The Orthodox Church is known for
venerating the Saints, adoring the interior of the Church with countless icons
dedicated to them. Every day of the year is a celebration of a certain Saint.
Also the Orthodox show a great importance to the Nameday (the day we venerate a
certain Saint), in contrast to the Birthday, which takes second place. Why do
the Orthodox venerate the Saints? St John of Damascus gives a brief exegesis of
this reality, claiming:
“We ought to honour the saints as
friends of Christ, as sons and heirs of God, as John the Theologian and
Gospel-writer says: ‘As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become
sons of God.’[1]
‘Wherefore they are no more servants, but sons; and if sons, also heirs of God
through Christ’[2].”[3]
[1]
John 1, 12.
[2]
Gal. 4, 7.
[3]
Cavarnos, Constantine, Byzantine Sacred
Music, (Massachusetts, Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies,
1981), p.13.
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