Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council

On this day the Antiochian Orthros synaxarion commemorates “the holy and blessed Fathers who came together for the second time in Nicaea, during the reign of the pious and Christ-loving Sovereigns Constantine and Irene, against those who impiously, ignorantly and foolishly asserted that the Church of God worshippeth idols, and rejected the august and holy icons.” The verses read: “Thy champions, O Word, with words as their weapons, / Turn to flight the foes of the venerable icons.”

The Council met in 787 to refute the Iconoclast heresy, whose camp believed that all depictions of Christ, His Mother, and the saints should be destroyed. The iconophiles believed that icons served to preserve the doctrinal teachings of the Church, and they considered icons to be man’s dynamic way of expressing the divine through art and beauty. The council decreed that the veneration of icons was not idolatry (Exodus 20:4–5), because the honor shown to them is not directed to the wood or paint, but passes to the prototype, or the person depicted. It also upheld the possibility of depicting Christ, Who became man and took flesh at His Incarnation. The Father, on the other hand, cannot be represented in His eternal nature, because “no man has seen God at any time” (John 1:18).

The Dismissal of the Divine Liturgy names “the 367 Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council,” and the Orthros kontakion of the Fathers binds their dogma to the Gospel of the day: “Beholding Him, we deny not the image of His form; but depicting it piously, we revere it faithfully. And for this cause, the Church, in that it holdeth the true Faith, doth venerate the icon of Christ’s incarnation.” On a Sunday when the seed of the Word is sown into the soil of the heart, the Fathers stand as those who defended the Word made visible—Christ depicted because He truly took flesh.

On October 11 the Orthros also commemorates the Apostle Philip, one of the Seven Deacons. He is not to be confused with Saint Philip one of the Twelve Apostles (November 14). This Philip was born in Palestine, was married, and had children. After the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the Twelve Apostles made him a deacon in the Church of Jerusalem. Along with the other six deacons, they appointed him to deal with the offerings of the faithful and attend to the concerns of the widowed, the orphaned, and the needy. The eldest among the seven deacons was the holy Archdeacon Stephen.

When the persecution of Christians began and the Jews stoned the Protomartyr Stephen, the Apostle Philip left Jerusalem and settled in Samaria. There he successfully preached Christianity. Among his converts was the noted magician Simon, who “after being baptized, continued with Philip” (Acts 8:9–13). At the command of an angel of the Lord, Saint Philip set out upon the road connecting Jerusalem with Gaza. There he met an official of the empress of Ethiopia, whom also he converted to Christianity (Acts 8:26–39). He tirelessly preached the Word of God in many of the lands of the Near East adjoining Palestine. At Jerusalem the Apostles made him a bishop and sent him to Tralles in Asia Minor, where he also baptized many. Saint Philip died in old age.

Philip was himself a sower of the Word: in Samaria, on the Gaza road, and in Asia Minor he cast the seed of the Gospel into hearts that received it and bore fruit. His life is a living commentary on Luke 8:15—hearing the word, keeping it, and bringing forth fruit with patience.

The Orthros further commemorates Venerable Theophanes the Branded (Graptos), Confessor and Hymnographer, later Bishop of Nicaea. He was the younger brother of Saint Theodore the Branded (December 27). The brothers received an excellent education and were particularly involved in philosophy. Striving toward the knowledge of God, they settled in the Lavra of Saint Savva. There Saint Theophanes was tonsured and later became a hieromonk.

The holy brothers were famed as advocates of icon veneration. They boldly fulfilled the mission entrusted them by the Patriarch of Jerusalem and went to Constantinople to denounce the iconoclast emperor Leo the Armenian (813–820). Afterwards they also denounced the iconoclast emperors Michael Balbos (820–829) and Theophilus (829–842). The saints had to endure imprisonment, hunger, even torture. The emperor Theophilus gave orders to inscribe a phrase insulting to the glorious confessors upon their faces with red-hot needles. Therefore they are called “Branded.” “Write whatever you wish, but at the Last Judgment you shall read your own writing,” said the agonized brothers to the emperor. They sent Theodore to prison, where he died (+833), but Theophanes was sent into exile. With the restoration of icon veneration, Saint Theophanes was returned from exile and consecrated Bishop of Nicaea. He wrote about 150 canons, among which is a beautiful canon in defense of holy icons. He died peacefully around the year 850.

