”Does any one who has divine knowledge and spiritual understanding not recognize that [iconoclasm] is a ruse of the devil? For he does not want his defeat and shame to be spread abroad, nor the glory of God and his saints to be recorded.”
— St. John of Damascus
Hebrews 1:1-12 (Epistle)
1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,
2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;
3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
4 having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
5 For to which of the angels did He ever say: “You are My Son, today I have begotten You”? And again: “I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son”?
6 But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: “Let all the angels of God worship Him.”
7 And of the angels He says: “Who makes His angels spirits and His ministers a flame of fire.”
8 But to the Son He says: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.
9 You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”
10 And: “You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.
11 They will perish, but You remain; and they will all grow old like a garment;
12 like a cloak You will fold them up, and they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will not fail.”
Mark 2:23-3:5 (Gospel)
23 Now it happened that He went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and as they went His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain.
24 And the Pharisees said to Him, “Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”
25 But He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him:
26 how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and also gave some to those who were with him?”
27 And He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
28 Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath.”
1 And He entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand.
2 So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him.
3 And He said to the man who had the withered hand, “Step forward.”
4 Then He said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they kept silent.
5 And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.
First Saturday of Great Lent — Commemoration of St. Theodore the Recruit and the Miracle of the Boiled Wheat
Today we remember the miracle of Saint Theodore the Recruit and the boiled wheat. Fifty years after Saint Theodore’s martyrdom, Emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363), devised a plan to corrupt the Christians during the first week of Great Lent. He knew that Christians purify themselves through fasting, especially during this week (which is why it is known as Clean Week). Therefore, he ordered the Polemarch (military leader) of Constantinople to go secretly and sprinkle all the food in the marketplace with the blood of animals which had been offered in sacrifice to idols. Saint Theodore appeared to Archbishop Eudoxios in a dream, telling him to assemble all the Christians on Monday morning and tell them that they must not buy any food from the marketplace; instead they were to boil some kollyva and to eat it with some honey during that week. The hierarch asked Saint Theodore what he meant by kollyva. He replied, “Kollyva is what we call boiled wheat in Euchaita.” Thus the scheme of the idol-worshipping emperor was thwarted and the pious people were preserved undefiled during Clean Week.
Ever since the middle of the fifth century, the Orthodox Church has honored the holy Great Martyr Theodore the Recruit on the first Saturday of Great Lent. On Friday evening, at the Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts following the prayer at the Ambo, the Canon to the holy Great Martyr Theodore, composed by Saint John of Damascus, is sung. Afterward, kollyva is blessed and distributed to the faithful. The commemoration of the Great Martyr Theodore on the first Saturday of Great Lent was established by Patriarch Nektarios of Constantinople (381-397).
The Troparion to Saint Theodore is quite similar to the Troparion for the Prophet Daniel and the Three Holy Youths (December 17 and Sunday Before the Nativity).1 The Kontakion for Saint Theodore, who suffered martyrdom by fire, reminds us that he also had faith as his breastplate (see 1 Thessalonians 5:8).2
Saint Theodore the Recruit is also commemorated on February 17.
1 The term “water of rest” comes from Psalm 22:2 (LXX). It is also found in the Troparion for the Prophet Daniel (perhaps from Daniel 1:12). The Hypakoe (in Tone 2) for December 17 mentions that an angel “turned the furnace into a place of rest” for the Three Holy Children. In today’s troparion (and that of Feb. 17), we should not say sweet bread, because of the term “sweetbread,” which is made from unappetizing parts of animals.
2 The term “breastplate” is an exact translation from the Greek. It is not a “shield,” or any other thing.
The theology of the holy icons
By Hierodeacon Rafael Misiaoulis, Theologian
On the first Sunday in Lent we celebrate the restoration of the holy icons. The Church celebrates. Orthodoxy celebrates. The human race celebrates, since all of us are made in the image (icon) of God. The Church confesses in a variety of ways. It gives a confession of faith through words, deeds and symbols. With the body, soul and spirit. And also through the holy icons. On this day we honor all those God-bearing Fathers who, with their blood, their knowledge, their wisdom and their writings, confessed Orthodoxy and the theology of the icons. The teaching of the Church concerning icons is one of the most important chapters in Patristic theology. An icon is an expression of the Tradition of the Church, equal to written and oral tradition. The icons which adorn a church aren’t simply decorative features, they’re not just religious paintings, they’re tokens of the encounter between heaven and earth; in a visible manner, they express the sense of heaven on earth.
If we look at the Old Testament, we’ll see that the first indication of the concept of the icon in Christianity occurs in the book of Genesis [1]. Saint Gregory the Theologian links the creation of the world with the existence of icons [2]. Another point in the Old Testament which is evidence for the main argument in favor of icons is associated with the command given by God that the cherubim be depicted in the Tabernacle of Witness [3]. According to the spirit of the Old Testament, the kingdom of God is the presence of God and the revelation of his plan. This is of a historical nature, since it is accomplished in time and space, through his people Israel and after his first appearance to Abraham.
