On the first Sunday of Great Lent, the Church solemnly celebrates the Triumph of Orthodoxy — the victory of the true Faith over the iconoclast heresy, first observed in 843.

The Holy Fathers recognized then a cunning assault upon the very foundation of our faith: “The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth”; “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life.” The veneration of icons is the affirmation of this same truth!

The first Sunday of the Fast also echoes the last — the Sunday of the Expulsion of Adam from Paradise: there, the following of the devil’s will and the tasting of the forbidden; here, fasting, the Penitential Canon, and abstinence — as the path of God’s saving will.

This year, in keeping with established tradition, a solemn molieben with a procession was once again celebrated in our St. Barbara’s Cathedral. The procession moved within the church: clergy, parishioners, adults and children carried holy icons, the Cross and the Gospel, pausing at the four points of the compass — at the north, south, and west walls, and at the ambon in the east. At each stop, prayers and petitions were offered: for the living, for those who have reposed in the faith, for the parish community, and for the whole world.

To the singing of the Troparion of the Sunday of Orthodoxy (“We venerate Your most pure image, O Good One…”), all those present together confessed the unity of the Faith of the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church, while the solemn reading of a passage from the Synodikon of the Seventh Ecumenical Council reminded us once again by what and by whom Orthodoxy is upheld — by holy ascetics and holy icons.