First Sunday of Lent 2014 – Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Holy
Family, London W1
At first sight it looks strange that, just as we begin to
keep Lent, we mark its first Sunday with a celebration. The Sunday of the
Triumph of Orthodoxy marks the decision of the Synod of Constantinople in 842
that ended once and for all the Iconoclast Controversy that had disturbed the
peace and unity of the Eastern Church of the Roman Empire for a hundred years. This
controversy was not just a question of whether sacred images were permissible
in Church, but of the very nature of how you believe in Christ and what you
believe Him to be.
For instance, you will see pictures of old Byzantine
churches where, in place of the image you expect in the apse of the Mother of
God bearing Our Lord, the Iconoclasts placed instead the plain representation
of the Cross; it bears no figure of the Crucified Lord. There are some who say
that the banishing of wall-images and icons from churches took the ban on
“graven images” in the Ten Commandments in the Book of Exodus to extreme.
Others say that it was a reaction to the rise of Islam, for Muslims
misunderstood that the Christian veneration of images is not the worship of
them, but worship of the inexpressible Divine Mystery that they depict and draw
us into; thus, it is said, Iconoclast Christians were striving for it to be
clear that they were not idolatrous pagans to be converted to Islam but the
People of the Book who worship the God of Abraham alone. Still others liken
this controversy to the Latin Church’s “Reformation”-“Counter-Reformation” struggle,
the defining moment for Byzantine Christianity: one side saying that God and
the glory of His saints cannot be portrayed in man-made pictures lest it debase
Him to the worldly order of human sinfulness – a cutting down of the Kingdom of
heaven to man’s size; while the other was saying that if you exclude images of
Christ, the Mother of God, the mysteries of salvation and of the glorified
saints, you are denying the truth of the incarnation itself and the sheer
physicality of God’s constant dealings with humanity in the world. If so, you
are effectively saying that God cannot take form in the created world, He
cannot be viewed as man, and He cannot be shown in His glory and in His saints.
You are saying that the created world - and humanity within it - does not bear
what the Scriptures and the Church return to time again: that the Word became
flesh and dwelt among us, that Christ, true God and true Man, is the Image of
the unseen God, that the Church which is His Body is the fullness of Him who
fills the universe, and that the whole of humanity – together and as
individuals – bears the very image of God. For Christianity is not just a matter
of what is written in the Book, or believed in the heart and mind, or acted out
in discipleship and the rites of worship. It is about the union of God and
humanity, God become man, and Man-in-Christ, full of grace and truth, endowed
with glory, making humanity one with the very life of God Himself.
In the argument between emperors, bishops, monks, armies and
faithful that had lasted for decades, the Seventh Ecumenical Council settled
it, the state power intervened, images were banished from churches, orthodox
bishops deposed, and clergy exiled and persecuted, until the Constantinople Synod
in February 842 confronted the stark
choice between all or nothing – is the Church orthodox or heretical? Does it
believe in the Incarnation of God in Man or not? Does Christ fill His material
creation and is His glory to be seen and shown in it, or not? Do we behold
Emmanuel, God among us, or do we fail to contemplate the mystery that seeks to
draw us in, here in our midst?
Resoundingly the Synod chose orthodox Christian faith. The first session
closed with a triumphant procession, in which the images were restored to the
Great Church, Hagia Sophia, the true faith was articulated and false belief
named and expressly rejected. From that day, the First Sunday of Lent recalls
us not to an historical event 1300 years ago, but to the abiding, annual need
each Lent to return to God, not just from our sins but also from our wanderings,
constantly back to the Truth, the reality of who Christ is, why He came and how
He comes to us still.
The reading from the Apostle (Hebrews 11) reminds us that
keeping faith with Christ has been costly, from the times of the Scriptures and
of St John the Baptist into the present day. We see it especially at the moment
in Syria and Nigeria in the martyrdom and persecution of clergy and lay people,
and the kidnap of bishops, priests and religious sisters. We see it in the
recently attempted suppression of this Greek-Catholic Church by the last
government in Ukraine. We see it in the massive scattering of Christian
communities dating from the time of Christ, out of the Middle Eastern cradle of
the Church as refugees to the four corners of the globe. Thus the Church today
follows in the footsteps of the Master and those who have gone before us. The
Apostle therefore calls Him our pioneer who perfects our faith the more we
follow along the narrow path He trod; and he calls those who have taken it
ahead of us our witnesses. “Witness” is what martyr means. And it is why we
keep the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy today. When we look at the images,
the icons, it is not we who are looking at them, witnessing their existence, or
significance, or presence, but they who are looking at us, witnessing us,
representing the significance and the presence of Christ.
For the Iconostasis before us is not a shield to restrict
our view of the Holy Mysteries, but the frontier of paradise from which the
Lord on His Throne and His saints in glory gaze out upon us. What is in their
gaze? We can readily imagine they see sin and imperfection. But they also see
those whom God loves, redeems and saves. They see our repentance and our
adoration and our own love, encouraging it, deepening it with their prayers,
because – by the mercy of God working in us – it proceeds from honesty, it is
genuine, “coming out of hiding”, realistic about how things are with God, yet also
things about us longing to be what they should become. Thus the Lord and His
saints who pray for us see the Truth at work within us – the truth about Christ
as God made man Whose image is still conforming humanity to Him.
But the truth about us is also that the more this image of
God within us looks out to meet the gaze of Christ, the more we would deform,
disfigure it; mask it and encrust it; and
prefer that it looked away from the glory.
All during the week, we have seen images of human beings who
cannot tell the truth – not just leaders corrupted by power and greed, but
other men of violence hiding their faces, concealing their true identity,
bearing false witness, wearing the uniforms of others to sow discontent and
mistrust, and blaming their wrongful deeds on the innocent. These are people
who cannot take the stare of God. They are naked in the Garden of Eden and it
is shame that makes them clothe themselves over. Thus do they cover up the
image of God within them, because it shines too beautiful to show, when dishonesty
is required for the deeds of darkness. But in return, as G. K. Chesterton put
it, “God abides in a terrible patience, unangered, unworn.” God in Christ looks out with His saints on the
sheer Truth and untruth of it all with love. So great is their glory that they
are undisturbed in peace. The image of Him, the vision of Him, moves us to
repentance, not so much out of our sense of remorse at our sins as out of our picking
up on His longing for the same glory as His to be ours. St Philip says to us,
“Come and see”. We too are intrigued, and we see the Lord; we open our hearts
and mouths to confess Him Son of God and our King. He tells us we will see
greater things and heaven opened before us.
So it was for the Fathers of the Synod in February 842. So
it is for us this Sunday of Orthodoxy’s Triumph a millennium and centuries
later. We have beheld the Truth about God and the truth about ourselves. As the
Troparion we have sung today puts it,
“We bow
before Your most pure image, O kind Lord and beg pardon for our sins, O Christ our God…. You… free Your
handiwork from enslavement to the enemy
… By coming to save the world, our Saviour, You filled all things with joy.
So let it be that a world that cannot bear the truth about
itself, and the people that hide in untruth and cowardly darkness because they
cannot bear Christ’s glory to show them in its light, will likewise come out,
come and see, see greater things, behold heaven opened and stand in the gaze of
Christ pouring glory into his saints, filling the space where sin is washed
away with nothing but joy.