In the New Testament, the importance of the image is emphasized by the relationship between the Father and the Son, in the Gospel according to Saint John: ‘those who have seen me have seen the father’ [4]. This denotes the internal relationship between the Father and the Son, but also confirms the incarnation of the divine Word. A good many images and symbols are also presented in the New Testament through Christ’s parables and there is also testimony in the writings of the Fathers of the Church. The relationship between Christology and the theology of the icon is demonstrated in the New Testament, where Christ is called ‘the image of God’, especially as regards the incarnation of the Son and Word of God.
In the Patristic tradition, the term ‘image’ or ‘icon’ is used in Trinitology in order to emphasize both the natural identity as well as the hypostatic distinction between the archetype, the Father, and the Son and Holy Spirit. The latter are able to be depicted in images.
The depiction of the incarnate Word of God refers to his humanity, not his divinity. ‘The Word became poor, hungry and thirsty in the flesh: these are attributes of human nature through which he can be described. As regards divinity he (the divine Word) is simple and cannot be described’ [7]. ‘Who can make a copy of God, who is invisible, bodiless, indescribable and formless? It is the height of delusion and impiety, then, to depict the divine’ [8].
A good number of the Church Fathers refer to the existence of icons, including Saint Gregory the Theologian in his 4th Denunciative Discourse against the Emperor Julian [9]; and Saint Gregory of Nyssa in his discourse on the divinity of the Son [10]. It ought to be stressed here that the main subject in these texts is the image, which focuses on the existence of the human person and the manner in which it’s depicted in the Holy Trinity [11].
In the book on the Holy Spirit, by Saint Basil the Great, there is the first mention of the phrase ‘the honor paid to the image passes on to the original’, which is a basic source in theology and to which Church tradition has applied the term ‘icon’. Basil says that the tradition of the Church concerning the Holy icons is ‘apostolic’. There were icons in churches before the time of Constantine the Great, a practice dating from Apostolic times. This tradition has been confirmed by architectural finds, from the earliest post-Apostolic years, which depict the person of Christ. Images were a factor in ecclesiastical life, as is apparent from ancient churches and the works of the Fathers. In 692, the Quinisext Synod supported this tradition with canon 82 which forbade any depiction of Christ as a lamb on the cross and insisted on his being portrayed in human form [12].
Notes:
[1] Gen. 1, 26, 27 ‘Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’… ‘So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him’.
[2] On the image and likeness of God, PG, 44, 1328AC.
[3] Exodus 25, 18-22 and 26,1.
[4] John 14, 9].
[5] 2 Cor. 4, 4.
[6] Cyril of Alexandria, On John, 2, 8 PG 73, 360CD.
[7] Theodore the Studite, Tropario, ode 7, canon for Orthodoxy.
[8] John the Damascan, On icons, chapter 16, PG 94, 1169 C.
[9] ΕΠΕ, vol.5, pp. 138-139.
[10] ΕΠΕ vol. 10, pp. 58-61.
[11] On the formation of humankind, PG 3154, PG 44 124D-256.
[12] ‘In some pictures of the venerable icons, a lamb is engraved, to which the Forerunner is pointing his finger, which is has been understood as a type of grace, adumbrating our true Lamb, Christ our God, through the Law. Embracing therefore the ancient types and shadows as symbols of the truth, and patterns given to the Church, we prefer grace and truth as the fulfilment of the Law. In order, therefore, that that which is perfect may be delineated to the eyes of all, at least in colored expression, we decree that the figure of the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, Christ our God, be henceforth exhibited in icons in human form, instead of the ancient lamb, so that all may understand by means of it the height of the humility of the Word of God, and that we may bear in mind his actions in the flesh, his suffering and salutary death, and his redemption which was wrought for the whole world’.
This week’s calendar reminders:
Monday 3/3: Great Canon 7:00 pm
Tuesday 3/4: Great Canon 7:00 pm
Wednesday 3/5: Liturgy of Presanctified gifts 6:30 pm
Thursday 3/6: Great Canon 7:00 pm
Friday 3/7: Paraklesis to the Theotokos 8:30 am
Saturday 3/8: Women’s group 9:00 am; Catechumen Class 4:30 pm; Great Vespers 6 pm
Sunday 3/9: Divine Liturgy 9:15am; Deanery Vespers at Ss Peter & Paul, Meriden 4:00 pm
CLICK BELOW to donate online:
Christ the Savior Orthodox Church is located in Southbury, Connecticut, and is part of the New England Diocese of the Orthodox Church of America.
Mailing address: Christ the Savior Church, 1070 Roxbury Road, Southbury, CT 06488
PLEASE DONATE to help our parish do the work of the Lord, thrive and grow, and extend the Kingdom of God. May the Lord bless your generosity!
Fr. Moses Locke can be reached at frmoseslocke@gmail.com