Holy New Priestmartyr Ḥabîb (Kheshy) of Damascus

Greek Orthodox Church in Port Sa‘îd, Ægypt

The sixteenth of July is the anniversary of the repose of one of the newer martyrs for the Faith of the Orthodox Church in Antioch, Father Ḥabîb Kheshy. Though he has not yet been formally glorified by the Church, a significant local cultus for him exists among Syrian Christians, and his cause therefore has considerable support in the great Church of Antioch. He should be remembered fittingly, for without doubt he is praying for us!

Ḥabîb Kheshy was born in 1894, the eldest of eight children; his father Niqûlâ [or Nicolas] Kheshy was also a righteous priest who served the Lord. Young Ḥabîb was given a solid education by his parents, and they taught him to love Christ and to keep the ascetic disciplines and prayers of the Church from an early age. He read from the Horologion, from the Psalter and from the Lives of the Saints. He also took his primary education at ‘Ayn Ṭûrah in Lebanon, and took his baccalaureate at the American University in Beirut. Ḥabîb took a keen interest in musicology, theology and Church history, and of particular interest to him were the ancient holy places of the Levantine Church.

Physically, Ḥabîb was slender, with a narrow, bright face. Inspired by the lives of the saints, he had a modest form of asceticism in his own life, which never overstepped the bounds of his calling, whether sæcular or in the Church. His personality was clear, simple and uncomplicated. He was also honest and direct, and did not mistrust or think ill of any. His attitude toward the natural world was one of wonderment; he approached all human beings with love and affection. His mouth was quick to comfort and prayer, and his hands were quick to give gifts and blessings, and to work good deeds for others.

Fr Niqûlâ moved his family to Myrsinē (now Mersin in Turkey) in 1914 after his son’s graduation. He served with distinction there as a parish priest, until he met a martyrific death during a political repression by the Turkish government aimed at religious minorities.

The Kheshy family had to flee Turkey. In 1922 they settled in Ægypt’s Port Sa‘îd, where Ḥabîb worked for some time as an accountant and translator for a foreign petrol company. During this time he met, fell in love with and married Wadî‘a Tûmâ, the observant daughter of Orthodox Christian refugees to Ægypt from Syria. He was drawn to Wadî‘a, it was said, because she had a generous and compassionate spirit, and used whatever free time she had to study from the Scriptures and read her prayer-book. The couple would have five children together: Jûlîyt, Mârsîl, Fadwa, Niqûlâ and Sâlim.

Ḥabîb was described as a caring and attentive husband and father – firm but gentle, and possessed of a sense of humour. Even while working as a parish priest, and this sometimes at a great distance from his family, he did not neglect them, but whenever he could he ate together with them, kept the fasts of the Church together with them, took trips together with them and attended to his children’s education.

In 1924 Ḥabîb and Wadî‘a moved back to Lebanon when his company transferred him to its branch in Beirut. Ḥabîb remained with that company for a further seven years. However, he was not content with his position and constantly felt the desire of his childhood, to enter the priesthood and to serve Christ. He resigned his position at his company and returned to Damascus. There, he went before the newly-enthroned Patriarch Alexandros III (Tahan), fell at his feet, and expressed his desire to become a priest. The Patriarch appears to have given the matter long and thoughtful consideration. Saint Ḥabîb’s ordination was something which his wife Wadî‘a, at first, opposed. She was concerned for the œconomic wellbeing of her husband and children, and did not want him to trade a life of relative wealth for the hardscrabble life she had seen parish priests lead in Ægypt. As long as she was opposed, Ḥabîb did not press the matter or try to badger her into changing her mind. However, she had a vision of Archangel Gabriel, who pointed her to two taps in the wall: one which was flowing freely, and the other which was flowing in a slight trickle. Gabriel said to Wadî‘a: ‘From now on you must be satisfied with little.’ From this she understood that the angel was supporting her husband’s desire to become a priest, and after this vision she consented in his wish. In the following year, 1932, he was ordained as a deacon, and then as a priest, by the Patriarch. He was consecrated in the Mariamite Cathedral in Damascus, and served there as a parish priest for three years.

In the years following 1935, Fr Ḥabîb often travelled between Damascus, Port Sa‘îd and Cairo. During this time his son Niqûlâ died at the age of five. This was the cause of great grief to Fr Ḥabîb and Wadî‘ah, though it also drew them closer together. Wadî‘ah was a trustworthy keeper of the secrets of her husband’s personal life as well as a compassionate co-sufferer with him in sorrows such as young Niqûlâ’s death.

However, in 1943 he permanently settled in Damascus. Still being based as a rector at the Mariamite Cathedral, Fr Ḥabîb did much of his work in the surrounding countryside, ministering to people in the villages outlying the Archbishopric of Damascus. Ḥabîb loved the rural poor, and his hagiography describes them as being among his best friends. Wealthy parishioners would often give him lavish gifts – which he would waste no time in giving to the poor, though he usually kept his gifts secret, such that his charity was known only to a few close friends and the direct beneficiaries. This was a cause of complaint among some other jealous parish priests. And one Ægyptian who was a friend of Fr Ḥabîb said of him: ‘It’s crazy how he disburses his money to the poor!’ On one occasion a hungry woman with several children knocked on his door and asked for some food. Looking into the kitchen, Fr Ḥabîb saw a whole pot of malfûf (stuffed cabbage rolls) that his wife had made for dinner. Without a second thought he gave the woman the whole pot and his blessing for a double portion of health.

On one occasion Fr Ḥabîb’s brother Yûsif sent him a rich, elaborate black cassock from Ægypt. He had occasion to go to the Mariamite Cathedral, and so he put the cassock on and went into aš-Šâri‘ al-Mustaqîm to meet Patriarch Alexandros. When Sayyidnâ Alexandros saw him, the Patriarch noted Fr Ḥabîb’s new cassock and exclaimed: ‘What a beautiful new cassock you are wearing, Abûna. May it be blessed!’

To this Fr Ḥabîb answered the Patriarch: ‘And may God bless you as well, Sayyidnâ! My brother sent me this as a gift from Ægypt.’

‘Then where is your old cassock, Abûna?’

‘It is at home, Sayyidnâ.’

‘Well, then. Later today I will send you an older priest from Ḥawrân. He and his flock are very poor. If you would be so kind, please give him your old cassock, for he cannot afford one himself.’

At this Fr Ḥabîb bowed his head, placed his hand on his heart, and said: ‘As you wish, Sayyidnâ.’

Later that evening, just as Patriarch Alexandros had said, the elderly priest from Ḥawrân showed up at Fr Ḥabîb’s home. Ḥabîb was wearing his old cassock. With joy Ḥabîb hugged the elderly priest, kissed him, invited him inside, served him coffee and candy, gave him the seat of honour in his parlour, and then gave to him a neatly wrapped package. When the elderly priest returned home and opened the package, of course what should he find there but Fr Ḥabîb’s new cassock, which his brother had given him!

Similar to his late father’s and his late son’s patron saint, Fr Ḥabîb would often give secretly to poor fathers so that they could afford dowries for their daughters to marry well – and would do this with particular speed if he discovered that a girl in his parish was being courted, on account of her poverty, by a Sunnî. To give these kinds of gifts, he would often borrow from rich parishioners, claiming some personal need of his own. He never let them know what he actually did with the money, but after his martyrdom his family found a notebook listing all of the parishioners to whom he owed money. Even though these parishioners had given this money to help the poor, he still considered the money as debts he owed himself, which he would repay.

Towards the middle of July, in the year 1948, Fr Ḥabîb left Damascus for Jabal aš-Šaykh. Those who had promised to go with him had backed out, and he planned to set out alone. Before he left, however, something strange happened to him: he felt as though, when he was praying, he was being lifted bodily off the ground. Khûriya Wadî‘a, when she heard of this, felt as though her heart were on fire. She begged him not to go, and even closed the door in his face when he refused to reconsider. Fr Ḥabîb began to laugh, saying, ‘What is wrong with you today, Khûriya? This isn’t the first time I’ve gone up the mountain. It’s strange that you would forbid me this time.’ For another hour she tried to convince him not to go, and that in front of his whole family, but to no avail. When at last she reluctantly agreed, Fr Ḥabîb gave her his blessing, and as she said goodbye she returned the blessing, making the sign of the Cross upon him and entrusting him to the care of the Theotokos.