Theophanes is the Gospel’s “good ground” under fire: he received the word of the Incarnation with joy, endured the temptation of imperial persecution, and brought forth fruit with patience—canons, confession, and a face marked for the icons he refused to deny.

• He went out to sow His own seed: the word of teaching was His own, and not another’s. When He taught, He did not say, “Thus saith the Lord,” but, “I say unto you.” (Theophylact)
• Christ the Sower sows and teaches, and His word falls upon his listeners everywhere, and it is they who show themselves to be like a road, or a rock, or thorns, or good soil. (Theophylact)
• He who understands, and then disregards, deserves a more severe punishment. (Theophylact)
• That which it is impossible to see with the eyes of the body, the parable points out unto the eyes of the mind. (Cyril of Alexandria)
• It is not wealth that harms, but the cares and worries about wealth which fill the mind. (Theophylact)
• In rational things it is possible that the rock should be converted into a fruitful soil, the way not be trodden down, the thorns dispersed. (Chrysostom)
• Three parts, therefore, perish, and only one part is saved. Few are saved; most perish. (Theophylact)
• Those who bring forth fruit with patient endurance stand in contrast to those who are on the rock. (Theophylact)
• He verily is the Sower of all that is good, and we are His husbandry. (Cyril of Alexandria)

“A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold.” When He had said these things He cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (c. 1107)

What David said of old, speaking prophetically in the person of Christ, has now come to pass: “I will open My mouth in parables” (Ps. 77:2). The Lord speaks in parables for many reasons: to make His listeners more attentive and to stir up their minds to seek the meaning of what is said. For we are apt to be curious about sayings that are obscure in meaning and to disregard sayings that are clear. He also speaks in parables so that those who are unworthy may not understand what is said concerning spiritual mysteries.

A sower, therefore, went out, that is, the Son of God went forth from the Father’s bosom, from the hidden fastness of the Father, and became manifest to all. Who went out? He Who is ever sowing. The Son of God never ceases to sow in our souls. Not only by His teaching, but by all of creation and by the events of our daily lives, He plants good seed in our souls. He went out, not to slay trespassers or to burn off the stubble, but to sow. He went out to sow His own seed: the word of teaching was His own, and not another’s. The prophets had spoken, not their own words, but the words of the Holy Spirit. This is why they said, “Thus saith the Lord.” But Christ had His own seed to sow. When He taught, He did not say, “Thus saith the Lord,” but, “I say unto you.”

As He sowed, that is, as He taught, some seed fell along the road. He did not say that the sower threw the seed along the road, but instead that some fell there. Christ the Sower sows and teaches, and His word falls upon his listeners everywhere, and it is they who show themselves to be like a road, or a rock, or thorns, or good soil.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria (c. 444)

Concerning whom then did He thus speak? Evidently concerning Himself. For He verily is the Sower of all that is good, and we are His husbandry: and by Him and from Him is the whole harvest of spiritual fruits. And this He taught us when saying, “Without Me ye can do nothing.” Parables are the images not of visible objects, but rather of those cognizable by the intellect and spiritual. For that which it is impossible to see with the eyes of the body, the parable points out unto the eyes of the mind, beautifully shaping out the subtlety of things intellectual by means of the things of sense.

Saint John Chrysostom (c. 407)

Now His going, Who is everywhere, was not local, but through the vale of the flesh He approached us. But Christ fitly denominates His advent, His going forth. For we were aliens from God, and cast out as criminals, and rebels to the king, but he who wishes to reconcile man, going out to them, speaks to them without, until having become meet for the royal presence, He brings them within; so also did Christ.

Then His disciples asked Him, saying, “What does this parable mean?” And He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘Seeing they may not see, And hearing they may not understand.’”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (c. 1107)

When the disciples ask about the parable, the Lord says, “Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God”—that is, unto you who desire to learn, for everyone that asketh, receiveth (Mt. 7:8). To the others who are not worthy of the mysteries, He speaks obscurely. They think that they see, but they do not; they hear, but they do not understand. And this is to their benefit. The Lord hides these things from them so that they will not fall under greater condemnation for understanding the mysteries and then disregarding them. He who understands, and then disregards, deserves a more severe punishment.

