REV. FATHER GREGORY BECKER Teaching of sacred images celebrated during Lent

Anyone who uses a Macintosh or Windows-based personal computer is familiar with an "icon." Point and click on an "icon" and a program or document opens. So, an "icon" is a symbol which represents an application or a document.
Centuries before PCs were in vogue, the term "icon" signified a stylized painting of Christ, the Virgin Mary, saints, angels, events from the Gospels or the life of the church. An icon is not merely a religious picture, but a depiction done according to definite techniques, most often referred to as a "Byzantine-style." In the Orthodoxwindow into heaven. In itself it is Christian church, an icon acts as a as visible and real as anything in everyday life, but it also reveals another, invisible dimension.
More than art: For Christians, both Orthodox and Eastern Catholic, an icon is intended not as a work of art, but as a medium of prayer. It is given veneration -- people kiss it -- but it is not worshipped. It is treated with reverence because it points to the holy person or event depicted. Eastern Christians regard icons as more than religious pictures -- in a sense, these holy images capture and can convey God's power and glory.
According to the Orthodox Christian calendar, each Sunday of Lent has a specific theme. The first Sunday of Lent is dedicated to the "Triumph of Orthodoxy" which commemorates the victory of the true faith over false doctrine -- specifically dealing with the teaching of sacred images. Icons have been used in the church and home from early times. There is even a tradition that St. Luke painted icons of the Virgin Mary and Christ Child which still exist to this day.
Battle of faith: At the beginning of the eighth century a persecution arose against sacred images and those who venerated them. Thousands of devout Christians were martyred and tortured for their belief that God took human form in the in the person of Jesus, and therefore God can be depicted in a stylized icon as the man Jesus. For more than a century the battle of iconoclasm took place in the Byzantine Empire. Finally, in 842, those who defended the use of icons were vindicated and the Emperor Theophilus put an end to the unrest.
On Feb. 19, 843, which happened to be the first Sunday of Lent that year, a solemn precession was held in Constantinople with the sacred icons being restored to the churches and homes. Since that day, the first Sunday of Lent has been called the Triumph of Orthodoxy. In this commemoration, the church reaffirms its belief that the material world is good, because God created it and incarnated in it, and he continues to manifest himself to us in material forms: in icons, in the Gospel, the Cross, and relics of the saints.
In many Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches, this first Sunday of Lent is observed with a procession of icons during the Divine Liturgy. In the Mahoning Valley it is customary for all of the Orthodox Christian churches of the various jurisdictions to have a combined Vespers service with a procession of icons. This serves to proclaim the continuity of the faith with the apostles -- a faith which has been maintained for over 2,000 years.
Triumph of Orthodoxy Vespers will be celebrated Sunday at 5 p.m. at St. John's Orthodox Church, 2220 Reeves Rd. N.E., Warren, and at 6 p.m. at St. John's Orthodox Church, 301 Struthers-Liberty Road, Campbell.
XThe Rev. Father Gregory Becker is rector of Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church, Romanian Episcopate, Orthodox Church in America.