Sunday of Orthodoxy
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Today we celebrate the “triumph of orthodoxy”, meaning of the true faith. It celebrates the final victory over iconoclasm in 842, after 130 years of repeated struggles. The Synod of Constantinople had reaffirmed the Seventh Ecumenical Council’s teaching on the proper use of images in Christian worship, and to celebrate the event the population of Constantinople took part in a huge procession from the Blachernae Church to Hagia Sophia, carrying icons and other images which had been hidden away in homes and monasteries and now could be restored to the churches. Every parish holds a similar procession today, as the Council had decreed that the first Sunday of Lent, which was the date of that first procession, would include this remembrance. Today, the service reflects both the original feast, Sunday of the Prophets, and the triumph of orthodox belief over all heresies.
Iconoclasm teaches that the Word of God as Incarnate in Jesus cannot be represented in art, as the divine should not be represented in any way. In this, it reflects both Jewish and Muslim teachings, and raises questions then about the Incarnation: did God truly become a human being in Jesus or not? This underlies all iconoclastic tendencies, rejecting the great gift of the incarnation through which we are offered salvation. Iconoclasm was also a reaction to the claims of miracles accompanying icons, and excessive piety which seemed to veer very close to idol-worship. Much of the ancient Eastern Christian art was lost in this purge. The treasury of Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai – which escaped the destruction - gives us a glimpse of what we have lost. Officials favored their destruction. Parishioners hid icons in their homes, but soldiers would break in to search for the forbidden images.
Pope Gregory III condemned the heresy, but his messengers to the Emperor were imprisoned. Finally, Empress Irene, Pope Hadrian I, and Patriarch Tarasios convoked the Seventh Council at Nicaea in 786-87. This Council reaffirmed the classic Christian defense of icons:
"We define that the holy icons, whether in color, mosaic, or some other material, should be exhibited in the holy churches of God, on the sacred vessels and liturgical vestments, on the walls, furnishings, and in houses and along the roads, namely the icons of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, that of our Lady the Theotokos, those of the venerable angels and those of all saintly people. Whenever these representations are contemplated, they will cause those who look at them to commemorate and love their prototype. We define also that they should be kissed and that they are an object of veneration and honor (timitiki proskynisis), but not of real worship (latreia), which is reserved for Him Who is the subject of our faith and is proper for the divine nature. The veneration accorded to an icon is in effect transmitted to the prototype; he who venerates the icon, venerated in it the reality for which it stands".
Iconoclasm was very popular in the imperial army, in the Balkan peninsula, and among refugees from the provinces conquered by the Muslim armies. These people preferred to use plain crosses, not crucifixes, and decorative paintings that had no figures in them. Iconoclasm also appeared in parts of the Latin Church and was revived in the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s.
Icons are venerated by burning lamps and candles in front of them, by the use of incense and by kissing. But there is a clear doctrinal distinction between the veneration paid to icons and the worship due to God. The former is not only relative, it is in fact paid to the person represented by the icon. This distinction safeguards the veneration of icons from any charge of idolatry. The theme of the victory of the icons, by its emphasis on the incarnation, points us to the basic Christian truth that the one whose death and resurrection we celebrate at Easter was none other than the Word of God who became human in Jesus Christ.