“If there is no icon, there is no salvation"  

Victories And Icons

The Sunday of Orthodoxy is a Sunday of victories and icons. But behind the various victories of the Church over heresies and persecutions in her historical life, stands one decisive Victory – the Victory of all Victories – the decisive Victory won by Christ on the Cross. In the eyes of the world, the Cross was utter defeat. But by the power of God, that defeat destroyed death and re-created the world – making it capable of containing and reflecting the divine glory in the Church’s icons and in the lives of its members. If the Cross is the power and victory by which the Church lives and overcomes all difficulties, it is also the most perfect icon of God. “God is love,” writes the Apostle, and nowhere else is the love of God more clearly and perfectly manifested than the Cross of Christ. The Cross is the vision of God. Through it, Christ is fulfilled as the pure “icon of the invisible God” (Col. 1: 15). If we want to see God, we must gaze upon the Cross. Any other “vision” of God is false, devoid of truth and power. Through His Cross, Christ reveals the bottomless depths of the love of God – that love which destroys death and which is the power by which all evil is overcome. -FMK