Holy New Martyr ’Ahmad the Calligrapher of Constantinople

Saint ’Ahmad of Constantinople

The third of May is the feast day, in the Orthodox Church, of Saint ’Ahmad the Calligrapher of Constantinople. Saint ’Ahmad is a particularly interesting case, being a convert to Orthodox Christianity from Islâm in the heart of the sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire. He is also a beautiful example of how conversion can happen merely at the will of God rather than at the will of man, without any obvious design or desire or missionary ideology at work, let alone any violence or coercion.

’Ahmad [Ar. ’Ahmad أحمد‎, Turk. Ahmet] was raised by observant Muslim parents in seventeenth-century Constantinople – then already called Istanbul by its Turkish conquerors. According to some hagiographical sources, his surname was Kalpes. He was well-educated enough to find employment in the government as a defterdâr دفتردار or book-keeper, and rose to the position of Scribe of the Second Rank in the Chancellery of the Sultân, working in the Great Archives.

He was not married, but according to the legal customs of the Turkish capital, he was able to take a concubine – a Great Russian woman who had been taken captive in one of the wars between the Russians and the Tatars. His concubine was attended by an elderly maidservant who was also a slave. Both of these women were devout Orthodox believers. And as seems to have been typical of ‘mixed marriages’ of this kind, he allowed the two of them to practise their Orthodox faith freely. Thus, the two Russian women of his household attended Liturgy on feast-days in particular. The old woman went more frequently, and she brought back the antidōron back from the Church for her mistress to eat, as well as holy water for her to drink.

’Ahmad would sometimes approach his woman after she had partaken of the blessed bread and holy water. When he did so, he noticed an indescribably sweet fragrance emanating from her mouth. He would ask her what she had been eating to make her smell so sweet. But the Russian woman, unaware that she was doing anything different than usual, would tell her husband that she was not eating anything out of the ordinary. But ’Ahmad continued to notice the sweet fragrance whenever he came near her after she ate the antidōron. It wasn’t long before she put two and two together, and told him that she was eating the bread that had been blessed by the Orthodox priest from the Church, which the elderly servant brought back to her from the Liturgy.

The curiosity of her husband was aroused by this revelation, and in secret he summoned a Greek priest to their home and asked him to prepare a place in the Church where he might observe in secret how this bread was baked and prepared, and distributed amongst the faithful. ’Ahmad began attending services in secret like this for some time, dressing himself in a blue turban and humble garments of dark colours, and observing all that went on in the Church. He even attended Patriarchal Liturgies, and when the Patriarch – at that time it would have been Iakōvos – was behind the altar ’Ahmad beheld him shining with light and buoyant, levitating with his feet off the floor. When the Œcumenical Patriarch came out from behind the Royal Doors to bless the people, he saw rays of light emanate from his hands and fall upon all the congregants. None of this light, however, fell upon him. This happened over several such Liturgies. In this way ’Ahmad grew to embrace the Orthodox faith. He summoned the priest again, and asked to be baptised – and the priest, seeing his sincerity, obliged him. ’Ahmad practised Orthodoxy for a time in such secrecy that only God and the priest who baptised him know which name he took for himself; that is not known to us in the present day.

Being a scribe in the Chancellery meant that his position was coveted by many – including the Scribe of the Third Rank who was below ’Ahmad in the office of the Chief Secretary. Also, it meant that his attendance was required at dinners and formal functions of the Ottoman government. At these functions, where food was plentiful and the atmosphere eventually grew relaxed as the nargileh (hookah) was passed around, the envious Third Rank Scribe would often make insinuating comments to the Secretary about the piety and suspect opinions of ’Ahmad – who of course had not come to mosque with any regularity since becoming a Christian.

It fell out that, as he and the other dinner-guests were smoking the nargileh at one of these government functions in late April of 1682, the conversation turned toward what one thing in the world was greatest. The first of the guests ventured forth the opinion that the greatest thing of all was wisdom. Another opined that the greatest thing was a fine woman. And still another offered the opinion that a well-prepared pilaf with yoghurt was of course the best thing, for was that not the food that was offered in Paradise? When the thread was passed to ’Ahmad, he could not contain his burning love for the Faith, and he proclaimed that faith in Christ was the greatest thing in the world. In a calm and reasoned voice he delivered himself of the truth that Christ had risen in the body from the dead and had conquered death – could there be anything greater? At this the other guests began to berate him and accuse him of blasphemy, and they seized hold of him and dragged him before a judge on the charge of apostasy.

The judge, or qâḍî قاضٍ, who heard his case, asked him if he had indeed apostatised from Islâm, and ’Ahmad answered truthfully that he had been baptised into the Orthodox Church and proclaimed the Faith after his conversion experience during the Patriarchal Liturgy. He hoped also that his accusers and those who envied his position would also come to receive the fullness of this Truth. This being said the qâḍî was compelled to throw him into gaol, where he was to be deprived of food and water for six whole days.

’Ahmad was hauled out from his prison and brought before the same qâḍî. But instead of finding him weakened and cowed at his treatment in the prison, they found instead that his resolve had been strengthened by his fast. They brought him before the court of the Sultân himself, and the Chief Secretary declared that the sentence for apostasy was death by beheading. ’Ahmad declared himself ready and even joyful at facing such a death. The sentence was passed down and the martyr was beheaded on the third of May, 1682. Saint ’Ahmad’s remains were committed to the sea near the Bosporus, and that place where his body washed ashore was for a week bathed in a divine light. Holy new martyr ’Ahmad, confessor of the true Faith among the Ottomans, pray unto Christ our God for the salvation of our souls!

Venerable Pafnutii, Abbot of Borovsk

Saint Pafnutii of Borovsk

Today is International Labour Day, the first of May, the anniversary of the Haymarket Affair in Chicago. There is going to be a strike for hazard pay and safer working conditions in several major cities across the United States, staged by essential food service, retail and tech industry workers who are compelled to continue working during the pandemic. To those seeking recognition and a better work environment: I stand in solidarity with you and support your struggle!

It is also the commemoration in the Orthodox Church of Prophet Jeremiah who preached of just wages for the workman and comfort for the orphan and widow; of 79 monastic martyrs at Sînâ’ and at-Tûr in Ægypt; of the holy queens Berhte of Kent and Tamara the Great of Georgia. It is also the feast-day of a great monastic saint of Russia, the venerable Saint Pafnutii of Borovsk. Saint Pafnutii was the spiritual father and tutor of the future abbot, monastic teacher and social-justice advocate Saint Iosif of Volokolamsk.

Saint Pafnutii [or Paphnutius], in the world Parfenii [or Parthenius], was born in Kudinovo in the year 1395. Pafnutii’s grandfather was a Tatar, a basqaq (or ‘tax collector’) of the Golden Horde under Batu khaghan. When the Russians rose up in a revolt against the Horde, they took Ivan’s father hostage, and instead of killing him they offered him the choice of taking on the Orthodox faith. Pafnutii’s grandfather took this option and was baptised in a bathhouse, taking the Christian name of Martin.

Ivan, the son of the baptised Tatar Martin, had a homestead in Kudinovo which he inherited from his father, and there married a Russian woman named Photini. The two of them were poor, but they honoured God. And even with what little they had, they were still renowned for giving with an open hand to those who had less, much like the widow at the Temple with her two small coins. Photini became pregnant and bore a son, whom they called Parfenii. Even as a small child Parfenii was of a mild and sweet temper, and had a character which inclined toward the Church. He wanted to study the Holy Scriptures, and his father allowed him to do so at the nearby monastic school in Borovsk. As he studied the Scriptures, he not only learned to read and gained this worldly knowledge, but he also grew in character: his hagiography tells us that in this study he became meek, humble and chaste, not entering into idle chatter or evil gossip, but instead speaking only when he had something meaningful to say.