On the sixteenth of July, Fr Ḥabîb was praying in a remote spot outside the village of ‘Arna on Jabal aš-Šaykh, when he was attacked by a band of smugglers. When they discovered him to be a Christian, and indeed a priest, they began to mock Fr Ḥabîb, beat him, kick him and subject him to cruel tortures for over four hours. In all that time, Fr Ḥabîb never once lifted his hand to defend himself, but instead told them of God’s mercy, blessed them as they cursed him and Christ, and asked God to forgive them. At length they flung the priest from a high cliff.

His killers were caught by the Syrian authorities. At first they tried to defend themselves by claiming Fr Ḥabîb was an Israeli spy. However, under cross-examination it was found that they had lied. They had killed him because they knew him to be a Christian and a priest. One of his killers, ’Ahmad ‘Ali Ḥasan ’Abi al-Ḥasan, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by the Syrian government, and executed two months later. The relics of Fr Ḥabîb, the great New Martyr for Christ, were found and returned to Damascus, where they were interred in the St George Cemetery on the eastern side of the city. Holy new priestmartyr Ḥabîb, ever patient father and friend to the poor, pray unto Christ God for us, that he may show us great mercy!

‘Arna, Jabal aš-Šaykh, Syria

Holy and Right-Believing Prince Ştefan III of Moldova

Saint Ştefan ‘cel Mare’ of Moldova

Today, the twelfth of July, is the day of the canonisation of Saint Ştefan, the fifteenth-century voivode of Moldavia, who preserved the territorial integrity and Orthodox faith of the territory of Moldavia – that is to say, Moldova – from onslaughts by all three surrounding powers: the Ottoman Empire, Poland and Hungary. His reputation among historians is mixed. But he is highly regarded and treasured by both Romanian and Moldovan historians, particularly after the fall of communism, for his preservation of Moldavian independence amidst the depredations of the great powers around him. He was glorified by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church in 1992; his feast-day is the second of July.

Ştefan Muşat [also in English Stephen, cognomen ‘cel Mare’ or ‘the Great’] was born to Bogdan II of Moldova and his wife Maria Oltea sometime in the mid-1400s; the year is unclear but it was probably sometime before 1440. He had three brothers – Ioachim, Ioan and Christea – and two sisters – Sorea and Maria. He was a very young man when his father seized the throne of Moldavia by force, with the aid of the peasant leader of Hungary Hunyadi János. Bogdan II made his young son his heir and co-ruler, while swearing fealty to Hunyadi as suzerain. However, one of Bogdan’s siblings, Petru Aron, assassinated him in October 1451 and took the throne for himself, being supported by the Kingdom of Poland – forcing the eleven-year-old Ştefan to flee Moldavia for Hungary.

Ştefan Muşat, as a young man, served as a retainer of the (in)famous Vlad Țepeș ‘the Dragon’ around the time he became ruler of Wallachia. Vlad thereafter lent his assistance to young Ştefan when he decided to retake his kingdom in 1456. At the head of an army, 6,000 strong, consisting largely of peasants from the south of the country, Ştefan charged headlong into his country and confronted his uncle Petru Aron at Doljești and Orbic in April 1457, routing his forces and causing him to flee for Poland.

The young Ştefan, most likely not yet being 20 years of age, was crowned as voivode of Moldavia on the 13^th of September that year by Metropolitan Teoctist. According to tradition, this took place in an assembly of boyars and clergy on the Plain of Direptate, near to the battlefield where he had fought and defeated Petru Aron. Teoctist, being Serbian-educated and Serbian-consecrated, was apparently one of the few Romanian clergymen who had not approved of the Union of Florence (and thus had significant sway among the Moldavian people). Saint Ştefan emphasised the Orthodox and religious elements of his title, in part to emphasise his connexion to the recently-fallen Orthodox Constantinople.

Ştefan wasted no time in chasing down his usurping uncle into Poland, signing the treaty of Overchelăuţi with the Polish king the following year, on the understanding that Casimir IV would not give his political or military support to Petru Aron. Petru Aron thereafter fled to Hungary, and Ştefan was forced to cede significant degrees of his sovereignty to Poland in exchange for protection from Hungary’s king Hunyadi Mátyás. Subsequent years saw Ştefan mount several campaigns against Hungary in order to protect the borders of Moldavia. During Ştefan’s campaigns against Hungary, in 1465, he managed to recapture Chilia, for which he traded with Poland for some of his northern territory, reëstablishing the historical boundary between Poland and Moldavia.

Both Hungary and Moldavia used disgruntled elements of each other’s landowning classes as military supports in their campaigns, one against the other. Thus, it’s not surprising that Ştefan used his new position to consolidate the power of the voivode over the boyars. Ştefan ruled in a distinctly autocratic manner, and did not flinch from using his friend Vlad Țepeș’s methods of juridical terror and execution – including impalement – against landowners and boyars who defied him. He suppressed Romani and Tatars in his realm, and undertook particularly heavy-handed and cruel administrative actions to prevent them from posing military threats to his power. He welcomed Armenians, Germans and other immigrants to settle in the underdeveloped agricultural regions of Moldova; however, he ruthlessly expropriated property from Jews under his sway and occasionally levied tariffs against merchants who crossed his borders. His policies of centralisation and protectionism, combined with selective open-door policy for immigrants and punitive actions against the nobility, ended up expanding both the powers and the military responsibilities of the Moldovan peasantry.

He expropriated a great deal of land from the more stubborn boyars. Of this land, he gave much of it to the Orthodox Church, and thus earned a certain reputation for religious devotion – and encouraged his loyal boyars to do the same. Over a dozen stone churches were built in Moldavia on his orders, most of these featuring a uniquely-Romanian architectural style which mixed Byzantine and Western principles. He commissioned the consecration of the Putna Monastery, whose votive church would become the resting place for himself and his family, and which is today located in northeastern Romania. He also contributed heavily to a body of Romanian Liturgical literature and music, which was – intriguingly – transcribed in the Cyrillic script. He had, it seems, an affinity for Slavic cultural expressions.

Saint Ştefan repulsed an invasion by Tatars in 1469, and another attempted coup by his treacherous uncle the following year. Capturing Petru Aron along with several of his supporters, Ştefan had them executed, thus putting a decisive end to the Moldavian succession issue. Once this was done, and having nothing more to fear from Hungary, Ştefan turned his attention to the threat from Turkey and the Tatars to his East, on the Black Sea coast. He sparred several times with the Ottoman vassal of Bessarabia, Radu ‘cel Frumos’. When the Ottomans invaded Moldavia in 1475, the holy voivode led a coalition of Christian kings, including those of Poland and Hungary, to expel the Turks from Moldavia and to dethrone Radu once and for all. Ştefan declared Moldavia to be the ‘Gate to Christendom’, and applied to both the Papacy and to the Venetians for help – which, as might be expected, never materialised. Upon the release of Vlad Țepeș in 1476, the Impaler launched a campaign to free Wallachia from the Ottomans – which ended in his death. Ştefan, on a rare occasion, found himself militarily defeated by the Turks, and was forced to flee for safety into Poland. However, with two of his vassals holding firmly in their fastenings, the voivode was able to return to his homeland that same year.

A power vacuum in Wallachia consumed much of the Moldavian monarch’s attention for the following years – though ultimately, after several failed attempts on Ştefan’s part to intervene in the succession, Wallachia is ceded to Ottoman suzerainty. Several treaties Ştefan was forced to sign between 1479 and 1484 ceded considerable degrees of sovereignty to Poland and Hungary in exchange for protection from the victorious Ottomans; however, the Ottomans under Bayezid II still attack and take the valuable port towns of Chilia and Cetatea Albă. Poland ultimately betrays Moldavia to the Ottomans, prompting Ştefan to again turn to Hungary. On the disputed succession of Władysław Jagiełło to the Hungarian throne, Ştefan – though effectively a supporter of Władysław – was again able to effectively play Poland and Hungary off of each other in order to assert Moldavian independence.

