The Sunday of Orthodoxy – Father Gabriel Galev
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The Orthodox faith is not a religion, which consists of a system of beliefs, traditions and actions, written according to certain rules. It is life itself, and lives in us. Orthodoxy is a living faith, faith in the living God in which the ultimate goal is to see (know) Christ and to remain with Him. The Orthodox faith is a testimony. We are Orthodox only if we live Orthodoxly, that is, if we live the life of Christ, if we are incorporated as living members of the Church of Christ. The Holy Spirit to live in us.
So as to achieve this goal, we need to humble ourselves. Pride, high opinion of ourselves, vanity are the greatest hindrances to being able to see God. Many of us, or rather, all of us have a call from Christ to follow Him. However, we unfortunately choose to follow ourselves, that is our passions or our views and thoughts rather than Christ and that is why we most often sin. At all times when we have followed Christ, we have not sinned. The Lord is always with us.
Philip decided to follow Christ, because he was ready to follow Christ, he renounced himself, and followed Christ. Nathanael did the same. And even if at first glance it seemed he opposed, he wanted to be convinced, because our faith is also faith in knowledge. So, we need to know what we believe in. We need to have the knowledge as well as how to believe, so as to know how we should live correctly.
While Jesus was with Philip, Nathaniel was praying under the fig tree and thinking about Christ. Therefore, Christ, replied to his response “How do you know me?” by telling him that He had seen Him while he was under the fig tree, which means they were together even though Nathanael was not aware of it. Prayer is communion, a conversation between man and God, and through it we are with God, face to face, next to each other. When we open our hearts, we allow light to enter our minds and think about Christ, then we allow Christ to enter our lives. That is why Nathanael immediately accepted Christ and confessed Him. That is the first confession in general: “You are the Son of God, the chosen Messiah.” And therefore, Nathanael then became one of the Apostles. Nathanael, according to tradition, is the same Saint Bartholomew the Apostle who gave his life as a martyr for Christ.
Today is the feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. Only those who are christened and live Orthodoxly can understand the Orthodox faith. With christening, the fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is poured out, and then with life, in the Church, with a virtuous life in the fulfilment of God’s commandments, in obedience, fasting, prayer, confession, and thus living in a way we come to know Christ. Christ is known, as I said, through the full-of-grace energies of God, that is, through the fulfilment of God’s commandments, virtues, the holy-sacramental life and prayer.
And today’s feast, the Triumph of Holy Orthodoxy is a feast established on the occasion of the victory of the Orthodox Church over iconoclasm. The veneration of icons is a stumbling block just for those who, as I said, are not christened Orthodoxly and who do not think and live Orthodoxly. They do not allow God the Holy Spirit to live in them and they understand faith as a written rule, as some code, as a religion. That is not the Orthodox faith. The Orthodox faith is a living life, life in Christ, in the Holy Spirit, in the Holy Trinity.
That is why we also need to believe Orthodoxly. The root of all heresies comes from the incorrect understanding of the incarnation of Christ. In fact, the very incarnation of Jesus Christ is confirmation and proof that we do not violate the second commandment of God, and do not worship and make idols of that which is in heaven and on earth. Through the incarnation of the Word of God, Jesus Christ became a living icon of God the Father. God revealed himself to us completely, because Jesus Christ was not only fully God, not only the Son of God, but also fully man and the Son of man, that is, the God-Man.
And therefore, as the Apostles say: “We have seen Him, and heard Him, and touched Him,” so we can also present Him, describe Him, and draw Him. And this respect, is not actually the respect for the board itself, for the representation itself, but simply spiritual worship in which we worship the one who is depicted, that is, the depicted one who is in the Kingdom of Heaven, the image of God, the likeness. And not everyone can be depicted on an icon and not everyone can be declared a saint, only those who have depicted the image of God in themselves, that is, the likeness of God.
Of course, we should have the right attitude towards the icons themselves. We should not consider them as some do; rub them or put coins on them. There is a place for the coin under the icon which is where that money should be placed. The saint or the Lord does not need that money, but the Church needs it to live, function and carry out its mission. It is a gift to the Church itself. Nor should you think that with money, or some material gift can we bribe the Saint, or the Lord depicted on the icon.
It also means that the icons should be Orthodoxly depicted. That is, we depict the glorified and deified image of God on the Saint who is in the Heavenly Church, above in the heavens, and therefore on earth the icon should be distinguished from an ordinary portrait of worldly art, but should be drawn according to the Canons of Orthodox iconography, and that is the reverse perspective in which it expands in space to the infinite space of the Kingdom of Heaven and in this way we ourselves participate in that communion with the heavenly Church in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Father Gabriel Galev
Abbot of the Monastery “St. Clement of Ohrid”,
Kinglake, Melbourne, Australia
16 / 03 / 2025