When young Parfenii was twelve years of age, he begged his parents’ leave from home to go and study full-time at Borovsk. Though Ivan and Photini were unhappy to part from their beloved son, they saw how earnest he was and let him go. He went to the Monastery of the Protection of the Mother of God on the outskirts of Borovsk. There the abbot placed the young lad under the discipline of an elderly, blind priestmonk named Nikita, who had himself been under obedience to the great Saint Sergii the Wonderworker of Radonezh. Father Nikita had himself been an abbot in Serpukhov, but had given the office to another and retired to Borovsk on account of his great old age and failing eyesight. As a novice under Father Nikita, Parfenii spent seven years in obedience. He served the old man faithfully and in a spirit of love, also acquiring the monastic virtues. At the end of that seventh year, the Abbot Markell of the Protection Monastery tonsured Parfenii and bestowed upon him the monastic name of Pafnutii.

As a monk he spent twenty years further, glorifying Christ by working with his hands, struggling against the passions, and obeying whatever his brother-monks desired him to do. When Abbot Markell reposed in the Lord in the year 1434, the brothers of Protection Monastery began to desire that Pafnutii be appointed as his successor. Pafnutii was unwilling, but he was prevailed upon by the prince of Borovsk, Simeon Vladimirovich, as well as the Metropolitan of all Rus’, Saint Photius, to accept the abbacy. Indeed, it was Saint Photius himself who ordained Pafnutii a priest and bestowed the office of rector upon him.

Abbot Pafnutii was blessed with keen insight, and he laboured hard not only in the offices of the church and in private prayers at night, but also to care for his flock of monks. It happened early in his abbacy that he had occasion to send one of the young monks to the village for supplies. In the village this young monk met a pretty girl and they fell into fornication. That night, Abbot Pafnutii dreamed about a delightful orchard full of fruit-trees, but as he was delighting in them, he noticed that one of the fruit-trees had cracked, split in two, and fell to the ground in front of him. Distressed, the abbot heaved up the fallen trunk, bound it together and began to fill in the earth around it. But the tree fell over again. Pafnutii did not give up, but each time took the fallen splinters of the tree and placed them in the orchard earth, no matter how many times it fell over.

When at last he awoke, Abbot Pafnutii began to understand what his dream meant. The orchard was his monastery, and the fruit-trees were his monks. The fallen tree was a brother who had sinned. It was not long after that the brother who had fell into fornication with the girl in the village returned from his errand. Appearing before the abbot, his face was darkened with shame and grief at his sin. The abbot asked him what was wrong, but the young brother could not speak, neither could he look into Saint Pafnutii’s eyes. But Pafnutii – neither angry nor condemning – took pity on the boy, drew him out from the presence of the other monks, and began to take patient counsel with him. After Pafnutii’s gentle but stern admonitions, the boy confessed to what he had done.

Abbot Pafnutii gave the boy a long regimen of penitence to perform. However, he continued to keep a close watch on him, because the tree in his dream had fallen and needed replanting more than once. Fornication was one thing; it was far harder for Pafnutii to cure in the young monk the sin of despair. But through Abbot Pafnutii’s patient and gentle guidance, which forbade the young monk from either shirking his penance or from heaping upon himself further damnation in self-reproach, he was able to steer the youngster back onto the correct path. In this way, Pafnutii was able to be a wise doctor for the spiritual needs of each of his monks, and a good shepherd who kept his lambs out of the jaws of the ravening wolf.

Saint Pafnutii had been abbot thirteen years at Protection Monastery, when he fell into a grave bodily illness from which it seemed he would not recover. He took the great-schema upon himself, not hoping for any worldly relief. The affliction which he suffered was not of natural origins, and it left him as quickly as it had come. On the very day that he renounced his abbacy – the twenty-third of April, the feast of Saint George the Greatmartyr in 1444 – he was cured of his disease. He left the monastery, taking with him one disciple, and settled in a densely-wooded spot two miles distant from the Protection Monastery, where the rivers Protva and Ister’ma meet. The new schemamonk and his disciple had thought to live there in a silent hermitage as hesychasts, but neither was this the will of God.

The brethren of Protection Monastery, having discovered where their beloved former abbot had gone, gathered around him and fashioned cells for themselves in the place where he had established himself, and sought again to be under obedience to him. They asked his permission to build an oratory and a chapel, which they dedicated to the Nativity of the Holy Theotokos. And since he could not forbid them from doing so, instead Pafnutii blessed the work and consecrated the temple himself, assisted by the saintly Metropolitan Iona of Moscow himself.

Prior to this, however, Saint Pafnutii was given a test of his faith. The abbot and the metropolitan had, to put it mildly, not gotten off on the right foot. The Metropolitan had been consecrated by the synod of bishops of Moscow in 1448 – without the approval of Constantinople. To be sure, there were some fairly strong extenuating circumstances, but Abbot Pafnutii was a stickler for the canonical order and thus refused either to offer congratulations to the new Metropolitan Iona, or to call him by his new title. As a result, Pafnutii was called to Moscow to answer for himself, and when he arrived there he was clapped in irons and thrown into gaol. The new Metropolitan went in person to visit the Abbot in gaol, and there followed between them – as Saint Iosif recounts – a tense and at times heated discussion. In the end, though, the two of them were reconciled. Saint Pafnutii came to understand the hard position of the Russian bishops, and acknowledged Iona as Metropolitan. For his part, Metropolitan Iona knelt at the feet of Abbot Pafnutii, asked his forgiveness (and was given it) for the rough treatment he had meted upon him, personally unshackled him, gave him gifts, kissed him and sent him back to his monastery in peace.

The new Nativity of the Theotokos Monastery was beset with some problems: most of them related to engineering. The church, being built along the banks of two rivers, was exposed to attack from one side. The monks built a fence there, but it was nowhere close to sufficient. They began to think of diverting the river, and so they constructed an artificial causeway to wall off a portion of the Ister’ma. After they had done this, however, the river water was no longer fit for drinking, and monks had to be sent far away to fetch drinking water. They complained of this to Abbot Pafnutii, who went off by himself, walked over the causeway and rested under a certain tree, praying to God to help him find a solution to their water problems. At once, beneath that tree, a holy well of pure, clean, drinkable water erupted, which supplied the needs of the monastery.

The monastery faced other problems – political ones. It so happened that the heir of Prince Simeon of Borovsk was a proud and overbearing knyaz named Vasilii Yaroslavich. This boasting, strutting man would come into the abbey and give orders to the monks, and the Abbot would patiently remonstrate with him, saying: ‘God is God and Cæsar is Cæsar’. Vasilii Yaroslavich was not at all pleased with the construction of the Nativity Monastery so close to the Protection Monastery of which his family had been patrons, and still less that many of the monks of the Protection Monastery were leaving to be under their former Abbot. He began to concoct in his mind a scheme to rid himself of the troublous Abbot Pafnutii. Vasilii gave orders to violent ruffians under his employ to set fire to the new monastery and drive the monks out. But these ruffians, whenever they drew near the monastery, saw the brothers gladly labouring and building in the forests for the sake of their beloved Abbot, and singing sweetly to themselves in praise of Christ, and they could not bring themselves to do violence upon them. For these men, violent and greedy though they were, feared God, and their hearts were moved.

Then Vasilii Yaroslavich sent Ermolai. Ermolai was a Tatar who had taken on baptism but had not renounced his violent ways. He went to the monastery in stealth, with a brand in one hand and a sword in the other, ready to set the monastery ablaze and slay any, monk or novice, who tried to flee. But God struck him blind, and instead of stealthily attacking the monastery he fumbled in an unseeing rage over the grounds, until at last he was found and brought before Saint Pafnutii. Pafnutii shared Ermolai’s Tatar heritage and knew the Tatar tongue, and so he spoke to Ermolai joyfully in Tatar speech, and called him by his name. Ermolai, whose heart was touched by hearing his mother tongue spoken, knelt before the saint and touched his head to the earth, confessing to him everything: what he had planned to do in the monastery, and who had sent him. Saint Pafnutii forgave him, and prayed to Christ for him, and no sooner was this done than the Lord restored Ermolai’s sight. Ermolai left the monastery in peace and did nothing to harm any of the monks.