Towards the end of his life, in 1499, Saint Ştefan was finally able to leverage the strategic location of Moldavia and the political clout he carried in both Polish and Hungarian courts to force a settlement that would forge a Christian anti-Ottoman alliance – in which Moldavia would be considered a full and independent member. Even so, the continued Ottoman pressure on Moldavia would mean that Ştefan as well as his heirs would continue essentially paying protection money to the Ottomans in exchange for recognition of their sovereignty.

Ştefan married four times: first, to a woman named Mărica (who bore him a son, Alexandru); second, to Evdokia of Kiev; third, to Maria Palaiologina of Doros; and fourth, to Maria Voichița of Wallachia. In addition to his wives he also consorted with a number of women outside, claiming paternity of at least two illegitimate sons. His fourth wife would bear him a son, Bogdan [called ‘cel Chior’ or ‘the One-Eyed’], whom he would raise to take the throne after his death. Saint Ştefan, as the leader of a small state wedged between several large and powerful ones (much like the Kazakh khan Abylaı), skilfully played Poland, Hungary and the Ottomans against each other. His strategic acumen allowed him to make a successful bid for Moldavian independence, and his personal knack for nipping political plots in the bud and ensuring his personal longevity allowed Moldavia a degree of stability, order and internal peace which lasted through the reigns of his son and his grandchildren; and which it seldom had before or since.

Ştefan III makes for a complicated saint, very similar in character to Saint Éadgár the Frithsome of England. His sex life was – to say the least – not particularly saintly, though his fealty to Orthodox doctrine is past doubt, and there are interesting indications of a kind of sæcular asceticism in his life. For example: he did not hold a permanent court, and even in peacetime he liked to live in tents and sleep on the ground. He also prayed and mourned even over the graves of his enemies, and kept a rule of fasting and personal penance after battles. He was also notable for his personal generosity to monastics both at home and in places like the Holy Mountain, as well as to poor and needy people inside his kingdom. Saint Ştefan’s rule was indeed notoriously heavy-handed; however, he was a remarkably astute and tenacious political leader, one who was wholly committed to the defence of his folk and of his Church. The Catholic Pope Sixtus IV described him as an ‘athlete of Christ’. Particularly toward the end of the Cold War, he came to be seen as a heroic figure who is revered by all Romanians and Moldovans. In modern-day Moldova, particularly on the political left, he is considered to be the founder of the state, being the author of Moldovan independence from foreign powers – both Christian and non-Christian. Holy and great prince Ştefan, steadfast defender of the Moldavian land and people, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion for Saint Ştefan of Moldavia, Tone 1:

Fearless defender of the True Faith
And protector of the land of your forefathers,
Great founder of holy churches and monasteries,
O Prince Ştefan, pray to Christ God
To deliver us from our needs and sorrows.

Coat of arms of Ştefan cel Mare

Thoughts on the Hagia Sophia

The reactions from the Orthodox world on the recent move by Turkey’s President Erdoğan to turn the greatest Orthodox cathedral in the world, the Hagia Sophia, from a museum back into a mosque, are worthy of some comment. The first and most palpable reaction was one of naked outrage, which is not surprising. Indeed, I was outraged myself. The Minister of Culture in Greece, Lina Mendoni, had this to say in a written statement:

Today’s decision, which came as a result of the political will of President (Tayyip) Erdogan, is an open provocation to the civilised world which recognises the unique value and œcumenical nature of the monument.

UNESCO, the UN-affiliated international organisation dedicated to the preservation of culturally-significant monuments and the material culture of humanity, also reacted to Erdoğan’s decision with profound regret and censure. The Hagia Sophia is part of the Historic Areas of Istanbul which are part of UNESCO’s World Heritage List. UNESCO decried the unilateral and precipitous nature of the cathedral’s conversion into exclusive use as a mosque, which it calls a breach of the 1972 convention on the preservation of such sites of outstanding universal value and historical importance, and called upon the Turkish government to reconsider its decision and open a dialogue.

Hagia Sophia is an architectural masterpiece and a unique testimony to interactions between Europe and Asia over the centuries. Its status as a museum reflects the universal nature of its heritage, and makes it a powerful symbol for dialogue… It is important to avoid any implementing measure, without prior discussion with UNESCO, that would affect physical access to the site, the structure of the buildings, the site’s moveable property, or the site’s management.

Metropolitan Ilarion (Alfeev) of Volokolamsk, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Department of External Church Relations, said this on behalf of the Moscow Patriarchate:

We regret, with great pain, that this decision was made today. This is a blow to the whole world of Orthodoxy, because for all Orthodox Christians around the world, the Hagia Sophia is a symbol with the same [value] as the Roman Catholic Basilica of St Peter in Rome. It has been repeatedly stated that the status of the Hagia Sophia is Turkey’s internal affair; Turkey decides what to do with this temple. Therefore, it is now obvious that Turkey did not want to compromise, and Turkey did not want to hear the voices of those Christian leaders and those of those political leaders who urged this decision not to be taken.

The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in America also released a statement on the Hagia Sophia:

We protest the decision of the civil courts in Turkey, as well as the clear direction of their government, to re-convert Hagia Sophia into a mosque. As citizens of the United States of America, we implore our government to intervene for the reversal of this decision. Furthermore, we urge the Turkish government to return to the status quo whereby Hagia Sophia remains a museum, respecting both its origins and history.

By contrast, this unilateral action denies the universal vocation of this holy and sacred place. Hagia Sophia belongs to the whole of humanity as a World Heritage Site. Built in 537 AD during the reign of Emperor Justinian, it has been, for more than a millennium, a place of rich cultural and spiritual inspiration for all.

We are particularly concerned about the negative effects such a change will have on religious pluralism in Turkey, as well as on the relations among nations and between faith-based organizations. We call on the international community to invite the Turkish authorities to revise their decision, affording all people the opportunity to continue enjoying the full and rich history and beauty of this outstanding landmark. This unique Christian monument should remain open to all as a sign of co-existence and peace among all peoples of good will.

Suffice it to say, the Orthodox Christians of the world are not happy about this, and they have good reasons not to be. The Hagia Sophia is a powerful symbol of the great and sublime architectural beauty which the Eastern Roman state was capable of creating, and which the Orthodox Church still is capable of creating. But more than this, the conversion of one of the great holy sites of Orthodox Christianity into a Muslim mosque was a deliberate and præmeditated insult by the Turkish government against the religious and ethnic minorities within its borders. The Orthodox bishops may be constrained to express their dismay at this in diplomatic terms; I am under no such restriction. Therefore I will say it out loud:

If there was ever any doubt that Erdoğan is a petty, vindictive, opportunistic, five-and-dime tin-pot tyrant whose regional ambitions far outreach his modicum of political skill, and that his Ikhwân-flavoured intégrisme is nothing more than politics of ressentiment writ large - which there never should have been – let this story put them to rest at last.

This should not be the last word on the subject, however. I have also seen some rather unconscionable venting against Turks qua Turks over this, which is not going to be useful going forward if we Orthodox Christians are ever to get serious about carrying forward the message of Christ to the world which inspired the heights of creative endeavour represented by the Hagia Sophia in the first place. The beauty which the church offers is not for Greeks alone, any more than it is for Slavs or Arabs alone. If even a descendant of Gothic barbarians like yours truly can be drawn to the light, why should it be any less the case for a man or woman of Turkish descent?

The Orthodox Church’s hagiographical tradition is replete with Turkic and Tatar people who became, not only Orthodox, but Orthodox saints, who were glorified and deified, bathed in the uncreated light and everlastingly regenerated in the energies of Christ God. Many of these converted from Islâm and paid the ultimate price for their conversion. These include: the martyr Abraham of Bolgar (1229), the righteous prince Peter of the Golden Horde (1290), the holy abbot Pafnutii of Borovsk (1475), the martyrs Peter and Stephen of Kazan (1553), the holy abbot Serapion of Kozheozersk (1611), the hieromartyr Misail of Ryazan (1654), the martyr ’Ahmad the Calligrapher (1682) and the martyr Constantine of Smyrna (1819). Entire Turkic nations have converted en masse from Sunnî Islâm to Orthodox Christianity, including the Chuvash people of the Volga Basin after 1552, and the Gagauz people of Moldova at some point before 1812.

