The Sunday today, the first in the Lent, is also called the Orthodoxy Sunday, or of the right faith. Instituted in the 9th century, this feast is dedicated to the victory of faith both over those who did not worship the icons and over all the other heresies.

His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel showed in the sermon delivered today, 21 February, that the right faith means, first of all, confessing Jesus Christ as Son of God: “The right confession, or the right faith, does not mean confessing what we see with our bodily eyes, but what is beyond what we see with our bodily eyes, namely what we see with the spiritual eyes. Nathanail saw, with his bodily eyes, Jesus of Nazareth as a man, he saw a man limited in the space, having a temporary human body, but he confessed God unlimited and immortal, the eternal God, the Son of the eternal God, unlimited and unseen. So, he saw a man, with his bodily eyes and confessed God-the-Man; this is the right faith”, informs Trinitas Radio station.

The confessions of the truth on the divine nature of Christ and on His Resurrection are two essential requirements for reaching salvation. The confession as such is rewarded through the sight of the glory of the Kingdom of God beforehand.

His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel has also said that the unseen God who was seen is confessed through icons: “Orthodoxy is also the Church of the truth confessed through words and the true Church in which the faith is confessed through icons too, as visible form. This is why the icon is not a simple ornament in the Church, but the confession of our faith that the unseen Christ was seen. The One who had no body, incarnated in a human body for us, the humans, and for our salvation. In conclusion, whoever does not worship the icons cannot be an Orthodox, because the confession is done through word and icon as well”.