What Is It Truly to Be a Christian? - Sermon for the Sunday of the 7th Ecumenical Council (2026)

Today we commemorate the Holy Fathers gathered by the Holy Spirit at Nicaea in 787 to defend the Church against the accusations of the iconoclasts that the veneration of icons is idolatry, and to solidify the Apostolic tradition of the veneration of holy things. The Fathers of the Council made up a word to name the iconoclasts, which amounts to, “the accusers of Christians,” which they uttered constantly during the Council.

The implication of this name is threefold. First, true Christians both worship God and venerate men and objects filled with God’s grace. Second, Christians are accused of committing idolatry by venerating God-filled things. Third, those who do not venerate holy things and accuse Christians of idolatry are not Christians at all, but enemies of Christians, enemies of Christ, enemies of Christ’s work of deifying men.

This in itself is a condemning statement for the majority of those who call themselves Christians today. For those who are non-Orthodox that is. What is it truly to be a Christian? It is to adhere to the Apostolic preaching of who Christ is in both Scripture and Tradition. It is to adhere to the defense, elucidation, and clarification of this Apostolic preaching by the Spirit-gathered Ecumenical Councils of the Christian Church.

What is it truly to be a Christian? In essence, it is to adhere to the reality that God became man to deify man. The definitions regarding the Christian Faith explicated by the seven Ecumenical Councils defended this reality and its implications. The seven Councils form a sacred ladder preserved in the living history of the Church. They took place within half a millennium between 325 and 787. With detailed clarity they all answered the question posed by Jesus to His Apostles: “Whom do you say I, the Son of Man, am?” With the Apostle Peter they all answered, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” and they drew out the full meaning of what that means for us human beings.

The Fathers of the 1st Council condemned Arius who declared that the Son and Word of God did not always exist and was not fully God. They declared Jesus to be the fully divine uncreated Son of God. They declared Him to be born of Mary the Virgin by the Holy Spirit. They declared that this was for us men and for our salvation.

The Fathers of the 2nd Council condemned many heresies. Most famously, that of the Spirit-fighters who deprived the Holy Spirit of divinity. The Fathers declared the Holy Spirit to be equally worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son, thus re-affirming the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Less famously, but very notably, these Fathers also condemned the Apollinarians who declared Christ to be fully divine but deficient in the fullness of His humanity. They deprived Christ of a noetic and rational soul and thus taught that He only had the soul of an animal and not that of a man. The Fathers of the 2nd Council rather declared Jesus to be fully human, possessing a body and a noetic and rational soul. This implied that the Virgin Mary is truly the Mother of Christ the Lord. This implied that every aspect of our human nature was assumed, saved, purified, sanctified, and deified by the God-Man.

The Fathers of the 3rd Council condemned Nestorius who taught that the Son of God and Jesus the man were two separate persons simply brought together by a unity of will. This implied that Jesus was not the Son of God Who became man, as the Creed formulated by the 2 previous Councils infallibly declared, but that Jesus was simply the same as a prophet or saint, simply a deified man, not the deifying God-Man, and therefore unable to deify us men for our salvation. The Fathers of the 3rd Council declared that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God Who became man, and that He is one. They declared that the Virgin Mary is truly the Theotokos. They declared that God became man to deify us men.

The Fathers of the 4th Council condemned Eutyches and those who defended his false teaching that Christ’s divinity swallowed up and absorbed His humanity. The Fathers of the 4th Council declared that the One Lord Jesus Christ was perfect God and perfect Man, one Person in two natures, His divinity and humanity being perfectly unified without change, confusion, separation, or division.

The Fathers of the 5th Council re-affirmed the unity of Christ against the Nestorians and the incomprehensible duality of Christ’s natures against the Monophysites. They declared the Virgin Mary Theotokos to be Ever-Virgin—Virgin before, during, and after her birth-giving.

The Fathers of the 6th Council condemned those who said that Christ had only one divine-human energy and will. They declared that since Christ has two united natures—that of divinity and humanity—He also has two inseparably united minds, energies, and wills. This implies that divinity does not force salvation and deification on man and that humanity cannot obtain salvation and deification apart from divine activity.