At this time, the Russian lands were attacked by the Tatar lord Mäxmüt Khan [also Makhmutek or Mamotyak in Russian sources], the son of Oluğ Möxämmät. The Russian princes, who were ever at odds and quarrelling amongst themselves, could not muster a force sufficient to repel this attack: the few who met Mäxmüt Khan in battle were led by the Grand Duke Vasilii Vasil’evich of Suzdal, and among them was none other than Vasilii Yaroslavich of Borovsk! Mäxmüt took the Grand Duke and all his men captive in battle, and demanded that the people of Russia pay yasaq in compensation for his release.

Being kept in bonds in the tents of the Tatars, Vasilii Yaroslavich remembered his sins against Abbot Pafnutii, and began to feel remorse for what he had done. He prayed to God and promised that he would reconcile with Pafnutii, if ever he received his life and his freedom. God heard his prayer, and Abbot Pafnutii went among his monks, among the rich and even among ordinary people trying to raise the yasaq necessary to pay off Mäxmüt Khan and release Vasilii Vasil’evich and all his nobles. Even if he was able to raise a kopek from a poor peasant, he was thankful for this and added that peasant to his prayers; and for this reason it was called the ‘kopek ransom’. The Tatar Khan was good to his word, and when he had received the yasaq he released the Russian princes back to their lands. When the Prince of Borovsk returned home, the first thing he did was to go to Abbot Pafnutii and beg his forgiveness for the many sins he had committed. This the abbot gave gladly.

At one time the fast of Great Lent was nearing an end, and the monastery had no fish with which to celebrate the Lord’s Pascha. Both the brothers and the lay workers at the monastery were grieved by this. But Abbot Pafnutii told them: ‘Do not grieve for this, my brothers, and do not tempt God. The All-Merciful Lord who made us and brought light into the whole world by His Pascha, will comfort us, His workers, in our griefs. And He will give unto those who fear him an overabundance of good things!’

As it turned out, these words would not go long unfulfilled by the All-Good and All-Wise Treasure of Blessings! On Holy Saturday, the sexton of the oratory went out to the holy well by the Ister’ma to draw water for the Pascha Liturgy, and he happened to cross the river as he was going over the causeway. There he saw leaping and playing in the river, more freshwater whitefish than he had ever seen gather in one place! This was because the river had swollen with the spring rains, and the fish had taken refuge in the still waters near where the monks had dug. The sexton hurried back to tell Saint Pafnutii about this, and the Abbot, giving thanks to God, told the lay brothers to go with nets and go to catch whitefish for the Paschal feast. The fishermen brought back so many of the slender silver swimmers that both monasteries – Nativity and Protection – had enough fish for all the monks to eat fish at every meal during Bright Week! What they did not eat themselves, they distributed amongst the poor in Borovsk.

By wonders such as this the name of Abbot Pafnutii became known throughout the Russian lands, and many eager young people were drawn to him to benefit from his wisdom and kindness. These included sæcular and married young men and women as well as those who would become monks. His most famous disciple, Ivan Sanin, came to him when he was twenty years old – the same age Pafnutii had been when he was tonsured by Abbot Markell. Saint Pafnutii placed the young Ivan under a discipline before giving him the tonsure, and the monastic name of Iosif.

Part of the young Ivan Sanin’s discipline was – much like Pafnutii’s own novitiate had been – caring for an elderly monk. In Ivan’s case, this monk was named Konstantin. Konstantin was nearing the end of his earthly life, and Abbot Pafnutii sent Ivan to care for him. The young novice went to the elderly monk’s cell to pray with him after the morning devotions, and then left him to attend to other duties. As he was passing by the abbot’s cell, Pafnutii came out and told him: ‘Someone was praying and I heard a voice that told me that the old man Konstantin had gone to the Lord. I came out to see who it was and I saw you.’

Ivan, taken aback by his abbot’s address, replied: ‘I’ve just come from Konstantin. He is still alive.’

The abbot then sent him back to Konstantin to make sure. When Ivan returned there, he found that Konstantin had already reposed peacefully in the Lord.

There was another elder who had lived a long time in the monastery by the name of Evfemii. Evfemii had spent much of his life imitating the life of his abbots, and particularly Father Pafnutii, and Christ had given him the gift of tears. He also had a certain gift of foresight. At the time there were two brother-monks in the choir who were given to an impure attraction to each other; and for this reason Saint Pafnutii had cause to rebuke them several times.

At one time during the Liturgy, Evfemii saw the two of them singing in the choir; and during that time he beheld in a vision, a horrendous devil assault these two monks with hooks and weapons of iron, hoping to drag them off out of the choir. Time and again the devil assaulted them, and time and again his weapons were deflected, harmlessly, off the bodies of the two young monks, who kept their place in the choir. Evfemii noticed this, and understood that whenever the brothers inclined to their forbidden attraction, the devil was able to hook them with his weapons. Whenever the brothers resisted the thought, the devil’s weapons fell away useless. Evfemii stood up and began to read from the Holy Gospel, and the devil could not bear to listen and disappeared. Again the devil came and attacked them, but he was defeated by the Cherubic Hymn. Again the devil came and attacked them, but he was defeated and banished at the Hymn to the Theotokos and the presentation of the Gifts.

At the end of the Liturgy, Evfemii took Saint Pafnutii aside and told him what he had seen concerning the two monks. Saint Pafnutii called the two monks to him and had Evfemii repeat the story; and the two monks were both admonished and heartened by what they heard. Gently the saintly abbot told the monks not to entertain the thought, but instead to take counsel in confession and so uproot them from the heart.

The monastery continued to grow, and Saint Pafnutii began to understand that the little wooden oratory would not be sufficient to house that many monks. He and his monks laboured for several years on the building of a stone church at the centre of the monastery. The edifice being finished, and the workmanship being admired all over Russia, the prince of Borovsk invited several excellent iconographers to design frescoes for the interior of the Church, including a layman named Dionisii, who was attached to the monastery. Dionisii was an excellent writer of icons, but his feet were lame, and he could not work for long on the tall, broad interiors of the stone church. But Saint Pafnutii prayed for Dionisii, that Christ and the Theotokos might grant strength to his feet, and his lameness was healed as he began his work.

The lay brethren, including Dionisii, were under injunction from the saint not to bring flesh meats within the monastery enclosure. For the most part they kept to this rule, but Dionisii broke it on one occasion by bringing a thigh of lamb stuffed with eggs into the monastery for his dinner. As he sat down to his dinner, he opened the eggs only to find that they were filled with maggots. His whole body began to itch and within an hour he was almost completely covered with sores. At once he sent for the saint and confessed his sin, begging for forgiveness. Saint Pafnutii sternly warned him not to do it again, but readily forgave him, took him into the Church and sprinkled holy water over him. Dionisii went to sleep that night, and after he awoke the next morning his skin was healed of its sores.

Saint Pafnutii was very fond of wild animals, especially birds. He firmly besought anyone who came onto the monastery grounds that they were not to harm the ravens who nested in the woods around the monastery. One proud boyar unleashed his falcon upon the ravens, but no sooner had his falcon gotten his talons into a raven but it plummeted from the sky – dead. At another time, the son of a local burgomaster was riding by the monastery with some friends, and chanced to see a murder of ravens take wing in front of him. Without thinking, he drew his bow and shot, felling one of the poor birds. He turned his head behind him to boast to his friends at having made such a shot, but found that his neck was frozen in place as he did so. He could not turn back the right way. His friends, alarmed, took him before Saint Pafnutii. And of course he knew what had happened and how the young man had behaved. Saint Pafnutii hit the bell and summoned the brothers, who demanded to know why he had called them at an irregular hour. And Pafnutii told them: ‘God has avenged the blood of a raven.’ He then prayed over the young man in the name of the Holy Cross, and told the young man to turn his head around the right way. In this way his neck was healed.

