This Sunday is called the “Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy” (Orthodoxy – right worship and glorifying of God) over all heresies; which are wrong opinions of demonic inspiration in collaboration with the pride and self-opinion of some Christians (even patriarchs, popes, synods, priests, monks or believers) who have distorted and altered the meaning of the Faith as revealed by God through His prophets and miracles and especially through the coming into the world of His Son, Jesus Christ, the God-Man and the Holy Spirit who founded His Church. The purpose of God’s revelations are for man to understand where he comes from, where he is going, what he must believe in, and what he must do to save his soul. The moment that the correct meanings revealed by God change, then man begins to walk in the wrong direction, which no longer leads him to the salvation of the soul but to his perdition.

The human mind is infested with passions, blindness, lack of clarity and correct perception of things of this life and especially of the spiritual life. Man becomes mentally ill because of misconceptions about life and the world, which do not come from divine revelation, or which come from a poorly transmitted or altered revelation. Heresy is blasphemy against God. 

Many ask the legitimate question, how do we know that the divine revelation is kept in the Orthodox Church?

God revealed the way to Him from the first peoples, to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the 12 Patriarchs of the Hebrews. God then revealed Himself to Moses in the unburnt bush in the wilderness of Sinai, the bush that was burning but was never consumed by the flames. And these divine revelations always had messages in contradiction with the “gods of the Gentiles” (called demons by the psalmist David). These are called false gods and idols, from whom the people of Israel were protected by distinct separation from all that was not revealed by God. 

The Old Testament is full of divine revelations that confirm the New Testament. The New Testament naturally confirms the Church and is confirmed by the Church and teachings of the Holy Fathers, who have the same enlightenment as the Prophets and the Apostles. The Church of Christ, that is the Holy Spirit in the Church, used and continues to use this method as in the Old Testament to separate the idolaters and those with heretical opinions from the Church so as not to infect the whole body of the Church with false beliefs. The Saints used anathemas to cut off heresies and those who teach them from the Body of the Church; it is an alarm signal that they are outside divine revelation and salvation, and must return to the Truth.

The anathema is the greatest proof of God’s love for those caught in heresy because it gives them a warning. It is like the nervous system of the human body, using pain as an alarm signal. The word ANATHEMA does not mean a curse but means “outside the borders of the Truth, of the Church.” The proclamation of anathemas by the clergy and believers that warns of these heresies, acts as a cure of this disease of the mind, and re-establishes strength in the Orthodox soul. It also awakens the conscience of the heretics to their heresy and prompts a return to the Church. The Holy Apostle Paul calls heresy “turning of the Truth of God into a lie.” Anathema is neither hatred, nor curse, nor insult or contempt, nor slander, but it is God’s medicine for fallen humanity for the sin of changing the revealed Truth. Anathema means that those ideas and persons are outside the boundaries of the Church. Anathema has a pedagogical role for Orthodox Christians to clearly demarcate between the revealed divine Truth and the falsehood of human ideas called heresies or human opinions not based on revelation.