This is Orthodox history. These are the Lives of the Saints whom we venerate. This history judges and convicts the contemporary Orthodox obsessions with ethnic purism and nationalist mythmaking. These are themselves the result of the importation of nationalist ideology during the struggles for independence by the various peoples of the Balkans in the late nineteenth century. As Orthodox Christians we must actively make ourselves aware, at the level of practical politics and at the level of our face-to-face interactions, that these nationalist obsessions are fundamentally at odds with the deep convictions of the Church that nation and state are fundamentally separate.

None of this, of course, condones or excuses the unconscionably petty behaviour of Turkey’s president toward an important piece of the Byzantine cultural heritage. But: I speak this as a barbarian. Personally, my entry into the Orthodox Church was blessed by priests, like the late Fr Isaac Crow and Fr Elie Estephan of the Antiochian Church, and like Fr Valery Shurkin and Fr Sergiy Voronin of the Moscow Patriarchate, whose first and only words to me were those of love and welcome – not of condemnation or judgement. What comment they made upon the state of my mental health, the fallenness and brokenness which I brought with me into the Church, or the tyro enthusiasm which I occasionally demonstrated in my convert zeal – was all done in a spirit of gentle correction and reconciliation; they understood that repentance cannot be forced. Any missiology among the peoples who have been ‘our’ enemies in ages past must be undertaken in a similar spirit.

Famously, the beauty of the Hagia Sophia, when it was related back to Prince Vladimir of the Kievan Rus’ by heralds who ‘knew not whether [they] were in heaven or on earth’, was the deciding factor in the baptism of the Rus’. The loss of a thing of beauty is absolutely something to be lamented. But is this beauty something which may be bound inside a building? Is this beauty something which may never be repeated? Is this beauty something which can be destroyed or disfigured permanently by those enemies which can destroy the body? I would answer that, emphatically, no. That beauty consists in Christ, Who could not be defeated even by Death, but Who by His death trampled down Death. We may justly lament this abuse of the Hagia Sophia; we may not forget that Love which inspired the Hagia Sophia’s construction in the first place. We may justly consider the ideology which prompted this abuse to be at enmity with God; but we may not allow ourselves to believe that this ideology is solely the property of ‘those wicked people over there’ – as though I, a sinner, am any better! We may justly condemn, and resist, and even fight the decision of the Turkish president to turn it into a mosque; we must not allow ourselves to believe – even passively – that the Turks are somehow beyond the reach of Christ.

Holy New Priestmartyr Joseph of Damascus

Saint Joseph of Damascus
القديس يوسف الدمشقي

Today in the Holy Orthodox Church we commemorate the memory of Saint Joseph of Damascus, one of the Syrian New Martyrs of the Orthodox Faith in the lands which were governed by the Ottoman Empire. He belonged in particular to the Antiochian Orthodox Church, though his veneration is rightly universal in its importance.

Saint Joseph of Damascus, born Yûsif ibn Jurjis Mûsâ ibn Muhannâ al-Haddâd يوسف بن جرجس موسا بن مهنّا الحدّاد, was a descendant of the noble Banû Ġassân بنو غسّان, who often introduced himself as a native of Damascus, born in Beirut, whose faith is Orthodox. His father, Jurjis Mûsâ, moved from Beirut to Damascus sometime in the late 1700s. Though he came from a noble line, he was impoverished and made a working-class living working as a weaver. Jurjis Mûsâ got married and had three children: Mûsâ, ’Ibrâhîm and Yûsif – the last of whom was born in May of 1793.

Young Yûsif – that is to say, Joseph – had a natural curiosity despite his poor upbringing, and was encouraged in his study by his eldest brother Mûsâ, who was literate and poetic, and kept a small library of Arabic volumes at home. Joseph became fully versant in Arabic and attained a smattering of Greek during his school years. However, his father was unable to provide tuition for him to further his education, and planned to have him work alongside him as a weaver. Obediently, Yûsif began to work during the day – but he studied on his own initiative during the night, driven by a strong thirst for knowledge. The eldest brother, however, died at the young age of twenty-five, having spent much of his energy in study. This made his parents worry all the more for Yûsif, whose zeal for learning burned as brightly as Mûsâ’s had.

Yûsif began reading Mûsâ’s collection of books at the age of fourteen, but the subtlety and complexity of the language thwarted him, and he could understand only a little of what he read. His determination, however, was only spurred by this thought: ‘Was not the author of these books a human being like me? Why do I not comprehend them? I should grasp their meaning.’

He entered the tutelage of a respected Muslim scholar in Damascus, Muḥammad al-‘Aṭṭâr. From this man he learned a great many things: classical Arabic, as well as the philosophical arts of logic and rhetoric. He also kept the study of the Holy Scriptures, which his parents kept at home – he pored over the Law and the Prophets, the Psalter and the Gospels, committed much of them to memory, and attained to great wisdom from studying them side-by-side in both Greek and Arabic. However, the cost of his lessons under al-‘Aṭṭâr and of his books soon grew too great for his father to bear, and he left off his studies out of love for his family and a desire not to impose such great financial strain upon them. He went back to weaving during the day, and poring over books at night.

However, he did not allow opportunities for deepening his knowledge pass him by. He studied history and theology under Dr Jurjis Šaḥâdah aṣ-Ṣabbâġ, and then began teaching from his home. One of his students, who was Mizraḥi, tutored Yûsif in Hebrew. His parents grew alarmed at his continued scholarly pursuits, remembering what happened to his brother. At first they sought to dissuade him, but when this didn’t work, they did what any good self-respecting parents of a young Levantine would do: they set him up with a girl. They married Yûsif to a nineteen-year-old Damascene of respectable family, Maryam al-Kûršî. Their marriage apparently got off to a bit of a rocky start when he spent his wedding night, not in the usual way, but instead immersed in study.

He attracted the attention of the Orthodox believers living in aš-Šâri‘ al-Mustaqîm. Some of the parishioners went to Patriarch Seraphim, and they asked him to make Yûsif their priest. It turned out that Seraphim had heard of Yûsif as well and had a high admiration for him, and in quick order in 1817 ordained him a deacon and then a priest. He was then twenty-four years of age. When Seraphim’s successor Patriarch Methodios met Fr Joseph, he too grew to hold the young priest in esteem for his depth of knowledge and devotion, and made him an archpriest. Fr Joseph preached from the Mariamite Cathedral, and became renowned for his profound homiletics and powerful voice, and in Damascus he earned a reputation as a new Chrysostom. He had a remarkable gift of speech: he spoke to ordinary people in a tongue they could easily understand, but when it came to disputing with quarrelsome scholars he could run rhetorical circles around them with the ease of long practice. Many famous Damascene literary figures, whether Orthodox or Catholic or Muslim, quoted his sermons.

Fr Joseph was dynamic and energetic in the life of his parish, and had a particular gift for comforting the sorrowful and aiding the poor and destitute. He never forgot his working-class roots. He lived in personal poverty, depending on the work of his children, and he gave away freely whatever money came into his hands to whomever had need. He approached even apostates from the faith with kindness, never with anger or reproaches – and they would often come back into the Church in a spirit of repentance.

Naturally, he attended to the intellectual needs of the boys and girls of his parish, and when he took charge of the parish school in 1836 he enriched it with his own personal resources of books and writings, and brought his students together with the youth of his parish. He took a particular fatherly interest in young men who sought to study for the priesthood, and successfully levied the resources of the Patriarchate to sponsor their tuition. During this time, too, between 1833 and 1840, he served as one of the professors at Balamand Seminary in Tripoli. In 1852 he opened a department of theology in Damascus and took charge of twelve students there, all of whom later became bishops. His great love was for his city; in order to stay in Damascus he turned down even a lucrative offer from the Patriarchate of Jerusalem to teach Arabic in al-Quds, saying that ‘He who called me will satisfy me’.

Much as Fr Joseph’s appetite for learning in his youth had been voracious, so too his academic output in his adulthood was prodigious, punctilious and indefatigable. In 1840 his nephew estimated that his library contained as many as 2,827 books; and among his numerous writings were various commentaries on the Psalter and the Liturgical texts, as well as exegeses of the Pauline letters. He translated the Sermons of the great Metropolitan Saint Filaret (Drozdov) of Moscow into Arabic. He edited Deacon ‘Abdallâh al-Faḍl’s translations of Saint Basil’s Hexamæron as well as the Orations of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus. He was an invaluable resource for all of the Arabic-language Orthodox presses then in operation, both in the Levant and in Russia. Even so, despite his distinct mark upon the Arabic-language Orthodox literature of his time, he was loath to leave his name on many publications, thinking himself unworthy to keep company with the great Fathers of the Church.

Fr Joseph was insistent on correct ritual and Liturgical forms, and he corrected the practices of the Orthodox in sacramental rituals such as chrismations, weddings and funerals. He undertook the restoration of the Church of Saint Nicholas in 1845, which stood next to the Mariamite Cathedral, though this was burned down in the pogrom of 1860. In 1848, Fr Joseph exerted great energy in caring for the sick and dying during an outbreak of yellow fever in Damascus, which claimed even the life of his and Khouria Maryam’s son. His unflagging efforts and selfless regard for the needs of the suffering earned him the deep admiration of the people of Damascus.

Fr Joseph was also active in dialogues between the Antiochian Orthodox Church and the Melkites, in the schism which was at that time over 100 years old. Some in the Church wanted to use administrative pressure to bring the Melkites back into the Orthodox fold. However, Fr Joseph was adamant that the Orthodox should not cooperate with the Ottoman authorities in using political force against fellow Christians, even against schismatics. He believed in the power of dialogue. Force, he understood, only intensifies schisms; it cannot overcome them. Many Melkites indeed rejoined the Orthodox Church under Fr Joseph’s tenure.

On the other hand, Fr Joseph joined spirited polemics with American and English Protestant missionaries who operated in Syria – who, as often as not, took advantage of divisions and confusions in the Church to promote not only hæretical beliefs but their own nations’ imperialist agendas. Fr Joseph had to deal with one British missionary in particular with whom he discussed Biblical interpretation, who insisted on relating the substance of their discussions in a perverse and uncharitable light. During the season of Great Lent he replied to those people to whom this British missionary had misrepresented the Orthodox position, and sent them away with their questions satisfactorily answered and their minds edified. After this incident, the British missionaries no longer sought to ‘poach’ from the Orthodox flock, but instead asked questions in a more humble spirit of enquiry.

Fr Joseph entered an Orthodox Church which was impoverished, administratively weak, subject to the whims of Greek Constantinopolitan and Qudsi hierarchs, alienated from the common people on account of a foreign (Greek) Liturgical language and culture – and moreover faced with a vigorous and popular schismatic group (the Melkites) as well as an aggressively-organised campaign of missionary Protestantism. In the words of his hagiography, ‘in the midst of those challenges and dangers, Fr Joseph bloomed as a new godly branch’.

He ushered in an Antiochian ‘renaissance’, reinvigorating with his deep knowledge and great love for Christ the ancient Church which had been reduced but to a mere skeleton of its former glory. Saint Joseph of Damascus personally tutored Meletios II (Dûmâni), whose election to the Patriarchate as the first native-born Arabic Patriarch since 1724 would be an event heralded by Sâti‘ al-Ḥuṣrî ‘the first real victory of Arab nationalism’. He also had among his distinguished students: Met Gabriel Šâtîlâ of Beirut and Lebanon; Met Gerasimos Yârâd of Zaḥlah, Ṣayyidnâyâ and Ma‘lûlâ, Archimandrite Athanasios Qaṣîr of Balamand; Fr Spyridon Sarûf, dean of the clerical school in al-Quds; Fr John Dûmai, founder of the Arabic publishing house in Damascus; and laymen such as Demetrios Šaḥâdah, Michael Qâlîlah and Dr Michael Masakah.

Saint Joseph of Damascus said of himself: ‘I planted the seed in the true vineyard of Christ, and I am waiting for the harvest.’ Indeed, he planted many such seeds. Some sprouted during his lifetime; others were reaped long after he met his martyrdom. He tended his Damascene flock with great love, always giving the right glory to God. The ending of his life, in the horrific conflagration and massacre of the summer of 1860, reflected his true spirit in the same way.

Earlier that year, a proxy war had begun between the Maronites, who had been the proxies and compradors of French colonialism going back to the Crusades – and the Durûz, who were in the same manner the proxies and compradors of British power in the Levant. The fighting reached a bloody fever pitch over the summer, by which time it had taken the form of an anti-Christian (and anti-Shî‘ite) pogrom spearheaded by the Druze forces and their Sunnî Muslim allies. In Damascus, the pogrom claimed the lives of as many as 25,000 Catholic and Orthodox Christians. The poorer Orthodox Christians who lived outside the city were largely sheltered from the violence by their Shî‘ite neighbours.

When the killings and arson began on the ninth of July, many Orthodox Christians – including some from Mount Lebanon, or from villages outlying Damascus – fled inside the Mariamite Cathedral for protection. Hearing of this, Fr Joseph took the communion kit that he kept in his home, went up to the rooftops, and began leaping from roof to roof toward the Cathedral, administering the Eucharist and giving counsel, comfort and strength as he could to the Orthodox Christians he met. He told them not to fear those who can kill the body, for they cannot touch the soul, and told them of the trials of the martyrs in earlier times.

On the following day, the tenth of July, the Durûz and Sunnî paramilitaries began attacking the Cathedral itself; robbing and torching homes and beating and hacking their inhabitants to death. Some of the Christians took to the streets; one of these was Fr Joseph. He was recognised by a jurist who had sometimes debated him, and the jurist shouted to the crowds that he had found the leader of the Christians. Fr Joseph, knowing that his end had come, partook of the Divine Gifts and offered himself up to his persecutors. They attacked him with hatchets, bound his legs with twine and dragged him through the streets until he was dead. In this way Saint Joseph truly earned the crown of victory for the sake of Christ Whom he loved, and in his death sought to emulate. Holy Father Joseph, selfless giver of life and light to the Church in Damascus, steadfast confessor of Christ, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion to Saint Joseph of Damascus, Tone 5:

O faithful, let us honour the martyr of Christ,
The priest of the Church of Antioch,
Who baptised the land, the churches, and the people of Syria,
In the word of the Lord,
In his blood and in the blood of his companions.
Being baptised, since his youth, by the light of the Gospel,
He laboured, taught and kept the Church of Christ with her sheep.
Therefore, O Joseph the Damascene,
Be our example and our protector
And our fervent intercessor with the Saviour.

Mariamite Cathedral, aš-Šâri‘ al-Mustaqîm, Damascus, Syria

Holy Hierarch John, Bishop of the Goths

Saint John of Gothia

On the Orthodox Old Calendar, today – which is the twenty-sixth of June – we celebrate the feast of Saint John, the eighth-century bishop of the Gothic people of Crimea.

Saint John was born in the trading-port (emporium) of Partenit on Taurica, to parents named Leōn and Phōteinē. As can be seen from the very Greek names of his parents, similarly to the Galatians, the Crimean Goths apparently underwent a period of profound Hellenisation. Leōn’s father hailed from the Pontic coast and had served as a mercenary in the Byzantine army, as a standard-bearer in the Theme of the Armeniacs. It is supposed by Russian Orthodox scholarly sources that Leōn’s family had fled the Pontus for Taurica on account of the Iconoclast persecutions of Emperor Leōn III the Isaurian. There is no indication of the education or occupation of John before he entered the monastic life.

In 754, during the reign of Emperor Kōnstantinos V Koprōnymos, the bishop of Doros in Gothia was summoned to an Iconoclast robber-council of Hieria. The Goths of Taurica rejected this council adamantly, both its canons and the archpastor that had been chosen for them. Instead they elected as bishop from among their ranks, John – who was then most likely a layman. The reasons for this are not exactly clear – there wasn’t a strongly-developed tradition of icon veneration among the Goths at this time. But the position of the Gothic community was made clear by their own choice of bishop. At this time they were politically independent enough of Constantinople – though they were already under the heel of the Khazar Khanate – in order to defend such a choice without running the risk of political repercussions.

After the Robber-Council of Hieria, the new bishop John left Doros on pilgrimage to al-Quds, where he stayed for three years and visited all the holy places. It may have been the case that he had come there to seek consecration as bishop from the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theodōros. However, it appears that Patriarch Theodōros was unwilling, most likely because canon law forbade him to consecrate a bishop within the territory of Constantinople. That being the case, John politely and reverently took his leave of al-Quds, and proceeded into Iberia – that is to say, the country of Georgia, which had as yet been untouched by the hæresy of Iconoclasm. When he got to Mtskheta in the year 758, he was greeted warmly by the Georgian Catholicos Ioane III, who gladly anointed John a bishop.

Following the consecration of John, he returned as the Metropolitan of Doros. He sent a deacon, Longinus, to al-Quds to retrieve a confession of faith from the Iconophile Patriarch Theodōros, which he not only confessed but read to the entire congregation in Doros. He took this confession of faith with him when Empress Eirēnē Sarantapēkhaina took the laurels in Constantinople in 780, and forwarded a copy of it to Œcumenical Patriarch Paulos IV. Although the new empress allowed him safe passage into the city, Saint John was apparently not recognised as the canonical bishop of the Goths. Empress Eirēnē had not yet decided to distance herself finally from Iconoclasm. Even so, he had a very good personal rapport with the Iconophile Empress, and was permitted to give several polemical orations against the Iconoclasts, apparently with her protection, in Constantinople. It is probable that he delivered these Iconophile homilies from the Hagia Sophia. Saint John’s name does not appear in the canons of the Seventh Œcumenical Council; instead, the Gothic Church is represented at the Œcumenical Council by the bishop Nikitas – Metropolitan John’s protégé – and the deacon Euthymios.

Around this time as well, there began to be political troubles between the Goths and their rulers in the Khazar Khanate. Russian sources note the difficulty of assigning a certain chronology to the events of the anti-Khazar uprising in Gothia, as well as ascertaining the precise nature of Saint John’s involvement. The khaghan of the Khazars captured Doros, probably in 784, and set up a garrison. The Goths, not used to being militarily occupied or being subject to harsh taxes, revolted. Saint John took a leading role in this revolt, uniting the Goths against their occupiers. He managed to expel the garrison, and took control of the mountain passes (klisury) connecting the Gothic coastal settlements with the Crimean steppe.

Saint John was apparently opposed by one faction or one village of the Goths, who betrayed him and handed him over to the Khazar khaghan. With the loss of their bishop, the Goths decided to seek terms with the khaghan and surrender. Very likely, in this way they saved the life of their Metropolitan. As punishment for the riots, instead of making mass reprisals, the khaghan had seventeen innocent Gothic slaves beheaded, while Saint John was put in chains and thrown into prison at the city of Fully.

By a wonder of God, however, Saint John managed to escape his confinement. The Goths who connived at his escape were captured by the khaghan, and he made plans to execute them. However, as Saint John prayed for them the heart of the khaghan was moved to mercy, and he spared their lives, as he said, because ‘the crime was not their own’. He set sail for the ‘Christ-loving city’ of Amastris (named for the Persian princess who lived there), in Paphlagonia on the Black Sea coast. He was given shelter by the kindly Saint Geōrgios of Amastris, and he lived in that city for the rest of his earthly life.

While in Amastris, two men brought before the Gothic bishop a dispute over a jug of wine. When the two men refused to be reconciled to each other, Saint John prayed. The wine in the jug began to curdle and thicken like cheese, and the two men had to chop it up and throw it away. After this, they repented of their sin and were reconciled to each other. Saint John worked several wonders like this, and the common folk of Amastris came to awe and respect him, and they repented and lived a godly life upon witnessing and hearing of his works.

One day probably in 788 or 790, word of the Khazar khaghan’s death reached Amastris. When Saint John heard of it, he spoke: ‘Brethren, I shall depart after forty days, to stand trial with him before the Lord God.’ As he said it, so it happened: after exhorting his followers with salvific words, Saint John fell asleep in the Lord forty days after. The saint had foretold that a ship would arrive in Amastris to carry his body back to Taurica, and this too came to pass. Saint Geōrgios led a procession with candles and incense to the shore, and placed the relics of Saint John upon the boat and gave it his blessing. The ship sailed back to Taurica at wondrous speed, and the Gothic saint was interred at a monastery he’d founded to the memory of the Holy Apostles on the eastern slopes of Ayuv Dağ. Healing wonders continued at his tomb there, and drew many pilgrims to that place.

A couple of notes here. According to the genetic genealogical research I’ve been doing, a significant amount of my heritage – between a third and two-fifths – is linked to the various East Teutonic peoples who rampaged their way across the Balkans and Southern Europe in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries. I am very closely related to a certain female Visigoth who was buried at the necropolis of Pla de l’Horta in eastern Spain in the middle of the sixth century. Though Saint John’s family never came near Spain, still he is a member of a linguistic and ethnic community – the Crimean Goths – that preserved the distinctions of a related Gothic culture, well after the Visigothic Kingdom had disintegrated. So there is definitely an aspect of Rujia-inspired ancestor veneration to my remembering Saint John today.

On another point: Saint John’s revolt against the Khazars was a political one. Saint John and the Goths objected to their political enslavement and the unwanted fortification and garrison being placed in Doros under the khaghan. It is sad that his memory has been appropriated by a group of people whose only interest in his life and saintly cultus, is as a mascot for their own modernist politics of hæretical phyletism. This is a phyletism which Saint John himself, as an eighth-century man and as an Orthodox hierarch, would not have condoned. Those elements of it which he would have seen, like the Gothic Orthodox historian Jordanes, we may reasonably assume from his Life he would have criticised. Saint John of Gothia was equally at home as a pilgrim among the Palestinian Greeks and Arabs in al-Quds, or in the Iberian Mtskheta, or in the multicultural metropolis of Constantinople under Empress Eirēnē. It is therefore important to venerate Saint John of Gothia today, because not one aspect of the Orthodox Faith which Saint John defended should be left to those who would coöpt it into a political idolatry of the ethnos instead of worshipping Christ our Lord, Who is all in all, and Who gave Himself on behalf of all and for all. Holy hierarch John, stalwart of Orthodoxy against the iconoclasts and defender of the freedoms of your people, pray unto Christ our God on behalf of your wayward and sinful children!

Apolytikion to Saint John of Gothia, Tone 1:

O Orthodox patron of Taurica,
Ornament of the threshold of Parvenit,
Source of wondrous mercies
And firm confessor of the Truth
O Holy Father John,
Pray unto Christ God Whom you loved even from your youth,
Grant us the gifts of your God-pleasing zeal,
Pacify the world and save our souls.

Православныя Таврии покровителю,
Партенитских пределов украсителю,
Чудес милосердия источниче,
Истины твердый исповединче,
Святителю Отче Иоанне,
Моли Христа Бога, Егоже от юности возлюбил еси,
Ревность о Богоугождении нам даровати,
Умирити мир и спасти души наша.

Monument to Saint John of Gothia, Partenit, Crimea

Saint Martha, mother of Symeōn Stylitēs the Younger

Saint Martha of Antioch
القديسة مرثا الأنطاكي

The fourth of July is also the feast day in the Orthodox Church of another Holy Mother of Antioch, Saint Martha the mother of Symeōn Stylitēs the Younger. Saint Martha’s Life was probably composed first by one of the Syriac monks who lived on the Hill of Wonders as part of the monastic community around her son’s pillar, around the year 620, and from there it was transcribed into the Slavic Prolog. It is unique and valuable in Syriac hagiographical literature in that it relates the life of a sæcular, married saint who was neither a noblewoman, nor a martyr, nor a nun. Although Saint Martha was always closely associated with this monastery, her Life therefore attests to the virtuous striving and sanctity that even married couples ‘in the world’ can hope to attain.

Saint Martha [Gk. Μάρθα, Ar. Marṯâ مرثا] was born in Antioch, probably shortly after the year 500. As a young woman she went often to Liturgy, prayed unceasingly, and harboured the desire to dedicate her life to God in holy virginity. However, this was not meant to be. Her parents, meaning well and thinking of her well-being, arranged for her to marry a Syriac youth of Edessa: a chemist’s son named Yaḥyâ – that is, John. This decision was not to her liking, for she wanted to retain her virginity. She began making plans to quit her parents’ house.

However, it so happened that before she could put this plan into motion, she went to a shrine dedicated to Saint John the Forerunner, and was there visited by him. Saint John gave her a wondrously sweet-scented ball of incense. She prayed at that shrine again, and Saint John reappeared and told her that she must obey her parents. Putting aside her plan to flee, she was married to Yaḥyâ. Saint John further instructed her to sleep with Yaḥyâ, conceive from him, and bear a son to him who was to be named Sim‘ân – that is to say, Symeōn – to be named for the great High Priest (or possibly for Symeōn the God-Receiver?), for he too was destined to become a priest of God. Saint John gave her further instructions on how she was to raise little Symeōn, including using only her right breast to feed him. It happened that she disobeyed this last instruction once, when the boy was insatiably hungry, but her left breast began to shrivel and so she ceased. It also happened that whenever Saint Martha would eat meat, her son would refuse her milk. When the boy was older, she weaned him with bread and honey. She had her young son baptised in the Orthodox faith at the age of two.

Saint Martha’s husband Yaḥyâ died young – killed in one of the natural disasters that wracked Antioch during the 520s. Symeōn was at this time only a boy of five, and his frightened mother went out searching for him in the wreckage of the earthquake, fearing that her son had also been killed. Once again, the Forerunner appeared to Saint Martha in a vision, and pointed to her where her son was. It turned out that a neighbour had found Symeōn in the church and taken him into her house for a full seven days, and she told Saint Martha that the young boy had refused all food until his mother arrived. Soon afterward Saint Martha had a vision of herself offering Symeōn to God.

The loss of her husband and the unexpected deliverance of her son, together seem to have made Saint Martha even more observant, out of gratitude to God. The Slavic Prolog tells us: ‘She had the regular habit of rising at midnight for prayer. With great charity, she helped the needy and misfortunate, visited the poor, the orphaned and attended the sick.’ It was not long after the earthquake that Symeōn met a certain man dressed in white robes, who instructed him to follow out into the deserts beyond Antioch. Saint Symeōn was led into a monastery upon a mountaintop, where lived a stylite under whom the boy studied and soon began living an ascetic life on a pillar of his own.

Despite Symeōn’s life of seclusion and asceticism, his mother did not lose contact with him, but came to visit him regularly. On one occasion a certain woman named Juliana came to Saint Symeōn with her sister and her niece who was possessed by an unclean spirit. Saint Symeōn did not cure them, and sent them back to Antioch. Saint Martha came to visit Juliana, and soon ascertained that the reason that her son hadn’t cured her sister or her niece was because her sister had committed a certain sin that she had not confessed. Martha counselled Juliana and her sister, and they went back to Saint Symeōn and Juliana’s sister confessed her sin to him. Martha pleaded with her son to cure Juliana’s niece, and he did.

The earthquakes in Antioch continued – this was still before Patriarch Ephraim’s intercession on the city’s behalf, apparently – and Saint Symeōn was troubled by visions of the city’s destruction. He began writing penitential troparia from his perch on the pillar and handing them out to the monks to chant, in an effort to stop Antioch from being destroyed. Saint Martha came back to him then, and he told her about the visions of destruction that he had foreseen in Antioch and Constantinople, and Martha had become very afraid. She redoubled her prayers, and asked her son to spend an entire day in intercessory prayers for Antioch. The Patriarch too heard of these visions and prayers on the Hill of Wonders and was moved to intercede, and through their prayers the city was saved. On another occasion Saint Martha asked her son to intervene on the city’s behalf as it was struck by a period of civil strife and religious division, provoked by the Evil One.

A year before she died, Saint Martha received a vision of many angels bearing candles in their hands. From these, Saint Martha was able to ascertain how many days she had left to live. Upon learning this, she was not stricken with fear or despair, but instead resolved yet more intensely to devote herself to prayer and to materially benefitting the needy, feeding and clothing the poor, visiting the sick and burying the dead. She met her repose in the Lord peacefully and with contentment, on the fourth of July in the year 551. She was buried close to where her son still sat on his pillar, and the evidences of the sæcular woman’s great sanctity very quickly became apparent to Saint Symeōn and to his monks. Saint Martha appeared in visions to the monks and to the pilgrims who came to the Hill of Wonders; and it was always to teach them the correct way of prayer or of doctrine, or else to heal them of the sicknesses of body and spirit.

Her most significant appearance was to the abbot of the monastery on the Hill of Wonders, after she had been buried. The abbot had placed a candle over her grave with the intention that it should always be kept lit. But when the abbot fell ill, he neglected the candle and allowed its light to go out. After this happened, Saint Martha visited him in a vision and reproached him:

Why do you not burn a votive candle on my grave? Know that I am not in need of the light from your candle since I have been made worthy before God, the Eternal Heavenly Light, but it is needed for you. So when you burn a light on my grave, you entreat me to pray to the Lord for you.

Saint Nikolaj Velimirović adds the following commentary in the Prolog: ‘It is obvious from this that the goal of our veneration for the saints is to entreat them as those worthier than us to pray to God for us and for our salvation.’

It bears repeating that Saint Martha of Antioch was not an ascetic. She was not celibate. She was not a martyr. She was not born to wealth or to political office. She married a common-born chemist’s son. She gave birth to a child who turned out to have an extraordinary love for God. Sanctity is not only for monks, not only for rulers, not only for the witnesses to faith under trials and persecution. Sanctity is for all. Because: though not an ascetic, she suffered. Though not celibate, she loved and obeyed her husband. Though not a martyr, she showed Christ’s love to those she knew. Though not wealthy, she gave from her poverty to those who had nothing, and she was in that way richer than many who lack no material comfort. The virtues that Saint Martha displays throughout her life: love for her family and particularly for her poor and sick neighbours, faith in God, hope even in the face of personal tragœdy and loss – these are our true bread. These are exactly the things that Saint Paul told each and every common believer to possess. Holy mother Martha, praiseworthy and sweet intercessor for Antioch and for all those who pray, please pray for us today that Christ may have mercy on us!

Apolytikion to Saint Martha of Antioch, Tone 8:

The image of God was truly preserved in you, O Mother,
For you took up the Cross and followed Christ.
By so doing, you taught us to disregard the flesh, for it passes away;
But to care instead for the soul, since it is immortal.
Therefore your spirit, O venerable Martha, rejoices with the angels.

The monastery of Saint Symeōn the Younger, Antioch

Holy Hierarch Andrew of Jerusalem, Archbishop of Crete

Saint Andrew the Archbishop of Crete
القدّيس أندراوس أساقفة كريت

Today is Independence Day in America. My feelings about this particular holiday are well-known to my readers, I’m sure. I’ve passed this day in commemoration of a half-Rus’, half-Qypchaq knyaz whom I embrace as a model for my children. I’ve passed this day in commemoration of the British monarchy as an institution. I’ve passed this day in commemoration of the Scriptural witness in defence of monarchy. That should give some idea to my readers of where my loyalties tend to lie. But today I don’t intend to puff out my chest in defiance. I don’t intend to use this holiday as an excuse even for my own pride, perversity and psychosexual dependence on a British past. I think it’s necessary to pass the national holiday in remembrance of another Saint Andrew, whom we also commemorate today on the Church calendar: one of the Orthodox Church’s greatest penitents, one who most truly took his own sins to heart and confessed them before God, comparing himself unfavourably to the very worst transgressors in Scripture. I am speaking, of course, of the eighth-century Archbishop Saint Andrew of Crete.