Like Saint Isaac of Spoleto, Saint Pafnutii used his keen insight to gently admonish and enlighten thieves. A group of thieves who stole three oxen from the monastery were stricken blind and blundered around the woods through most of the night before the monastic brothers found them the next morning; Saint Pafnutii healed their eyes and they did not steal again. At another time, a servant who had withheld for himself some alms from his master meant for the monastery, was greeted in a friendly way by the saint. But when he sat down to bread, his whole body became paralysed and he could not move. Saint Pafnutii took him into the church, prayed over him so that he was healed, and admonished him in secret about what he had done before sending him back home. The whole monastery knew of this story, but he would not tell the brethren of the reason for it until much later.

Elder Pafnutii was often given his divine insights in visions; at one time two brothers wished to leave the monastery, and Elder Pafnutii was warned of this in a dream. He saw a devil take burning brands from his hearth and use them to set alight the cell which the two brothers shared. He told this vision to the two brothers the following day. They showed him that they had packed their few belongings and had prepared to leave, and then confessed and repented their sin. At another time, a brother of the monastery who had a shrewd and sarcastic tongue received a dream in which he was cast out of the church and given over to be beaten by devils after having made one biting remark too many. He confessed to Elder Pafnutii and mastered his tongue.

Saint Pafnutii told his disciples that one could tell the state of a man’s soul by looking into his eyes. In several cases he proved this. One young monk who had come across a group of women in the village came back to the monastery filled with disturbing thoughts. Elder Pafnutii looked him in the eyes once and sighed, ‘This man is not the same as he was before!’ Distraught, the young man sought the counsel of the monk Iosif Sanin, who sent him to confess his sins. Thus Saint Pafnutii was able to correct him. On another occasion someone from Saint Iosif’s village came to visit Saint Pafnutii, desiring to become a monk. Pafnutii sent him away, and Iosif asked him why. Pafnutii told him that his countryman had once murdered a monk by stabbing him in the stomach with a knife, and had never confessed this sin. He knew this by looking him in the eye. He was even able likewise to discover one of the monks who had poisoned his master many years before, and had never confessed that sin either. Elder Pafnutii was clear that no amount of ascetic striving can take the place of confession and repentance.

Elder Pafnutii once cured a demoniac who came riding into the monastery enclosure demanding to see him. He came up to Saint Pafnutii not knowing his face, and demanded to see the saint. But the elder looked the demoniac in the eye and said: ‘You’re not out of your wits, but a crafty devil has got its hold on you.’ The demoniac flew into a rage and tried to assault Pafnutii, but failing to harm him got back on his horse and made his way to a nearby lake, where he tried to drown himself. The monastic brothers lay hold on him and brought him back to Saint Pafnutii, who was able to release him from the demon and give him back soundness of mind.

There was another miracle of Saint Pafnutii involving fish. He asked the prince leave for three days to send lay brothers to fish at a certain spot. Then he gave one of the brothers money to buy several new barrels. This lay brother, however, was stingy, and complained to Pafnutii that he didn’t need to buy new barrels, he’d just take an old one. But the saint glared ferociously at him, and ordered him to take the money and buy the barrels. The reluctant fisherman went and did as the saint told him. At the end of those three days, he had caught 730 large fish for the monastery – more than the prince had caught fishing that same place all summer! It was enough to fill up not just the old barrel but every one of the new barrels he’d bought with the saint’s money. And he was well-furnished because the saint had foreseen the results of his fishing.

One of Saint Pafnutii’s students developed an inflammation of the eye. In grave suffering he sought healing; Saint Pafnutii gave him his prayer rope and told him to say the Jesus Prayer one thousand times. The student was in such agony from his eyes he could barely move his lips, but the prayer came to him more and more smoothly, and as he got to five hundred iterations he felt the healing power come over him. He left off praying and jumped up with joy to tell the saint, but soon the inflammation seized him again as badly as before. Saint Pafnutii chided him and told him to complete the thousand prayers; only after he did so was he fully healed.

Saint Pafnutii also healed a leper who was suffering and very near to death. Pafnutii not only healed his deathly illness, but also cleansed his skin from the corruption of the disease by sprinkling holy water upon him. Another man was brought to Saint Pafnutii on the brink of death. The doctors had pronounced him doomed to die within the day, and his relatives had already made preparations to bury him. But the monk prayed over the man, and he rose from his bed and – to the amazement of his kin – walked about in fullness of health, as though he’d never been sick. At another time, a noblewoman went weeping before the saint begging his prayers for her son, who was sickly and on the point of death. Saint Pafnutii, who loved children and took pity on the woman’s state, prepared some holy water and also sent her back with some fish for the child to eat. (It was customary at that time to give recovering invalids something to eat to gauge if they were really returning to health.) The noblewoman was not much reassured, expecting to come back and find her son dead. But she went back to her son and sprinkled the holy water over his body, and at once the boy sat up in his bed and greeted her with joy, then asked her for food. His noble mother gave him the fish Saint Pafnutii had sent back with her.

Saint Pafnutii cured several demoniacs through the invocations of the Holy Cross. A certain noblewoman who was known to Aleksei Goburin was possessed by such a devil; she often sent her sons with offerings to the Nativity Monastery. She was attacked by many devils in her dreams, but always in these dreams a grey-bearded old monk would stand in front of her and drive the devils back from her, and she heard a voice in her ear repeating, ‘Pafnutii of Borovsk will drive the devils away from you.’ After she had been cleansed she went to Borovsk to see the saint, but women were not allowed to enter the monastery. She sent her sons inside and bade them bring Pafnutii within sight of her. They did as she asked, and when she saw him she recognised him at once as the man in her dreams who had held off the hordes of devils from her. From then on she became a generous patron of both monasteries. Another novice was tormented by dreams of a devil who prowled around his cell – sometimes in the form of a great dog, and at other times in the form of the bear. When he told Saint Pafnutii of this, the elder instructed the novice to read with him from the Psalter. The power of the Psalms held off and chased away the devils, who did not return to plague the young novice.

Elder Pafnutii was a close friend to the poor and humble. He did not hesitate to stand up to the powerful and proud, and was not servile before them. But with those who approached him in humility, he was warmly accessible. He made no distinction between monk and lay; he spoke gladly with common folk and invited them to his table as brothers. None of them ever left a conversation with him in a spirit of mourning. Any wayfarer who came into his monastery was welcome to his table and would not leave unfed. In one year there was a famine in Borovsk, and Saint Pafnutii threw open the larders of the monastery and gave away every last crumb of food in it to those who were starving. When the stores ran out so that nothing remained even for the monks, Saint Pafnutii prayed all the harder for the deliverance of the hungry, and with tears implored God to let the people live until the next summer. And wondrously, the monks went into the larder to find that the food had been replenished! Elder Pafnutii held generosity and justice to beggars and the needy to be the chief of virtues. He was fond of telling this story:

One act of charity can save a man, if he lives by the law. One generous man did alms throughout his life. When he died, another man was given this vision of his soul’s progress. He was brought to the river of fire, and on the other side of the river was Paradise: a wondrously bright, warm, sweet and beautiful garden. But the soul of the man found no way across this horrible river. But he begins to see the souls of the beggars who received alms from him in life. With their bodies they lay down across the river, making a bridge for him. By their grace to him, the generous man crossed the bridge into Paradise.

According to Saint Pafnutii, God who protected Russia could also turn His face away from the Russian people if they went too long astray from the correct path, and refused to repent of their sins for too long. He spoke in such terms about the calamity of plague that fell upon the Russian people in the year 1407, and rebuked the Russian people for falling further into drunkenness, licence and greed rather than returning to God and their love of their neighbours. (It seems a timely reminder now: in the time of plague Elder Pafnutii exhorted his people to be kinder to one another, and neither to turn away from the needy for fear of contagion, nor to hoard food or livestock or gold or silver.)

