Saint Nicolai Velimirovich
As an Orthodox believer you’d like to defend your faith against those hired ones who had denied their own nation and faith out of their impetus of Judas. They tell you that the icons are idols and worshipping them is against the second commandment of God.
It then turns out that true Christianity is idolatry! This is what sectarians say who appeared in the world only about a century ago!
Ask them: who destroyed the idols from the Balkans? Who emptied Athens and Rome of their statues and temples? Who took down Jupiter, Diana of Ephes, Astarte from Babylon, Isis from Egypt? Who took down Perun from the hill of Kiev and threw it in Dnieper? Who cleared of idols Asia Minor, North Africa and the entire Europe? Were they these new sectants or the Great Church of Christ that gave millions of martyrs in the cruel fight against idolatry and filled its calendar with the names of these martyrs for the faith in the Only True God? Their sect has no martyrs for the faith in Christ and didn’t destroy any idol in the entire world. They don’t even have a Christian calendar. And even if they had it, they could not include in it anything else but their lampoonists and pamphleteers. If they care about the fight against idolatry what are they doing in the Balkans where pagan idols are found only in museums? If their hearts are burning with zeal against idols, why don’t they go in Asia and Africa and among the American Indians where paganism is unfortunately at power just as it was one thousand years ago? Obviously they don’t go there because in those lands the life of a missionary is in danger. You read about Don Quixote who considered the mills of the peaceful people as fortified castles of his enemies and attacked them armed for war wanting to defeat them. In the same way the sectants proclaimed our holy icons as idols and attack them as if they were mad – because they don’t want to go in the Asian and African jungle.
You should know that as it differs day from night, the Christian icons differs from the pagan idols.
The idols are representations of imaginary beings while the icons are representations of saints who lived on earth for real. They glorified Christ by their faith and they became worthy of the Heavenly Kingdom of God. There is an illusion, here’s reality. There is a lie, here’s only the truth. The idols separate the man from the true God while the icons lead him to the True God. By His second commandment the Creator wanted to drive the men away from what separates them of Him, fencing them off from all lies, and demonic illusions.
Source: Answers at the questions of the world of nowadays, vol. I, Sophia Publishing House, 2002, Saint Nicolai Velimirovich
