One of the unique liturgical features of this first Sunday of Lent, the celebration of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, is the proclamation of the anathemas. This rite is generally performed only with the bishop presiding and entails a solemn condemnation of various heretics and their errors.
What is the purpose of these anathemas? The anathemas are not proclaimed “from the housetops” (Matt. 10:27), but inside the temple. Their pronouncement is not a condemnation of those outside, whose judgement we leave up to God’s righteousness and mercy (1 Cor. 5:13). The purpose of the anathemas, rather, is to instruct us, those present in the temple, concerning the sacred doctrines of the Orthodox faith and to guide us along the true path taught in Christ’s holy Gospel.
Hence, we affirm that on this Sunday, as during the remainder of the Great Fast, our spiritual focus is on our own life in Christ. When we hear the anathemas, we are called, as always, not to attend to the speck in our brother’s eye, but to the plank in our own (Matt. 7:3–5): our own failures to believe, to trust, and to follow the truth that has been revealed to us.