During this plague, he said, there was one nun who was rescued from the sickness on the brink of death, and who was given visions of who was there in the afterlife. She said that she had seen the generous, the merciful, those who were mindful of the poor, and those who were kind to animals, in Paradise, regardless of their faults in life. Figuring prominently of those she had seen in paradise, interestingly enough, was Ivan I Kalita of Moscow, who despite his flaws of character and temperament was apparently fairly generous to the poor.

Among those she had seen in torment were the greedy and avaricious. She saw devils tormenting the souls of the wicked by forcing them to wear white-hot chains of gold, or by throwing gold coins into their open mouths and mocking them by telling them to eat and be satisfied. One of the greedy she saw being thus tormented, it seems, was the notoriously opulent Lithuanian king Vytautas.

Pafnutii also once had a vision while he dozed on the Church steps in the few minutes before the reading of the Gospel at Divine Liturgy. He saw the gates of the monastery open and a crowd of men and women with candles come into the Church. One of them, as he passed, he recognised as one prince Yuri Vasil’evich, whom he realised had died. The prince had apparently considered himself to have been allowed to enter Heaven only by the prayers of the saint. After the vision was over and Saint Pafnutii awoke, he went into the Church praising God’s mercy.

Saint Pafnutii sent his beloved disciple Saint Iosif Sanin to the court of the knyaz Mikhail Fedorovich of Vorotyn, where he found the nobleman deeply downcast. Iosif asked him what was wrong. The nobleman, it turned out, had kept a monk close by his side: a holy man named Matvei Varnavoi. The prince of Vorotyn had loved Matvei and cherished his advice, which was always wise and timely. But his son Ivan Mikhailovich had grown jealous of the holy man and ordered him to be killed. Shortly after this Ivan Mikhailovich himself died, and his mother desired to have a commemoration Liturgy held for him. But when the priest sent for prosphora to be baked, the oven began to roar so hot that it scorched the bread which was supposed to be blessed. When Elder Pafnutii heard this from his pupil Iosif, he gave a profound sigh of grief. ‘The Lord has told me the truth: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay; (Rom. 12:19) and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. (Matt. 7:2)”’

Elder Pafnutii said of the monastic life:

The root of the monastic life is—not possessing anything; obedience and humility; and placing yourself below everyone else.

Abbot Pafnutii, it must be said, was a model not only of humility and forgiveness but also of just plain old hard work. He chopped and hauled firewood, dug out plots for farming, weeded, watered and raised the vegetables, and yet always managed to arrive early to prepare for the daily Divine Liturgy in the oratory. Being a schemamonk, he normally would not serve the Liturgy himself, but took the Gifts together with his brothers – only once did he serve the Liturgy, with no priest being available for his monks, and afterwards he said that for fear and awe his soul had barely remained in his body. He wore a ragged sheepskin garment and threadbare shoes not even fit for a beggar. He was lenient and patient with his brothers, but strict upon himself. He lived all the time in the original cell he had made when he took on the Great Schema. At mealtimes he always ate last, allowing his brothers to take the choice food for themselves. He fasted totally on Mondays and Fridays, and ate no oil or sauce on Wednesdays. He also was so humble that he did not dare to bodily touch anyone, man or woman, for he revered them above icons, as they were icons of God. He never spoke unless he had something needful and meaningful to say.

At the age of twenty he entered the monastic life. At the age of forty he became an abbot. He spent sixty years under monastic discipline – twenty-seven of those under the Great Schema. And at the age of eighty years, in the year 1475, having reached the end of his earthly days, he reposed in the Lord, at peace with his brothers and beloved by all.

Saint Pafnutii of Borovsk was indeed a model of justice as well as holiness, the two not being at odds but finding completion one in the other. He did not pursue meekness and humility and chastity in a closed-off and selfish way, for his own sake alone, but did everything for the sake of his monastic disciples and for the common people who lived around him. He gave of his own physical substance, his monastic reserves, and his spiritual wealth as well for the sake of those who were suffering in times of famine. As such he is a perfect saint to commemorate on May Day along with the Prophet Jeremiah. Holy abbot Pafnutii, meek and gentle servant of the poor, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion for Saint Pafnutii of Borovsk, Tone 4:

Thou didst illumine thy fatherland
With thy radiant life of prayer and fasting,
And wast filled with divine gifts of the Spirit.
Thou didst strive valiantly in this temporal life and show mercy to all,
Becoming an intercessor for the poor.
And so we entreat thee, O Father Pafnutii,
Pray to Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Blessed Thomas the Simple, Fool-for-Christ of Antioch

Forest in the district of Daphnē near Antioch

The twenty-fourth of April is the feast-day of Saint Thomas, a monastic fool-for-Christ of Cappadocian origin, who died and was popularly venerated in Antioch. Saint Thomas is noted as a protector of his city against plague, and it therefore seems meet and fitting to commemorate him now when all across the world people are suffering from the novel coronavirus.

The venerable Saint Thomas [Gk. Θωμᾶς Σαλός, Ar. Tûmâ توما] was a member of a poor and deprived monastery in Cæsarea of Cappadocia (modern-day Kayseri in Turkey). His abbot placed him under the obedience of collecting alms for the monastery, and he journeyed under this obedience to the city of Antioch in Syria. It was here that he began to take on, for the glory of God, the appearance of folly.

He came to one of the churches in Antioch to beg, but that church’s steward, a man named Anastasias, lost patience with the monk Thomas and struck him in the face. Those who were in the church restrained Anastasias and upbraided him for his rudeness and cruelty in dealing with a fool like Thomas. However, Saint Thomas quieted them down by pronouncing: ‘From this moment I shall accept nothing further from Anastasias, nor will Anastasias be able to give me anything further.’ The people in the church were calmed, but they did not understand what Thomas meant by these words.

As it turned out, Saint Thomas’s words proved to be prophetic. The steward Anastasias fell ill and died the following day. And Saint Thomas, having started the long journey home to Cæsarea in Cappadocia, also reposed in the Lord, while he was staying at a church dedicated to Saint Euthymios in the outlying district of Daphnē (famous for a cypress park dating back to præ-Christian times), five and a half miles south of Antioch. He was buried in a plot of the Church graveyard reserved for strangers.

After some time they buried another stranger on top of Saint Thomas’s grave. Four hours after the workmen had left the gravesite, they returned to find that the grave had been dug up and the earth piled up beside the open grave once again. They covered the stranger’s grave again, but the next morning when they returned they found the open grave again with the earth strewn aside. They took the stranger away and reburied him in another place. This same thing occurred at a later time when two women were buried in the plot where Saint Thomas lay. The people of that Church then realised that Saint Thomas did not wish to share his grave with a woman, and they reported this occurrence first to the priest and afterward to the Patriarch of Antioch, who was Domnos III (546-561).

Patriarch Domnos decreed that the relics of Saint Thomas should be dug up and translated to Antioch proper. This was done, and the body of the holy monk was interred in a church graveyard which was preserved for the holy saints and martyrs. Here his relics began to work wonders. The intercessions of Blessed Thomas proved effective when they stopped a deadly plague which had been ravaging Antioch; his veneration is noted from this time forward in that city. Blessed Thomas, fool for Christ and protector of Antioch from plague, we ask that you offer your prayers in our own day of pandemic for the health of our bodies and the salvation of our souls!

Holy Hierarch Grēgorios I, Patriarch of Antioch

Antioch in the sixth century

The twentieth of April is also the feast-day of Saint Grēgorios I, the holy sixth-century head of the Antiochian Church. He served as Patriarch of Antioch, unwillingly, during the exile of Saint Anastasios I of Sinai at the behest of the Docetist Emperor Justin II. His life and spirituality, however, strongly reflect those of Anastasios.

