truth - the spirit of true recognition of God, Christ, was preserved, if not in the official leaders, then in the ascetics of faith, in the souls and hearts of deeply believing Christians.
And because those deeply and sincerely believing Christians were supporters of the veneration of holy icons, images of the Lord Jesus Christ, His Most Holy Mother and the holy Apostles, martyrs for the faith of Christ, outwardly they were called icon worshipers, and their opponents, apostates from the truth, iconoclasts.
The brutal physical force of the state apparatus could bring severe suffering to the true confessors of Christ, but it could not and will never be able to kill the Spirit of Truth, which has established itself in the hearts and souls of believing people, which is always present in the Church of Christ. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ declared that He will build His Church on the rock of faith "and the forces of hell will not overcome it" (Mt. 16:18).
And thus, although much torment and suffering was inflicted on believing people, true God-professing Christians--by iconoclasts in the time of Leo III and his successors on the imperial throne—they lived to see the day when the VII Ecumenical Council of the Church of Christ (convened in 787 on the initiative of Patriarch Tarasius) put an end to the persecution of those Christians who revered holy icons.
But it took almost another 60 years to cleanse the Church and the state apparatus of the Byzantine Empire from iconoclasts. It was necessary to educate and re-educate many people, to enlighten them with the truth, so that the truth would win (triumph) in the souls of people, so that it would be firmly established in the Church of Christ.
At the Church Council convened in Constantinople in 842, it was affirmed that the truth had won in the Church - Orthodoxy had won. It was decided to solemnly celebrate the victory of Orthodoxy with a separate holiday. This was done in 843 on the First Sunday of Great Lent. Since then, the Ecumenical Orthodox Church annually celebrates the victory of Orthodoxy on the First Sunday of Great Lent and calls this Sunday, Sunday of Orthodoxy.
Celebrating this holiday, marking the victory of Orthodoxy, we, based on the examples of past historical events in Christ's Church, confirm our conviction that-- despite the modern heretical teachings of false teachers and false prophets (Mt. 24.11; 2 Timothy 4,3), regardless of the cruel persecution of the confessors of Christ's faith by the ungodly, regardless of the destruction of not only icons, but the temples of God, all the institutions of the Church--the Truth of God, which Christ brought into the world, in the end will win, triumph. And this is so, because the power of the Church of Christ is in the indwelling of the Spirit of Truth, which is eternally in her and, therefore, the forces of the devil, the forces of hell will not defeat her. (Mt. 16.18)
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.