Sunday 1st March saw the Melkite Greek Catholic parish of St John Chrysostom welcome the British Association of Iconographers to St Barnabas Church in Pimlico, Lonodn SW1, to celebrate the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the first Sunday in Lent in the Byzantine tradition.
Members of the Association displayed 30 icons in the Church prior to the Divine Liturgy, which concluded with the Procession and Blessing of the Icons, together with the Veneration of a new icon of the Theotokos commissioned for the parish.
The Sunday of Orthodoxy marks the end of the Iconoclast controversy with the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, which finally approved the veneration of images and relics within Christianity. The celebration of this milestone decision, integral to establishing orthodoxy about Christ’s humanity and divinity, his incarnation and resurrection, and hence the nature and purpose of created things, was fixed on the first Sunday of Lent at the Synod of Constantinople in 843.
Taking part in the Liturgy were the Society’s Chairman, Fr John Salter, and the Secretary, Fr Gary Gill.