The Fathers of the 7th Council condemned many heresies and declared many truths. They defended and re-affirmed seven Christian truths and realities iterated by the Apostles, Fathers, and six preceding Councils.

First, they declared the Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity. They declared the divinity to be one in essence. They declared that three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—possess the fullness of the divine nature. They safeguarded the essential Christian teaching and mystery. They proclaimed the Unified Trinity which cannot be logically understood but only humbly worshipped.

Second, the Fathers of the 7th Council declared the unity and duality of Christ. They declared Him to be the very Son of God, one of the Holy Trinity, Who became fully man.

Third, these Fathers upheld the honor due to the Virgin Mary—the Mother of Christ, the Mother of God, the very Theotokos, the Ever-Virgin. Similarly, these Fathers also upheld the honor due to all the Angels and Saints—the Angels for their purity and steadfastness against the temptation of Lucifer the fallen angel who made many angels fall; the Saints for their struggle and repentance which brought these men and women who were made in the image of God into the likeness of God through human striving and divine grace.

Fourth, these Fathers upheld that the Mother of God, the Angels, and Saints are to be called upon in our prayers to the Holy Trinity and Christ as bold intercessors beloved and heard by God.

Fifth, these Fathers upheld that the iconoclasts’ notion that the Eucharist is the only true icon of Christ is false. They upheld that the Eucharist is the very Body and Blood of Christ, that it is Christ Himself and not an icon of Christ.

Sixth, these Fathers upheld that the icons of Christ, the Mother of God, the Angels, and Saints are to be venerated. They declared also that the Cross and other holy things sanctified by the God-Man—such as the water of the River Jordan and the soil of the Holy Land—and the relics of the Mother of God and the Saints are to be venerated.

Seventh, these Fathers upheld that God became man to deify men. All of the six previous declarations uphold this truth.

First, the Son of God, one of the Holy Trinity, became fully man.

Second, He is one person in two united natures. His divinity fully permeates and deifies His humanity and therefore also our humanity which we share together with Him.

Third, Mary is truly the Mother of the God-Man and the Saints are truly deified men. They are therefore worthy of honor and in them we fulfill the command of the Holy Spirit given through the Psalmist: “Praise ye God in His Saints!”

Fourth, the Mother of God and the Saints are not dead but living, surrounding God, ever with God, deified by God, ever worshipping God and praying to God. Therefore, we must beg their prayers to God even more than we beg one another on earth to pray for us.

Fifth, Holy Communion is the very Body and Blood of Christ. It is the Supreme Miracle of God’s love for man. Through It we partake of the divine nature. It is not simply an icon or symbol of Christ, but Christ Himself in the fullness of His divinity and humanity. We must therefore approach with faith, fear, repentance, joy, humility, love, thanksgiving, and worship.

Sixth, everything touched by God—created things, and above all, the crown of created things, human beings—is sanctified by God, and therefore worthy of honor and veneration.

Seventh, we again understand through all these things the great love of God for man, His deification of our lowly human nature, His unconditional and unstinted offering of His very uncreated life to us for all eternity.

To summarize, the Fathers of the 7th Council safeguarded seven essential Christian truths: the Holy Trinity, the God-Man, the veneration of the Saints, the intercession of the Saints, the deifying Sacraments of the deifying Church, the veneration of holy things, and our deification.

What can we do but marvel and fall down in thankful worship? What can we do but glorify the Holy Trinity unceasingly, cling to Christ constantly, reverence all the Saints frequently, call upon them daily, ever prepare ourselves to commune worthily, reverence the Saints through their icons and relics humbly, seek to imitate them always, show honor to each other as images of God graced by God and all potentially saints of God, and to praise God for His incomprehensible generosity of deification?

What more can we do than to strive to partake of the life of the uncreated Trinity, that life which has no beginning nor end, that life which is incomprehensible? How can we fathom that God always was, is, and always will be? How can we fathom that God is uncreated, without creator, and infinite, let alone that the divinity exists in Three Persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

Let us constantly cry out, with the Fathers of the 7th Council and with all the Saints:

O Most Holy Trinity, have mercy on us!

O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us!

O Most Holy Theotokos, save us!

O all ye Angels and Saints, pray to God for us!

Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us!

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen!