We ALL need to embrace change. Change does not mean dropping the essentials of the Christian faith, but allowing people to be more relaxed, writes Bede Gerrard, of the Greek Orthodox Church.

As an Orthodox Christian, I am aware that many people find it difficult when they see me venerating icons.

It is an act that brings me closer to God and to the saints represented in the icons.

The veneration of the icons is an affirmation of the incarnation – and it is that affirmation that is of the essence of Christianity. There are other examples I could give, and you probably have your own experiences of people who have not seen beyond an action to the truth it affirms. (Making the sign of the cross; turning east to say the creed, bowing the head at a doxology.) We need to change our attitudes so we do not deny anything that brings persons to God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Perhaps our touchstone for any theological proposition should be: ‘Does it affirm the Incarnation and bring me closer to God?’ It is true to say that there are sometimes things that I find helpful, which other people find distracting. Does this mean that I ought to stop doing those things? Probably not.

Let us change our hearts. Let us, like the servants in the gospel, wait for the appropriate time and then ‘do whatever he tells us to do’.

When they were told by Jesus to take the water to the chief steward at the feast, they did not know that it had become fine wine. They did it because it was His command. In our rationalistic Western culture we encourage questioning.

But is it always the correct thing to do? In the sayings of the Desert Fathers’ there are many instances of the benefits that flowed from instant obedience.

Once Abba Moses called the monks together and when their cells were inspected the manuscript of one novice had been left with the final letter incomplete. We learn how that novice went on to become a shining example of Christian life.

We all need to find the correct balance between questioning everything and questioning nothing.

We have examples in modern times too of people who have accepted the need for change.

Bishop Bell, preaching at the end of the War, said ‘The world is too strong for the Church to remain divided’. He appreciated the need for change, the need to ask the questions about what it is that keeps us separated from our fellow Christians. Can it be right that I insist upon having my bishop’s blessing to do a good work, but refuse to do it if it is your bishop who is giving the blessing?

I can remember when, as part of the editorial group for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, we were writing a litany of repentance. I had suggested the petition ‘For all the sins that tear apart your Church, forgive us, Lord’. I had thought it quite reasonable, but one member of the group said he could not pray for that. He said that in the 19th century the founder of his tradition, had been ‘raised by God to form the movement’ and so that split could not be considered to be sinful.

But, if we have not presented the Church as attractive and welcoming; we have sinned. If we have driven some people out of our tradition because they did not have the same political allegiances; then we have sinned. If we have made the theology so esoteric and unintelligible to others that they have drifted away; then we have sinned.

We need to pray that we can recognise our sinfulness and so be prepared to change. Grant us, good Lord, the grace to see our own sinfulness; and give us the desire to change.