Saint Gregory the Theologian (c. 390)

When you hear this you must not entertain the notion of different natures, as certain heretics do, who think that some men indeed are of a perishing nature, others of a saving nature. But add to the words, “To you it is given,” if willing and truly worthy.

Saint Basil the Great (c. 379)

Hearing has reference to the understanding. By this then our Lord stirs us up to listen attentively to the meaning of those things which are spoken.

“Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (c. 1107)

Here are described three types of those who are not saved. First, there are those along the way, who do not receive and accept the word at all. Just as a pathway, which is well trodden and compacted, cannot receive the seed because it is hard, so also those who are hardened in their hearts do not accept the word at all. Though they hear the word, they give it no heed.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria (c. 444)

As to the cause of the seed on the pathways being snatched away, we see in a moment that it is the hardness of the ground. A pathway always is hard and untilled, because it is exposed to every one’s feet, nor is any seed admitted into it, but lies rather upon the surface, ready for any birds that will to snatch it away. All those therefore, whose mind is hard and unyielding, and so to speak, pressed together, do not receive the divine seed: for the divine and sacred admonition finds no entrance into them. They have made themselves a beaten and trampled pathway for unclean demons, yea, and for Satan himself, such as never can bear holy fruit. Let those therefore awake, whose heart is sterile and unfruitful: open your mind, receive the sacred seed, be like productive and well-tilled soil, bring forth unto God the fruits that will raise you to an incorruptible life: guard your mind, shut the entrance against the thief, drive away from your hearts the flocks of birds, in order that the seed may abide with you.

“But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away.”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (c. 1107)

Next there are those on the rock who hear the word, and then do not endure temptations because of human weakness, and deny the faith.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria (c. 444)

For there are verily men whose faith has not been proved, depending on words simply, and not applying their mind to the examining of the mystery: of such the piety is sapless and without root. For when they enter the churches, they feel pleasure often in seeing so many assembled, and joyfully receive instruction in the mysteries from him whose business it is to teach, and laud him with praises: but this they do with no discretion or judgment, but with unpurified wills: and when they have gone out of the churches, at once they forget the sacred doctrines, and proceed in their customary course. But if persecution trouble them, and the enemies of the truth attack the churches of the Savior, their heart loves not the battle, and their mind throws away the shield and flees. But O ye fearful and infirm, why do ye flee from that which would be your glory? Do ye also struggle: twine the chaplet of manliness, thirst for the rewards of perseverance, for the honors of patience.

“Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity.”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (c. 1107)

The third kind are those who hear the word and then are choked by the cares of life. See that it is not said of those who are choked, that they are choked by riches, but rather by the cares of riches. It is not wealth that harms, but the cares and worries about wealth which fill the mind. Indeed, many have received great benefit from their wealth, when they poured it out to feed the poor.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria (c. 444)

For the Savior scatters the seed, which having obtained a firm hold in the souls that have received it, and already, so to say, shot up, and just begun to be visible, is choked by worldly cares, and dries up, being overgrown by empty occupations. In order therefore that the divine seed may blossom well in us, let us first cast out of the mind worldly cares, and the unprofitable anxiety which makes us seek to be rich. For immediately upon the possession of affluence, there run up, and, so to speak, forthwith hem us in, the basest wickednesses; profligate banquets, the delights of gluttony… music, and drunkenness… pleasures and sensuality, and pride hateful to God.

Saint John Chrysostom (c. 407)

For as the thorns do not let the seed grow up, but when it has been sown choke it by thickening round it, so the cares of this present life permit not the seed to bear fruit. But in things of sense the husbandman must be reproved who would sow amid thorns on a rock and the way side, for it is impossible that the rocks should become earth, the way not be a way, the thorns not be thorns. But in rational things it is otherwise. For it is possible that the rock should be converted into a fruitful soil, the way not be trodden down, the thorns dispersed.

