Sunday of Orthodoxy 2022 Fr. James Jorgenson

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and

of the Holy Spirit, amen. Glory be to Jesus Christ.

Today, the first week of Lent is, as I'm sure

you all know, the Sunday of Orthodoxy. On this

Sunday of Orthodoxy, really like every Sunday

of Orthodoxy in the past, there is much for us

to rejoice about. as well as much for us to pray

about. Let's look at the rejoicing first. Of

course, this day commemorates the restoration

of icons in the church that after 150 years,

we can't imagine how this iconoclasm tore the

church apart. for 150 years. The Seventh Ecumenical

Council in 787 gave us our definition of the

reason why we can venerate and should venerate

icons, but that wasn't the end of the story.

The final restoration of icons took place in

the year 843, and that didn't even solve the

issue completely because iconoclasm didn't really

peter out for at least another 30 years. We know

that at a council in 969, there was still an

issue. What do you do with iconoclastic clergy

who want to repent and join the church? Should

they be received as clergy or should they be

received as lay people? So we know that iconoclasm

was an issue even into the latter part of the

10th century. Much like Arianism, which brought

about the first ecumenical council, this issue,

who is Jesus Christ, and the issue of why do

we have icons, may we venerate them, these tore

the church apart. St. Jerome, after the Council

of Nicaea, St. Jerome even lamented. He remarked,

you know, the whole world groaned to find itself

Arian. So even after the Council of Nicaea, Arianism

for a while looked like it was gaining the upper

hand until that issue was definitively resolved

at the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople.

381, excuse me. So we have the fullness of orthodoxy,

how blessed we are, not only to have our Christian

faith, but to have our orthodox Christian faith,

that we can triumph in the fact and triumph with

humility. that we bear this truth in earthen

vessels, that we hold that faith which was transmitted

to us, preached by the apostles, and handed down

by the church fathers and the councils. So that

is the triumph that we have to humbly glory in

our Orthodox Christian faith. Okay, so what do

we have to pray for? For the peace of the whole

world, for the well -being of the holy churches

of God, and for the union of all, let us pray

to the Lord. How, a few weeks ago or a few years

ago, those words, that petition might just have

rolled out of our mouth without... Too much reflection.

But how important that is. Because just as heresy

tore the church apart during the time of Arianism

and iconoclasm, so what tears the church apart

nowadays? Factionalism. Nationalism. All these

things that we fought about for several centuries.

I remember when I first became Orthodox, almost

60 years ago, people would say, oh, Orthodox,

you mean Greek Orthodox, or what kind of Orthodox

are you? And I thought, man, when will we ever

get over this hump? And they still ask that question

now, oh, Orthodox, what flavor, so to speak?

What is the one church looks to some people like

several different churches, nations. Serbians

are different from Greeks, Ukrainians are different

from Russians. So we fought this issue about

fragmentation for quite a while. In, I'd say

within the last decade. it became even more intense

with the long -standing feuding between the Patriarch

of Constantinople and the Patriarch of Moscow

and between the church in Greece and the church

of Russia that this family feud, so to speak,

started gaining more momentum. And then now it

erupts. unfortunately, in the situation in Ukraine,

which is no longer just a family feud, but it's

a war between brothers. Years ago, when I was

teaching at a Roman Catholic seminary at a faculty

discussion, one of the priests, my colleague,

asked me very sincerely, he said, Father, What

really holds the Orthodox Church together? And

you know, that's a good question. And I said,

the Holy Spirit. Nobody else could. And that's

true. The Holy Spirit holds our church together.

But you know what also holds our church together?

Our adherence to this one faith, the faith of

the one holy Catholic and apostolic church. This

is what makes us one with Orthodox throughout

the world. Their problems, their issues, their

pains are our problems, issues, and pains. Because

we are not only members of the human race, but

we are members of the same family of Jesus Christ,

the Holy Church. So today, let us pray. for the

peace of the whole world, for the well -being

of the holy churches of God. That means that

they stay in good shape, that they get along

with one another, and for the union of all, that

the different Orthodox churches throughout the

world will be maintained in that oneness of faith,

and we can overlook pettiness in our church life

and realize that pearl of great price which we

have in the faith of the one holy catholic and

apostolic church thank you lord jesus for teaching

us and giving us faith in you and in your church

and save your church amen