A Day Now Also Used to Perform Orthodox Unity Across Jurisdictions

In countries such as the United States, where multiple self-governing Orthodox jurisdictions, Greek, Russian, Antiochian, Serbian and others, operate in the same cities without a single unified local hierarchy, the Sunday of Orthodoxy has become, since the later twentieth century, a customary occasion for joint pan-Orthodox vespers services bringing clergy and parishioners from these separate jurisdictions together in one place, a modern practical use of a feast originally about the restoration of icons to also perform and visibly demonstrate a shared Orthodox identity that the actual administrative structure of Orthodoxy in these countries does not otherwise make obvious to onlookers.

This layering of a modern unity gesture onto an ancient doctrinal commemoration sits comfortably with the feast's own original content, since the Synodikon read on the day already frames Orthodoxy as a single shared confession defended across time by many local churches acting together, so that a joint modern service drawing together jurisdictions with separate administrative histories but a common faith extends, in a very practical present-day form, the same claim to unity in doctrine the original 843 restoration was itself understood to vindicate.