|
The Beauty of the Saints
 Very Rev. Ihor Kutash
Holy
Defenders of Icons: Sts. Procopius and Basil of the Decapolis and
Theodore and Theophan the Branded
One of
the Saints on the stationary yearly Church Calendar today is St.
Procopius the Confessor from the Decapolis (“Ten Cities”) surrounding
the Sea of Galilee for which he was called the Decapolite. This
coincides beautifully with the mobile Paschal Calendar for today is also
the Sunday of Orthodoxy on which we commemorate the victory of Icons, by
which the Lord’s Incarnation is confirmed, proclaimed and celebrated.
As were
a good many of the defenders of Icons Procopius was a monk. In fact the
struggle for icons may be called “the struggle of the monks against the
emperors” for it was the Byzantine emperors who initiated and prolonged
the battle against Icons (and against monasticism while they were at it)
for over a hundred years: 725-842 – although there were times of respite
for the iconophiles during this era. And the monks offered their
prayers, their exhortations, their fasting and their lives as a witness to
the Incarnate Lord, True God and True Man, Who has graciously taken on
our nature and thus become visible, touchable and perceivable – as God
was not before the Incarnation which took place within time as well as
cosmically, i.e. transcending time.
Procopius devoted himself to a life of asceticism from his youth, and
accomplished all prescribed efforts, by which the heart is purified and
the spirit elevated to God. When the persecution of Icons was initiated
Emperor Leo the Isaurian, Procopius rose up in their defense. He was
joined by a brother monk, St. Basil, commemorated tomorrow as “The
Companion of St. Gregory of the Decapolis”. They proclaimed, along with
their brother monastics, that the veneration of icons is not idolatry.
Christians know that when they honour icons they do not either bow down
or honor the lifeless material with which they are made but rather honor
the ever-living Lord, the Theotokos and the Saints who are depicted on
the icons.
Because
of that, Procopius, was arrested along with Basil. He was brutally
tortured and flogged and, since Icons are written with a brush, his body
was scraped with an iron brush. After the death of Emperor Leo a time of
peace came for the defenders of Icons and Procopius returned to his
monastery where he spent the remainder of his days in peace, reposing in
the Lord around 750. In old age, he was translated into the kingdom of
God where he gazes with joy upon the living angels and saints, whose
images on icons he honored on earth.
When
another Leo (The Armenian) ascended the throne in 813 the persecution
began again with full force. Among the monastic defenders of Icons at
that time were the brothers Theodore and Theophan. As a punishment for
their zeal, a twelve-line verse mocking Icons was tattooed upon their
faces, so these heroic confessors have entered the Church Calendar as
the Grapti, i.e. the Branded. St. Theophan survived the Iconoclasm,
which was finally ended by Empress Theodora in 842, when the annual
Sunday of Orthodoxy was instituted, and reposed as the Bishop of Nicea
where the First (325) and Seventh (787) Ecumenical Councils were held.
The first had proclaimed the truth of the Incarnation, teaching that the
Son is “consubstantial” with the Father and the last affirmed it by
proclaiming that the Incarnate One may be depicted and venerated in
Icons. |