Saint Grēgorios [Gr. Γρηγόριος, Ar. Ġrîġûr غريغور] was, like Saint Anastasios, first recorded as a monk in Palestine, in the ‘monastery of the Byzantines’. Emperor Justin II later transferred him to the monastery on Mount Sinai and made him abbot there. These facts of Saint Grēgorios’s early life are recounted by Evagrius, in Book V of his Ecclesiastical History:

NEXT in succession, Grēgorios is elevated to the episcopal see: “wide whose renown,” according to the language of poetry; a person who had devoted himself from the earliest period of life to the monastic discipline, and had wrestled therein so manfully and stoutly, that he arrived at the highest elevation when scarcely past his boyhood, and became superior of the monastery of the Byzantines, in which he had assumed the bare mode of life, and subsequently, by the orders of Justin, of the monastery of Mount Sinai. Here he encountered extreme danger, having sustained a siege by the Scenite Arabs.

Having, nevertheless, secured the complete tranquillity of the spot, he was thence summoned to the archiepiscopal dignity. He was unrivalled in every excellence of intellect and virtue, and most energetic in accomplishing whatever he resolved upon, uninfluenced by fear, and incapable of shrinking before secular power. So noble was his expenditure of money, in a general system of liberality and munificence, that whenever he appeared in public, crowds, besides his ordinary attendants, followed him; and all gathered round him who saw or heard of his approach. The respect shewn to so high a dignity, was but second to the honour bestowed upon the individual, in the generous desire of persons to obtain a near view of him and to hear his words; for he was possessed of singular power to inspire with attachment towards himself all who held converse with him, being a person of most imposing aspect and sweet address, especially quick of perception and prompt in execution, a most able counsellor and judge, both in his own matters and in those of others. On this account it was that he accomplished so much, never deferring anything till to-morrow. By dealing with matters with unfailing promptitude, according as either necessity required or opportunity favoured, he tilled with admiration not only the Roman but the Persian sovereigns, as I shall set forth the particulars in their proper place. His character was strongly marked by vehemence, and at times by indications of anger; while, on the other hand, his meekness and gentleness were not confined, but were exceedingly abundant; so that to him was admirably fitted the excellent expression of Gregory Theologus, “austerity tempered with modesty,” while neither quality was impaired, but each rendered more striking by the other.

We can see even from this brief account by Evagrius that Saint Grēgorios was marked on the one hand by an indefatigable energy and dynamism of action, and on the other by a sincere approach to the monastic life. His determination and protean vitality served him in good stead when defending his Sinaite monastery from attack by Arabic raiders, despite the fact that monks in general forswear all military action. Saint Grēgorios had a reputation for hospitality, and was kind to his guests. As such, he was held in high esteem by the bishop of Nisibis, who trusted him so far that he sent privileged information about the movements of the Persian troops directly to Grēgorios.

In 578, there was an incident with a certain sorcerer named Anatolius of Osroene. Anatolius was a social climber who had attained to several posts of public prominence by unspecified means. He even attained to the title of prætorian præfect in Edesa. As a prominent public figure he naturally sought to cultivate a relationship with the Patriarch of Antioch, Saint Grēgorios, in order to expand his prominence. Anatolius, however, was soon discovered to have engaged in ‘sacrificial rites’, by which he was ‘implicated in innumerable enormities’. The rumours grew so dire that they reached the ears of Emperor Tiberius II, who sent the regional governor to begin investigating Anatolius.

Anatolius was detained along with his notarius Theodore, and their private apartments in Antioch searched. The soldiery discovered an icon of Jesus Christ in that apartment, which had a pagan image of Apollo impressed on the reverse side – but cleverly hidden so that it could be detected only by careful examination. Anatolius was delivered up for trial. In order to save himself he implicated Saint Grēgorios and Eulogios of Alexandria as having officiated at these human-sacrificial rites, including the sacrifice of a young boy in Daphnē. On account of public opinion which associated him closely with Anatolius, the agents of the Roman state were forced to bring him to Constantinople to stand trial.

Apparently some bribery was involved in the trial as well, as the sentence of Anatolius for his crimes was commuted to banishment. This led to a riot in Constantinople, with the rioters demanding that Anatolius and his co-conspirators be slain. Emperor Tiberius reacted by convoking a Senatorial commission to try Anatolius. During the questioning at this trial, which apparently involved the use of torture, Anatolius again tried to implicate Saint Grēgorios, but was unable to produce a cogent story of his involvement. Ultimately – with the court under pressure from the rioters to hand down a death sentence – Anatolius was executed by being thrown to wild beasts in the Hippodrome. Saint Grēgorios was exonerated.

Saint Grēgorios also foretold by various signs the accession of Emperor Maurice. Evagrius recounts that as Maurice was offering incense before the altar dedicated to the Holy Theotokos, Saint Grēgorios beheld the altar-cloth being enveloped in flames which gave light but no heat, and also did not consume it. The saintly bishop told Maurice that it was a sign from God, and a chastened Maurice was filled with awe and holy dread.

Saint Grēgorios was also involved in a quarrel with a certain governor of the East named Asterius. Asterius had managed to whip up the animosity of both ‘the higher ranks of the city’ along with ‘those who were engaged in trades’ against the archbishop, and again Grēgorios was compelled to come to Constantinople to appear at trial. At Asterius’s prompting, a moneychanger came forward at this trial and outrageously accused Grēgorios of sleeping with his own sister, a married woman. Others came forward at his trial and accused Saint Grēgorios of disturbing the peace. The charges grew so numerous and so increasingly ludicrous that at the insistence of Saint Grēgorios and a legal advisor, the Emperor convoked a court of all the Patriarchs of the Church, the bishops and the metropolitans. This court found him innocent of all the charges. Asterius was stripped of his rank, flogged and sent into exile.

The Emperor had reason to call upon Saint Grēgorios again, when a legion of Roman troops in battle against Persia had mutinied and chased off their commanders. The Emperor moved for clemency, but the deserters were not prepared to hear terms. Because Saint Grēgorios was well-regarded within the military, Emperor Maurice sent him to speak to the deserters. Saint Grēgorios obeyed the charge laid on him, though at that time he was old and suffering from a painful arthritis that prevented him from standing for long periods of time. He met the mutinous armies at Litarba, three hundred stadia removed from Antioch. He had to address them sitting down because he could not stand. Here, according to Evagrius, is what he said:

I HAVE been expecting, O Romans—Romans both in name and deeds—that your visit to me would have been made long ago, for the purpose of communicating to me your present circumstances, and of receiving that friendly counsel of which you have an assurance in my kindliness towards you, so unequivocally evinced by past occurrences, at the time when I relieved, by a supply of necessaries, your tempest-struck and wave-tost plight. Since, however, this course has not hitherto been taken—it may be that Providence has not permitted it, in order that the Persians, having been utterly defeated by men without a leader, might be thereby thoroughly taught the prowess of the Romans, and that your pure loyalty might be completely proved, in having been tested by the juncture and testified by your deeds; for you shewed that, notwithstanding your quarrel with your officers, you do not regard any thing as more important than the good of the commonwealth—let us accordingly now deliberate what ought to be your conduct. Your sovereign invites you with a promise of an amnesty of all past transactions, receiving the display of your loyalty to the commonwealth and your prowess in the field as emblems of supplication. While bestowing upon you these most certain pledges of pardon the emperor thus speaks: ‘Since God has given victory to their loyalty, and, on the abandonment of their errors, a signal display has been granted to their prowess as a clear intimation of forgiveness, how can I do otherwise than follow the judgment of heaven? A king's heart is in the hand of God, and He sways it whithersoever He will.’ Yield, therefore, to me at once, O Romans. Let us not wilfully forfeit the present opportunity, nor allow it to elude our grasp: for opportunity, when it has once slipped from us, is most unwilling to be seized, and, as if it were indignant at having been neglected, is ever after intolerant of capture. Shew yourselves the heirs of the obedience of your fathers, as ye are of their courage; in order that ye may appear altogether Romans, and no taunt may touch you or point at you as degenerate. Your fathers, under the command of consuls and emperors, by obedience and courage became masters of the whole world. Manlius Torquatus, though he crowned, yet also put to death his son, who had placed a valiant part but in disobedience of orders. For by skill on the part of the leaders, combined with obedience in those whom they lead, great successes are ordinarily achieved; but either, when bereaved of the other, is lame and unsteady, and is utterly overthrown by the separation of the excellent pair. Be not, therefore, tardy, but at once obey my call, while the priestly office mediates between the emperor and the army; and shew that your proceedings were not the establishment of a rival sovereign, but a transient display of just indignation against commanders who had wronged you: for unless you immediately embrace the offer, I shall at once consider myself as quit of the service laid upon me in this matter by my duty to the commonwealth and my regard for you. Consider too yourselves, what has been the fate of pretenders to the sovereignty. What too will be the termination of your present position? To continue concentrated is impossible: for whence will you derive your provision of ordinary fruits, or those supplies which the sea furnishes to the land, except by war between Christians, and the mutual infliction of the most disgraceful treatment? What too will be the final result? You will live in dispersion, and haunted by Justice, who will henceforward disdain to bestow forgiveness. Let us therefore give pledges of amity, and consider what course will be for the benefit of ourselves and the state, at a time too when we shall have the days of the saving Passion and of the most holy Resurrection conspiring with the deed.

