On the first Sunday of Great Lent we celebrate the feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. This is an historical feast commemorating the restoration of icons, which had been banned for several decades, to their rightful liturgical use in the year 843 AD. Icons were banned in the Church because of the view that the faithful "worshipped" the wood of the icon. Defenders of the icons stated that icons were "venerated" or "reveared" in the Church but not "worshipped." Icons were used in worship services to focus the attention of the worshipper to God rather than the material on which the image was depicted. After many years of fighting and blood shed icons were restored to the Church.

The major emphasis of this feast is the victory of the true faith, the victory which always ultimately triumphs. Having completed the first week of our lenten efforts, we are reminded that Christ, the perfect image of God the Father, calls us to personal victory by restoring within ourselves "the image and likeness of God" in which we were first created (Gen. 1:26).

The icons of Our Lord, the Theotokos, and all the saints are images of true humanity, signs of what our eternal calling and vocation really are. They tell us that we are all called to be living icons and imitators of Christ, bearing the likeness of God as gracious vessels of the Holy Spirit.