We do not worship a creature. Far be the thought! For such an error belongs to heathens and Arians. But we worship the Lord of Creation, Incarnate, the Word of God. For if the flesh also is a part of the created world, yet it has become God’s body. And we neither divide the body, being such, from the Word, and worship it by itself, nor when we wish to worship the Word do we set Him far apart from the Flesh, but knowing . . . that “the Word was made flesh” (Jn 1:14) we recognize Him as God also, after having come in the flesh. ~St. Athanasius