“But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (c. 1107)

Three parts, therefore, perish, and only one part is saved. Few are saved; most perish. Consider the preciseness of the Evangelist, when he says of those who are saved, that when they have heard the word, they keep it, in contrast to those who are along the pathway, who do not keep the word; instead, the devil takes the word from them. And they bring forth fruit, in contrast to those who are choked by the thorns, and who bring no fruit to maturity. Those who bring forth fruit with patient endurance stand in contrast to those who are on the rock, who receive the word but then do not endure the onslaught of temptations. See how the Evangelist says three things concerning those who are saved, that they keep the word, that they bring forth fruit, and that they do so with patient endurance. By these three statements he distinguishes the saved from those who perish along the pathway who do not keep the word; those among thorns who bring no fruit to perfection; and those on the rock who do not patiently endure the assault of temptations.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria (c. 444)

This is the good seed, and worthy of admiration: the land rich and well productive, that brings forth fruit a hundredfold. For when the divine word falls upon a mind pure and skillful in cleansing itself from things hurtful, it then fixes its root deeply, and shoots up like an ear of corn, and so to speak, being strong in blade, and well flowered, brings its fruit to perfection.

Saint John Chrysostom (c. 407)

And to sum up many things in a few words. Some indeed as careless hearers, some as weak, but others as the very slaves of pleasure and worldly things, hold aloof from what is good. The order of the way side, the rock, and the thorns is well, for we have first need of recollection and caution, next of fortitude, and then of contempt of things present. He therefore places the good ground in opposition to the way, the rock, and the thorns.

Source: The Explanation of the Gospel of St. Luke, on Luke 8:4–15 (johnsanidopoulos.com reprint for the Fourth Sunday of Luke)

Theophylact is the most complete single Eastern voice across the pericope. He binds the Sower’s “going out” to the Incarnation—the Son going forth from the Father’s bosom—and insists that Christ sows His own seed, unlike the prophets who said “Thus saith the Lord.” His threefold contrast for the saved (keep / bear fruit / with patient endurance) against the three lost soils gives a preacher a clean frame. His pastoral distinction that it is the cares of riches, not riches themselves, that choke the word is especially usable.

Source: Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, Sermon 41 (trans. R. Payne Smith; johnsanidopoulos.com reprint)

Cyril’s sermon moves soil by soil with sustained pastoral address: “Let those therefore awake, whose heart is sterile”; “O ye fearful and infirm, why do ye flee from that which would be your glory?” He treats the rocky hearers as those whose piety is “sapless and without root,” who enjoy churchgoing in peacetime and flee when persecution comes. On the thorns he catalogs the vices that rush in with affluence. On the good ground he notes Matthew’s hundred-, sixty-, and thirtyfold as degrees of success corresponding to the three degrees of loss—echoing Paul’s “each one severally of us has his own gift from God.”

Source: Homily 44 on Matthew (on the parallel Parable of the Sower, Matthew 13); Catena extracts on Luke 8

Chrysostom’s decisive claim for the Luke reading is that souls can change: unlike literal rocks and thorns, “it is possible that the rock should be converted into a fruitful soil, the way not be trodden down, the thorns dispersed.” He also orders the three failures as a spiritual progression—first recollection and caution (against the wayside), next fortitude (against the rock), then contempt of things present (against the thorns)—so that the good ground stands as the opposite of all three.

Source: Three Treatises on the Divine Images (Apologia against those who decry the holy icons), especially Treatise I on the Incarnation

John of Damascus is the classic iconodule voice behind Nicaea II. Because the invisible God became visible in Christ’s flesh, an image of the Son is possible: when the Invisible One becomes visible to flesh, one may draw a likeness of His form. He does not worship matter itself but honors the Creator who became matter for our salvation; the honor shown to the image passes to the prototype. Read beside the Orthros kontakion of the Fathers and the Gospel’s seed that must be received and kept, Damascene supplies the doctrinal hinge of the feast without forcing a strained allegory onto Luke 8.

Source: Catena Aurea on Luke 8:5 (Greek-Father extract)

Titus stresses that Christ “receives not the word as borrowed, for He is by nature the Word of the living God. The seed is not then of Paul, or of John, but they have it because they have received it. Christ has His own seed, drawing forth His teaching from His own nature.” The point pairs with Theophylact and with the Fathers’ defense of depicting the Word who took flesh.