The troops were moved to tears on hearing this, for Saint Grēgorios spoke with conviction as well as with that divine grace that accompanies the truth of the Gospel and the love of a father for a prodigal son. After some deliberation, the leaders of the mutiny placed themselves in Saint Grēgorios’s hands, and he successfully pleaded with Emperor Maurice for a general amnesty for the soldiers, allowing them to return to their duties.

Perhaps a little ironically, Saint Grēgorios was also a pivotal figure in helping the amorous Sasanian šâh Khosrow II Parvêz to take the throne in Persia. After his betrayal at the hands of the general Bahrâm Chôbîn – who subsequently proclaimed himself šâh – Khosrow sought refuge together with a small band of followers including his wives and family with Emperor Maurice in Syria.

Emperor Maurice sent a truly royal welcoming committee to meet him: a whole division of the Roman army; his kinsman, the saintly Bishop Domitian of Melitēne; and Saint Grēgorios. The last of these was particularly well-received by Khosrow, who in the words of Evagrius ‘on all points filled [the Persian šâh] with amazement, by his conversation, by his munificence, and by his suggestion of seasonable measures’.

Khosrow was ultimately able to use the army that Emperor Maurice had loaned him, along with those Persians who had remained loyal to the Sasanian line, to overthrow Bahrâm and retake the Persian throne. This having been accomplished, he sent to Grēgorios a marvelous golden cross in honour of Saint Sergius which had been dedicated by Saint Theodōra the wife of Emperor Justinian, and which had subsequently been carried off into Persia during the wars.

Saint Grēgorios was a gifted preacher, and he spent the last years of his life using those skills to tour the borders of the Eastern Roman Empire in an attempt to sway the Monophysites back to Chalcedonian Orthodoxy. Several of his homilies on the subject remain. Saint Grēgorios reposed in the Lord in 593, being poisoned by a medication he was taking for his arthritic attacks. After his repose, Saint Anastasios was restored to his see in Antioch. Holy hierarch Grēgorios, gifted orator and peacemaker, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Holy Hieromartyrs Anastasios I and II, Patriarchs of Antioch

Saint Anastasios I of Antioch
القدّيس أنسطاسيوس الأول الأنطاكي

Today is Bright Monday in the Holy Orthodox Church. It is also the feast-day of two holy patriarchs of Antioch, Anastasios I and Anastasios II, whose hagiographies are similar enough that they are often confused or conflated into the same person. Further complicating matters is the fact that both Patriarchs Anastasios I and II of Antioch were also called ‘Sinaïtēs’, or ‘the Sinaite’, leading to a confusion dating back to the Middle Ages between the sixth-century Patriarch and the seventh-century abbot of Saint Catherine’s in Ægypt. So deep runs the confusion that all three saints are commemorated on the same day, being the twentieth or twenty-first of April.

Patriarch Saint Anastasios I of Antioch [Gk. Αναστάσιος Α΄, Ar. ’Anasṭâsiyyûs أنسطاسيوس] was a Greco-Syrian of Palestine, but became a monk on Mount Sinai in his youth. He was valued highly in his Ægyptian monastery, and was sent as a representative of the Church of Alexandria to her sister-Church in Antioch, and was subsequently elevated to the patriarchate of that church in the year 559. The Antiochene church historian Evagrius writes about him thus in his Ecclesiastical History:

ANASTASIUS was a man most accomplished in divine learning, and so strict in his manners and mode of life, as to insist upon very minute matters, and on no occasion to deviate from a staid and settled frame, much less in things of moment and having relation to the Deity himself. So well tempered was his character, that neither, by being accessible and affable, was he exposed to the intrusion of things unsuitable; nor by being austere and unindulgent, did he become difficult of approach for proper purposes. Accordingly, in serious concerns he was ready in ear and fluent in tongue, promptly resolving the questions proposed to him; but in trifling matters, his ears were altogether closed, and a bridle restrained his tongue, so that speech was enthralled by thought, and silence resulted, more valuable than speech. Justinian assaults him, like some impregnable tower, with every kind of device, considering that if he could only succeed in shaking this bulwark, all difficulty would be removed in capturing the city, enslaving the right doctrine, and taking captive the sheep of Christ. In such a manner was Anastasius raised above the assailing force by heavenly greatness of mind, for he stood upon the immoveable rock of faith, that he unreservedly contradicted Justinian by a formal declaration, in which he showed very clearly and forcibly that the body of the Lord was corruptible in respect of the natural and blameless passions, and that the divine apostles and the inspired fathers both held and delivered this opinion. In the same terms he replied to a question of the monastic body of Syria Prima and Secunda, confirming the minds of all, preparing them for the struggle, and daily reading in the Church those words of the ‘chosen vessel’: ‘If any one is preaching to you a gospel different from that which ye have received, even though it be an angel from heaven, let him be accursed.’ To this all, with few exceptions, paid a steady regard and zealous adherence. He also addressed to the Antiochenes a valedictory discourse, on hearing that Justinian intended to banish him; a discourse deserving admiration for its elegance, its flow of thought, the abundance of sacred texts, and the appropriateness of its historical matters.

From the account of Evagrius we can deduce several things. The elder Anastasios seems to have been a cautious, risk-averse, studious and well-mannered person. In addition, he seems to have been quite adept at listening to people’s problems and offering them advice and comfort. Thus he seems to have been found quite suitable to the demands of church diplomacy for which use the Church of Alexandria chose him as their spokesmonk to Antioch. However, his diplomatic skill and penchant for problem-solving did not prevent either Emperor Justinian I, or his nephew Emperor Justin II, from taking a fervent dislike to him. Indeed, he was deposed by the latter emperor in the year 570. As Evagrius explains in Book V of his Ecclesiastical History:

JUSTIN also ejected Anastasius from the episcopate of Theopolis, on the charge of a profuse and improper expenditure of the funds of the see, and also for scandalous language against himself; inasmuch as Anastasius, on being asked why he was so lavishly squandering the property of the see, frankly replied, that it was done to prevent its being carried off by that universal pest, Justin. He is also said to have entertained a grudge against Anastasius, because he had refused to pay a sum of money, when demanded of him in consideration of his appointment to the bishopric. Other charges were also brought against him by persons, who, as I suppose, wished to second the emperor's bent.

Evagrius does not pass comment on the validity of this Imperial charge of corruption and theft of Church funds. Saint Nikolai Velimirović in the Prologue from Ohrid, however, does: he says that Justin ‘succeeded in banishing Anastasius on the basis of some spurious calumnies’, and intimates further that this banishment was on account of Saint Anastasios’s fervent opposition, alongside Saint Eutychios of Constantinople, to the Gnostic hæresy of Docetism, which was then in the ascendant on account of Emperor Justinian’s sympathies to said hæresy. Justinian had Eutychios seized by the soldiery in his own Church, stripped of his ecclesiastical garments and sent into exile – but he could not find any pretext for doing the same to Anastasios. The Emperor repented of his sin and his hæresy, however, and restored Eutychios before he died. Justin II, as we have seen, was less scrupulous.

