When we read the martyrologies of our Church, that is
the books which describe the life and the martyrdom of Saints,
we meet very frequently the phrase that the martyr “did not
sacrifice to idols or did not worship the idols” or that the
martyr “mock at the idolaters for the false idols they adore” or
that the martyr “used an artifice to reveal the false religion
of the idols”.
Finally, we face and meet very often the word idol. In
Greatmartyr George’s martyrdom, there is a whole artifice which
Saint used in the idol’s temple, in order to reveal their
deceit. I will not narrate it, I just mention it to you, so that
whoever wants and is interested can read the martyrdom of the
Saint and enjoy the event. But I would like to explicate
slightly the meaning of the word idol and if nowadays the
idolatry exists.
When it is made mention of the idol in the Christian
literature, we mainly mean this material object or person or human’s creation in which are rendered
divine properties and indeed the man approaches and honours
it with devotional attitude. That is a tree, an animal, a stone,
a mountain, a river or a person is presumed sine qua non for the
salvation and the happiness of the man. The man pins his faith,
plan and expectancy on this object or person. He devotes to it
and he is sacrificed for it, apart from honouring and adoring
it. In other words, the man sees in the idol his Saviour.
The major inciter and begetter of human’s tendency to the idols is the devil
himself. He is who first made himself an idol and adored
himself as God, revolting against real and true God. He is who
abetted and nourished the first human beings on the tendency for
“will worship” (Col. 2, 23), that is the rejection of real God
and the idolization of what our ego likes, with subjective and
not objective standards. He is doing this, because suffering
from unrestrainable and incurable pride, he wants to be adored
by humans as God and to domineer them and bully them even though
with indirect way, without appearing himself. For this reason,
the Holy Bible considers the idolaters’ gods as demons; “the
gods of the nations are idols” (Psalms 96, 5) and because of
that he writes to Pergamos’ bishop (Revel. 2, 13) “I know thy
works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is”. He
says that because Pergamos was idolatrous to the extremity of
herself, with plurality of temples and altars, hence in fact
devil reigned.
Also, the devil is the one who incites the tendency
to be enslaved on our passions and instead of domineer our vehemences and our
instincts, we are domineered by them and even they bully us with
an unendurable, disastrous and meanwhile degrading way
sometimes. For this reason, many times we meet expressions in
ascetic and Father’s texts like “the demon of prostitution,
gormandism, miserliness” and other similar to them. There are
also cases we read in the legendaries that when some saints
busted the idols with miracles, voices and screams sounded
through them. It was God’s concession to be an undisguised
evidence that behind the idol of the fake god was the devil.
Therefore, the man who adores the idols in fact he adores the devil.
But let the thought that idolatry and devilism was past
times’ problem cross our minds. Unfortunately, it existed, it
exists and it will always exist. Nowadays, there are witches,
mediums, astrologers, devilish adorations and superstitions,
too. The movies with relative content are in the centre of people’s tastes and they
meet with success. Harry’s Potter books and movies are a
seasonable and characteristic example.
Also, the tendency in which the man banishes God from his
life and from his civilization and takes the art, the technique, the technology, the up-to-date discoveries, the
politics, the several philosophical streams, the humanism for granted and thinks that he can
substitutes God for all these, is nothing but idolatry and indeed in
her most dangerous and primeval form. It is the rebirth of the
first human beings’ case to become god without God, it is the
rebirth of the humans’ attempt to reach the sky alone with the
tower of Babel and it is the will worship for which Paul writes
in his epistle to the Colossians.
Even the loyal people are sometimes and in some measures idolaters. When we
banish God from the centre of our heart and we mortgage or pin
our faith on our personal abilities, either on our social
prestige and our success, or on our children or on our husband
or on our wife; when we do not rely on God’s Providence; when we
feel all the time and without cessation stressed, desperate and
atrabilious; when we want to “make the shoe fit the foot” and
make God as we want Him; when we do not endure the difficulties
and the temptations, which God allows in our life; when we want
“in any way” to subordinate God in our will and not be
subordinated in his will; Then we are also idolaters and we
adore the big idol, ourselves.
A nut case of idolatry is also when we deify the
politicians, artists, actors, singers or our party or our team
or in the case of the “faithful” people, when we deify our
old-man and spiritual father.
We must avoid all these cases of idolatry, conscious or
unconscionable, if we want to be right and real Christians and
if we want indeed to honour the martyrs who martyr in order to
fall the idolatry.