Theophylact and Cyril agree that the Sower is Christ Himself, and Theophylact presses the point that He sows His own seed: “I say unto you,” not “Thus saith the Lord.” On the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of Nicaea II, that claim is not abstract. The Council defended the possibility of depicting Christ precisely because the Word went forth from the Father’s bosom and took flesh. The Orthros kontakion of the Fathers sings what the parable assumes: “Beholding Him, we deny not the image of His form.” The seed sown into the heart is the word of the One who can be shown, because He became man.

Three parts perish and one is saved, Theophylact says bluntly: “Few are saved; most perish.” Yet Chrysostom refuses to treat the soils as fixed natures: rock can become fertile ground, the path can cease to be trampled, thorns can be cleared. Gregory the Theologian likewise forbids reading “to you it is given” as a doctrine of perishing and saving natures. The parable diagnoses; it does not imprison. The preacher who names the wayside, the rock, and the thorns in his hearers may also name the hope that any of them may yet become good ground.

Theophylact’s precision—“it is not said… that they are choked by riches, but rather by the cares of riches”—guards the parable from a simple attack on wealth. Many, he notes, have received great benefit from wealth poured out for the poor. Cyril catalogs the vices that rush in with affluence; Chrysostom places “contempt of things present” as the third spiritual need after recollection and fortitude. The Epistle’s charge to “maintain good works” and “meet urgent needs, that they may not be unfruitful” joins the same theme from the Fathers’ side: faith that is not barren.

Luke’s good ground is defined by three verbs Theophylact isolates: they keep the word, they bring forth fruit, and they do so with patient endurance. The rocky hearers receive with joy but do not endure; the thorny hearers hear but bring no fruit to maturity; the wayside never keeps the word at all. Patience (hypomonē) is therefore not an ornament of fruitfulness but its condition. Theophanes the Branded, enduring imperial branding for the icons, and the 367 Fathers holding the true Faith at Nicaea, stand as icons of that patient keeping.

“When Thou didst descend unto death, O Life Immortal, then didst Thou slay Hades with the lightning of Thy Divinity. And when Thou didst also raise the dead out of the nethermost depths, all the powers in the Heavens cried out: O Life-giver, Christ our God, glory be to Thee.”

Sung at the Little Entrance per the Antiochian Liturgy Variables: the Sower who went forth from the Father’s bosom is the Life Immortal who descended unto death and rose, the same Lord whose word the parable casts into the heart.

“Thou, O Christ, art our God of exceeding praise Who didst establish our Holy Fathers as luminous stars upon earth, and through them didst guide us unto the true Faith, O most merciful One, glory to Thee.”

Appointed after the Resurrectional Apolytikion on this Sunday: the Fathers of Nicaea II are named as stars who guided the Church to the true Faith—the Faith that the Word took flesh and therefore may be depicted, and that the seed of that Word is to be kept in an honest and good heart.

“O protection of Christians that cannot be put to shame, mediation unto the Creator most constant, O despise not the suppliant voices of those who have sinned; but be thou quick, O good one, to come unto our aid, who in faith cry unto thee: Hasten to intercession, and speed thou to make supplication, thou who dost ever protect, O Theotokos, them that honor thee.”

Appointed in the Antiochian Liturgy Variables for this Sunday: the Church asks the Theotokos for the aid that rocky and thorny hearts most need—protection and intercession for those who have sinned and whose fruit has not yet matured.

“The Son Who shone forth from the Father ineffably was born, twofold of nature, of a woman. Beholding Him, we deny not the image of His form; but depicting it piously, we revere it faithfully. And for this cause, the Church, in that it holdeth the true Faith, doth venerate the icon of Christ’s incarnation.”

Read at Orthros before the synaxarion: the feast’s doctrinal center in a single stanza—Incarnation, image, true Faith—binding the Fathers’ dogma to the Sower who is Himself the Word made visible.

“Blessed are Thou, O Lord, the God of our Fathers. / For Thou art just in all that Thou hast done to us.”

Chanted before Titus 3:8–15: the Church names the God of the Fathers as the One who is just in all His deeds, then hears Paul’s charge that those who have believed should maintain good works and not be unfruitful—the Epistle’s echo of the good soil.