The Sunday of Orthodoxy is the first Sunday of Great Lent, and it celebrates the final restoration of icons to the Church in 843 AD. We’re not just remembering a historical event. We’re celebrating the Church’s victory over iconoclasm, the heresy that tried to ban holy images, and affirming what icons teach us about the Incarnation itself.
Why Icons Became a Battle
In 726, Byzantine Emperor Leo III started what became a century-long war against icons. He ordered them destroyed. Churches were whitewashed. Monks who defended icons were exiled, tortured, or killed. The controversy came in two waves, with a brief restoration in between, until Empress Theodora finally ended it in 843.
But this wasn’t just about art or decoration. The iconoclasts claimed that making images of Christ was either impossible (because you can’t depict His divinity) or heretical (because you’re separating His two natures). They said venerating icons was idolatry, pure and simple.
The Church said no. If God became flesh, then flesh can reveal God. Matter can bear grace. The Incarnation changed everything, Christ took on a human body, a face, a form that could be seen and touched. To refuse to depict Him is to doubt that He really became man.
The Seventh Ecumenical Council met at Nicaea in 787 and settled the question. Icons can be venerated, not worshipped, but honored, because the honor shown to an image passes to the person depicted. When you kiss an icon of Christ, you’re not worshipping paint and wood. You’re venerating the Lord Himself through that window into heaven.
What Happened in 843
After another round of persecution under later emperors, Empress Theodora (ruling as regent for her young son) restored the icons for good. On the first Sunday of Lent in 843, there was a great procession in Constantinople. Icons were carried back into the churches. The faithful sang and wept. The Church had weathered the storm.
That day became the Sunday of Orthodoxy, the Triumph of Orthodoxy. It’s called that because the victory over iconoclasm came to represent the Church’s faithfulness to right belief in general, not just on this one issue.
How We Celebrate It Today
Walk into an Orthodox church on the first Sunday of Lent and you’ll likely see a procession with icons. Sometimes it’s at the beginning of Liturgy, sometimes during the service. We carry icons around the church, we venerate them, we sing hymns that recount the struggle and the victory.
Many parishes also read the Synodikon of Orthodoxy. It’s a formal proclamation that lists the saints and councils who defended the faith, and it anathematizes the heresies they fought against. You’ll hear names like St. John of Damascus, who wrote powerful defenses of icons while living under Muslim rule. You’ll hear the iconoclast emperors condemned. After each section, the people respond, making the sign of the cross, saying “Memory eternal” for the faithful or “Anathema” for the heresies.
It can feel intense if you’re not used to it. We don’t shy away from saying some teachings are wrong, some paths lead away from Christ. But that clarity is part of what the day celebrates: the Church knows what she believes and isn’t afraid to say so.
Why This Matters for You
If you’re coming from a Protestant background, you might’ve grown up thinking icons are Catholic weirdness or even idolatry. I get it. Most folks in Beaumont learned that the second commandment forbids images, end of story.
But the Church has always understood that commandment in context, it forbids idols, false gods, not images of the true God who became flesh. The Incarnation is the hinge. God didn’t stay invisible and untouchable. He became a man you could see, a man whose mother held Him, whose friends ate with Him, whose face was beaten and crowned with thorns.
Icons proclaim that same Gospel. They’re theology in color. They remind us that our bodies matter, that matter itself can be transfigured, that we’re being saved not out of creation but with it and through it. That’s the doctrine of theosis, we’re being united to God, and icons show us what that looks like. The saints’ faces shine with grace because grace has changed them.
So when we celebrate the Sunday of Orthodoxy, we’re celebrating the Incarnation. We’re celebrating the fact that God became man so fully, so really, that we can paint His face and know we’re painting something true. And we’re celebrating the Church’s refusal to back down when emperors and armies tried to make her deny it.
If you’ve never been to an Orthodox service, this would be a powerful Sunday to visit. You’ll see us carry icons, kiss them, sing about them. You’ll hear the Synodikon and get a sense of how the Church sees herself, not as one denomination among many, but as the continuation of what the Apostles founded and the councils defended. It’s not arrogance. It’s what we genuinely believe, and the Sunday of Orthodoxy is when we say it out loud.
