Page 54 - AlNashra issue 2 - 2023

53 Issue 2 - 2023

be justified solely through prayer or abstinence calls it the Sunday of Orthodoxy (righteousness

from sin without also restricting the body from and glorification), as on this day we proclaim

non-Lenten foods. All these elements (abstinence the correct doctrine of icons, by which I mean
from non-Lenten foods, prayer, and continuous
repentance) complement each other, and they the doctrine of the veneration of icons.

must come together in fasting in order for the You know that the icon is linked to the

fasting to be right. This is because a person is incarnation. We depict the Lord Jesus after He

a body and a soul together, and during fasting, was incarnated and became man, and we depict

the fasting person presents himself to God in with Him the Theotokos, the Virgin Mary, and
his entirety, as soul and body, and does not offer
just a single part. Fasting is the fasting of the the rest of the saints. While we do not portray

human being in his or her entirety, and this the hypostasis of the Father, as He has no body.
wholesome act makes it a path of holiness. In Likewise, the icon is associated with light. For

the time of fasting, the faithful should resemble when we depict the saint iconographically, we

the bride coming to the church for the crowning depict him as he exists in glory, in the divine

ceremony. On the wedding day, the bride comes light, which is symbolized by the circular halo
to the church wearing a white gown and a long that crowns the head. The icon also points the
white veil, symbolizing purity and purification.
Thus, during fasting, the fasting person presents position of each saint in his icon, his to the

himself to the Lord as soul and body, white and event that is related to one saint. From here, the

pure, asking for the Lord’s mercy and praying iconographer evokes the event and depicts it in

for all of us, so that the Lord may include us in images. In other words, the iconographer writes it

His mercy and that we may be among all those in an image. Therefore, we call the iconographer

who from the beginning of the world have been a writer and identify him or her as such, that is,
well pleasing to Him.
the writer of icons. For this reason, we consider

Q: Your Beatitude, we would like to hear an the icon a school. And it is so because, through

explanation regarding the first Sunday of our prayers before it and our contemplation of

Great Lent. it, and our reading of what it represents, the icon

A: The first Sunday of Great Lent is the Sunday teaches us a lesson related to either the life of the

of the Veneration of Icons, and the Church also saint or his teaching, or both.