Anastasios remained in exile for twenty-three years. He was reinstated as Patriarch of Antioch in 593 or 594 by the Emperor Maurice. Saint Anastasios had Pope Saint Gregory Dialogos to thank for this favourable turn of events. The Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Antioch were good friends and they corresponded in writing for many years. Saint Anastasios governed the Church in Antioch for four or five more years, and ended his sojourn on this earth in the year 599. Some sources say that he reposed in peace, and others that he was martyred.

After Patriarch Saint Anastasios I reposed, he was most likely succeeded by another Anastasios of Sinai [Gk. Αναστάσιος Β΄]. Again, this is assuming the likely possibility that Anastasios I and II of Antioch are not the same person. Anastasios II is not mentioned by Evagrius, who lists Gregorios II as the successor to Anastasios I, but he is mentioned by the later Church historians Theophanēs and Nikēphoros. This younger Saint Anastasios had his fortunes wrapped up with those of Emperor Phōkas.

Patriarch Saint Anastasios II was known particularly for his efforts to stamp out the practice of simony – the selling of the Holy Sacraments for money – in the Church. One of the homilies that has survived under his name to the present day deals with the treatment of the Holy Eucharist, on the evils of Donatism, and on the importance of coming to the Chalice with a spirit ready to forgive others. He was known also for his support of Phōkas’ repressions of the Monophysites and the Syrian Jews. The Church history of Saint Theophanēs the Chronicler, written at some point in the 800s, recounts that the Jews of Antioch staged a revolt against the repressions of Phōkas. According to Theophanēs, this Jewish mob involved in this revolt lay hands on Patriarch Anastasios II, brutally castrated him, paraded him up the Mese, lynched him and burned his body. Unfortunately it appears he was a bit fuzzy on the date: this may have happened as early as 608 or as late as 611.

Recent scholarship seems to have called at least a few points of this narrative into question, with the aid of some intertextual comparisons between the account of Saint Theophanēs and Saint Nikēphoros I of Constantinople, who were writing about the same event at roughly the same time. In Saint Nikēphoros’s account, it was Emperor Phōkas who was mutilated after his death in a political coup, and paraded up the Mese in Byzantium; whereas the hieromartyr of Antioch was killed by Roman soldiers supporting the Monophysite party. In either event, Saint Anastasios II was martyred specifically for holding to the Orthodox faith, being opposed by both the rebelling parties.

Holy Fathers of the Antiochian Church, Anastasios I of Sinai and Anastasios II of Sinai, confessors and fellow-sufferers for the true faith, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Troparion for Bright Week, Tone 5:

Christ is risen from the dead,
Trampling down Death by death,
And upon those in the tombs
bestowing life!

☩ المسيح قام! حقا قام! ء ☩

المسيح قام من بين الأمو ات
و و طىْ الموت بالموت
و و هب الحياة
للذين في القبور

Christ is risen from the dead,
Trampling down death by death,
And upon those in the tombs
Bestowing life!

Our father among the saints Anikētos, Pope of Rome

Saint Anikētos of Rome
القدّيس أنكيتوس البابا الروميه

The seventeenth of April, which is Evacuation Day in Syria as well as Great and Holy Friday this year, is the feast-day of one of the earliest saintly patriarchs of Old Rome, the confessor and hieromartyr Saint Anikētos. A native of Emesa – today Homs in Syria – this holy Pope of Rome was a tireless defender of the Christian faith and a witness against the hæresies of Marcion and of the Gnostic Valentinus.

Born probably sometime around the turn of the second century, the hagiographies have it that Saint Anikētos [Gk. Ανίκητος, L. Anicetus, Ar. ’Anikîtûs أنكيتوس] was raised with love by his Greco-Syrian parents, and given the very best of educations. He was clever and studious, and by the time he embarked upon adulthood he had a thorough knowledge of both the natural sciences of his time, and the liberal arts. Being of a serious turn of mind, he was also drawn to the life of the Church, and at some point he must have been ordained to an office within it, though the sources are silent on the time and manner of this. What seems clear, however, is that his renown had reached Rome by at least 155.

After the death of Pope Saint Pius I in 157, the clergy of Old Rome unanimously chose the holy Anikētos to be consecrated as his successor. Anikētos had the qualifications of being generous, mild-tempered and moderate of habit. He combined these traits with a steadfast and fervent attachment to the correct Christian teachings. This commended him to the Church in Rome as a worthy successor to Pius I, who had refused to give one inch before the Gnostics and who had spared no effort, ‘rightly to divide the word of truth’ as Saint Paul put it in his second letter to Timothy. It appears that Saint Anikētos was consecrated either in 159 or 160.

Despite his reputation for zeal, Saint Anikētos was disposed to be lenient – perhaps a bit too lenient – on matters which were not tied to Church dogma. One of the first things he did in his office as Pope was to meet with Saint Polycarp of Smyrna, with whom he had some dissension over the matter of determining the correct date of Pascha. Anikētos held to the correct method of dating Pascha to the Sunday nearest 15 Nisan by the Hebrew calendar; while the inhabitants of Asia Minor (including Polycarp) largely held to a date of 14 Nisan for Pascha, regardless of the day of the week. Ultimately, Anikētos allowed via œconomia the Asiatics to continue using the local date. Though Saint Anikētos and Saint Polycarp both doubtless meant well, and they had for the time preserved the unity of the Church, unfortunately the dating of Pascha continued to be a matter of contention within the body of Christ for several centuries afterward, and even flared up again at the end of the second century.

As a bishop, however, Saint Anikētos was exemplary in conduct. He was aggressively compassionate, and he lived in voluntary poverty. He spent much of his time in the homes of the sick, ministering to them humbly – and what time of his own he did not spend there, he spent in prayer or study. He gave copiously to the poor. He forgave his enemies and those with whom he was at odds. And yet when riled to the defence of Orthodox doctrine he could become fierce and fiery. His hagiographers attribute his successes in dealing with the heterodox, first to the holy and compassionate mode of his life. The sincerity of his personal example moved many Catholic Christians in Rome who had hitherto been quite lax in both observance and morals to correct themselves and follow his generous and compassionate example. And the enemies of Christ could make no complaint of his hypocrisy.

Among these latter were the aforementioned Valentinus – the leader of a group of outwardly-Christian Gnostics who had split from the Church after Valentinus’s ambitions for advancement within it were thwarted. Marcion of Sinope was at this time also preaching in Rome, his odious doctrine that the God of the Hebrews was not the same as the Father of Christ. And a third is mentioned in his hagiography, an Alexandrian named Marcellina, who taught several evil doctrines borrowed from the false teacher Karpokratēs including reincarnation; her followers practised branding of the earlobes and orgiastic rites.

It is said of Pope Anikētos that he had several of these leaders of the hæretical sects banished from Rome, but that he cheerfully held the doors of the Church open for those who sincerely repented. He held the venerable Roman bishopric for eight years, which were characterised by energy, dynamism and renewal of the faith. Saint Anikētos was, however, seized by Roman officials claiming to act on behalf of the Stoic Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It is unclear from the historical record if Marcus Aurelius actively commanded his soldiers to arrest and persecute Christians the way Julian or Diocletian did, though he was certainly no Christian himself, and did nothing to stop the persecutions already underway. Having been thus apprehended, Saint Anikētos made no secret of his Christianity, and refused either to recant his belief in Christ or to offer sacrifice to idols. As a result, the Roman soldiery beheaded him with the sword, and he was martyred on the seventeenth of April, 168. Holy Father Anikētos, compassionate and faithful confessor of Christ, we ask you to pray unto Him for the salvation of our souls!

Troparion for Great and Holy Friday, Tone 2:

The Noble Joseph,
When he had taken down Your most pure Body from the tree,
Wrapped it in fine linen,
And anointed it with spices,
And placed it in a new tomb.

The Crucifixion of Christ