A Better Procession

It is a recent custom in the Orthodox Church in North America that parishes in an area get together on the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy and process with their icons around the interior of one of their buildings.  It is fun.  But is it the best we can do?  No.

If you've read about the contest between the Orthodox and the Iconoclasts in the 8th century you know the processions of the monks carrying Icons was not in their church buildings.  Rather, their processions were through the cities, under the noses of the very people who denied the holy Icons.  They did this even under the threat of violence and death.  And they won.

Then why, here in North America, where no one will kill us for carrying Icons in public, do we process indoors.  Why, when we are surraounded by Christians who deny the holy Icons but usually out of ignorance not animus, do we keep the Light under a bushel?

Proposed: Next year, instead of processing in our church buildings we should process through our cities, past all the churches that deny the  holy Icons.