Saint Andrew, or Andreas, of Crete [L. Andreas Cretensis, Gk. Ἀνδρέας Κρήτης, Ar. ’Andrâws al-Kurîtî أندراوس الكريتي] was not a Cretan by his nativity, but instead a Damascene. He was born in that city, around the year 660, to two observant Orthodox Greco-Syrian parents, Geōrgios and Grēgoria. His parents were much grieved, and worried over him, because for the first seven years of his life he was incapable of speech. Despite this handicap, which no doctor could cure, his parents took him to church and prayed with him. At the age of seven he took the Holy Eucharist for the first time, and was wondrously delivered from his affliction; from that day on he was able to speak.

The young Andrew, perhaps because of his deliverance from muteness by the body and blood of Christ, became intensely interested in theological questions and desired to study the Holy Scriptures. At the age of fourteen he came to the realisation that what he desired was to be free of all earthly and self-interested desires. This being so, he asked his parents to take him to al-Quds and all the holy sites there, so that they might dedicate him to God. His parents did this for him, taking him to the Holy Edicule from which Christ our Lord rose from the dead, and there gave him to the Saviour he dearly loved.

At length he came to the holy house of Dayr Mâr Sâbâ in Palestine (what is now the West Bank), and asked to be admitted as a monk. His conduct among the Sâbâite monks was extraordinary, and he came to earn the admiration of his fellow monks: he was helpful and kind to all, quick to understand and ready to practise what he had learned. His hagiography states that he ‘led a strict and chaste life, he was meek and abstinent, such that all were amazed at his virtue and reasoning of mind’. But the young monk was not puffed up by this, but always inwardly filled with compunction, at all times aware of his idolatry, his unworthiness and sin in the sight of God, who beholds the heart.

It was not long before the Damascene youth came to the attention of the locum tenens Patriarch Theodore of Jerusalem, who was impressed by his comely quietude, and made him a reader in the Church and a secretary to the Patriarchal Office. At the age of twenty he was sent by the Patriarchal Office – locum tenens Patriarch Theodore having reposed in the Lord in the meantime – as part of the delegation from al-Quds to the Sixth Œcumenical Council.

At this council, illuminated by love of God and animated by the zeal for a correct understanding of God, Saint Andrew held forth at length against the monophysites and against the Maronites, who at that time were apparently already under the influence of monothelitism. Saint Andrew, like his Levantine contemporaries Saint Sophronios and Saint Theodore, held forth that Christ had both a divine will, and full agency as a human being, and that these wills coexisted in the same Person ‘without division, alteration, separation or confusion’. At this council, Saint Andrew spoke with clarity and force, out of his deep knowledge of doctrine and his deeper love for Christ. In so doing he apparently left a deep impression upon the Constantinopolitan clergy.

Andrew did not stay long in al-Quds upon his return from the Council. Instead he was summoned back to the great capital city of Eastern Rome, and was elevated to the office of archdeacon at the great Hagia Sophia. At the Hagia Sophia, the archdeacon became renowned for his generosity to the poor. In his management of the orphanage and of the hospice for the elderly attached to the great cathedral, Saint Andrew became known for allotting to orphans and the poor each a double measure of grain and meal. He also expanded the orphanage and hospital buildings because conditions were too crowded. During the first reign of Emperor Justinian II, the Emperor anointed the archdeacon as bishop of Gortyna in Crete.

In Gortyna Saint Andrew continued his attention to improving the material conditions of the poor people under his care. He instructed his priests to be like mirrors, reflecting the luminous grace of the Almighty. He visited the monasteries and ensured that they followed the proper discipline. He renovated old churches that had fallen into disuse, and he built new wayhouses, hospices, schools and homes for orphans. But it was in Gortyna that Saint Andrew’s talent for composing hymns became truly recognised. It was while he was still a young monk at Dayr Mâr Sâbâ that, inspired and humbled by the mercy shown to the sinful figures in the Hebrew Scriptures which he studied so intently, he wrote his Great Penitential Canon. The longest canon ever written, at 250 strophes, the Great Canon is a truly poignant work of confessional literature which is still used in the Orthodox Church during the first week of Great Lent – divided into four methynomy, one methonym is recited on each day from Clean Monday to Clean Thursday, and then again the Canon is read in its entirety on Great Canon Thursday during the fifth week of Lent.

In addition to the Great Penitential Canon, Saint Andrew of Crete is credited also with composing between 23 and 57 canons, although of these 14 may be ascribed to him with certainty. Among these are canons dedicated to the raising of Lazarus, to the conception of the Theotokos by Saint Anna, to the Holy Maccabean Martyrs (a favourite subject of the Antiochian homilists and hymnographers – again testifying to the lingering impact of the early Jewish Christian predilections of that city), and to Saint Ignatios of Antioch.

The Antiochian Church also convincingly attributes to him canons for the Nativity, for the Compline of Palm Sunday, for the first four days of Holy Week, and verses for the Meeting of the Lord in the Temple. As we can see, a great deal of the beauty of Orthodox hymnody in our Liturgical cycle is owing to the personal creative work of Saint Andrew.

Despite Saint Andrew’s invective at the Sixth Œcumenical Council against one particular hæretical Pope of Rome (to wit, Honorius), our separated Roman brothers and sisters nevertheless pay deep and correct honour to Saint Andrew, primarily on account of his devotional writings in praise of the Most Holy Theotokos on the great feast of her Nativity as well as on other occasions.

Although the feast-day of Saint Andrew of Crete is well-established as the fourth of July (that is, the seventeenth of July on the civil calendar in polities which follow the Old Calendar), and though we know that he reposed in Mytilēnē on the isle of Lesvos on his return to Crete from the capital, the actual date of Saint Andrew’s death is unclear. Some sources have it that he reposed in the Lord in 712—others, in 726. In general, Roman Catholic hagiographical sources appear to prefer the latter date.

Many hagiographies of Saint Andrew of Crete, including those on the OCA and the Antiochian Patriarchate websites, state that his remains were translated to Constantinople, and that they were venerated by the fourteenth-century pilgrim and devotional writer Stefan of Novgorod. However, this appears to be an error. It is the result of a historiographical confusion between the Damascene Saint Andrew of Crete whom we commemorate today, and his similarly-named near-contemporary Saint Andrew of Krisei, or ‘of the Crisis’ [Gk. Ἀνδρέας ό ἐν τῇ Κρίσει], an iconophile monk who was arrested, tortured and gruesomely executed by the iconoclast and anti-monastic Emperor Constantine V Koprōnymos on the seventeenth of October, 766 – the day of his commemoration. It is almost certainly this monastic martyr whom Stefan of Novgorod venerated during his visit to Constantinople, and called ‘Saint Andrew of Crete’. The Saint Andrew of Crete whom we venerate today, was interred near where he reposed, in the city of Eressos on the isle of Lesvos, where his shrine exists to this day.

It seems very fitting on a day which is locally consecrated to national pride, that the Orthodox Church in America would encourage us to venerate a humble Church Father, among whose many lasting contributions to our hymnody was a profoundly personal and soul-penetrating expression of contrition and repentance. As an individual, I clearly have much to repent of – including most notably the same sins of personal pride and perversity which Saint Andrew saw within himself. And as a nation we have much to repent of. Let us spare a prayer today for that great adoptive Cretan who would no doubt be the first to agree with and echo the prophetic indictment issued against him and his people in Saint Paul’s epistle to Apostle Titos, and ask him: Holy hierarch Andrew, God-inspired composer and orator of repentance and of the saints’ praises, entreat Christ our God to have mercy upon our unworthy souls!

Apolytikion of Saint Andrew of Crete, Tone 5:

Like the Prophet David,
You sang a new song
In the assembly of the righteous.
As an initiate of the Holy Spirit,
You thundered forth hymns of grace
And the word of righteousness for our salvation,
O Andrew, glory of the Fathers!

Church of Saint Andrew of Crete, Eressos, Greece