On the first Sunday of Lent Orthodox Christians observe Triumph of Orthodoxy. The day signifies the importance of icons in the Orthodox religion and the defeat of iconoclasm. The iconoclasts were those Christians especially in the mid 700s to the early 800s who believed that images of the venerated (Christ, the Panagia, the Apostles) were in fact graven images prohibited under Mosaic law, and also misleading because the icons could not represent both the divine and the human nature of the Christ.
In the end, Byzantine iconoclasm was defeated at the Seventh Eucumenical Council at Nicea in 787.
On Skopelos the church Panagia Luvadiotisa is the place to be today because everybody who has an icon that they want to honor, they will bring it to this church and afterwards walk back to the town in a large procession.
[image from the British Museum]
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