Iraq War III, Syria War II, Yemen War II

Man, I get sick to death of this culture of remakes. Hollywood really doesn’t have any new or original ideas, do they? It’s just Iron Man this, Batman that: military abuses abroad, police abuses at home. And even the focus group-tested corporate-boardroom storylines don’t change. Or rather, I should say, the lies. We have to bomb Iraq because of… wait, what again? Weapons of mass destruction? Oh, wait, no, it’s those evil Eye-ranians up to their no-good tricks. Because three soldiers are dead who… wait, what were they doing there, again? Why were they there? I thought the Iraqi government had already given us the eviction notice? Or several? Why were they even there in the first place?

So, under Biden we have another war. Another unilateral illegal military action, without Congressional approval, open-ended, with no strategy for either victory or exit. And we have declared it, make no mistake, on the people of Iraq—who apparently haven’t suffered enough these past two decades on our account—and on the people of Syria, who apparently also haven’t suffered enough these past dozen years. Oh, and on the people of Yemen just for good measure, because why not? Clearly 377,000 dead people, mostly children, in that country didn’t get that message across firmly enough. And of course, we have also declared war on truth, because American imperium has no greater enemy than reality.

But tell me again how it’s those evil Eye-ranians who are to blame. Or the Russians, always the Russians. As Ginsberg put it: ‘Its them bad Russians. Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.’ Point the finger anywhere but at Washington, anywhere but at Hollywood, anywhere but at Wall Street, anywhere but at yourself—in short, anywhere but at those actually responsible.

I’m sick. I’m not motion-sick; there is no motion, and that’s the problem. I’m sick to death. I’m sick of the lies. And I’m sick that children die, under the flag that I’m told is mine, while we all clap along passively in the theatre and wait for the after-credits teaser that previews the next million children to die. I beg God to let me leave the room, but I can’t. What else can I do? They’re not going to stop the reel no matter how much I object, and attract the heckling of the people in back who are still in their trances. But there’s nothing else for me to do, except pray.

‘Humble Month’?

I have seen some Orthodox Christians recently begin talking about the possibility of making June ‘Humility Month’ or ‘Humble Month’. The idea is that, as the secular culture around us is celebrating gay pride (including the advocates of secular culture from the sadly predictable usual quarters), we should seek to exalt instead the virtue of humility as an antidote to pride of all kinds. Speaking as an Orthodox Christian layman, I’m here to say that ‘Humble Month’ is a bad idea… but not for the reasons you might think.

Two days from now, in the Orthodox Church, we will celebrate the feast of the fullness of the revelation of the Holy Spirit in history. We will celebrate the Last and Great Day, the dawning of the great fire, the holy fire which descended upon the heads of the Apostles as they gathered together ‘in one place’, in the Cenacle at Jerusalem. It is the last of the great feasts in the Church, and it marks the historical beginning of the Church in the world.

Let us be absolutely clear about the meaning of this feast. It is a day upon which the Gospel of salvation went forth by grace into the hearing of all peoples. A new word, indeed the Word of Truth, was proclaimed even in the tongues of the most despised barbarians.

The Book of Acts mentions several nations which heard this word in their own native language: Parthians and Medes (speakers of Iranian languages); Elamites (speakers of an extinct language isolate); Mesopotamians (speakers of Aramaic, with Akkadian still in liturgical use); Judæa (Aramaic and Hebrew); Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia Minor (dialects of Greek); Phrygia (Phrygian); Pamphylia (Greek); Egypt (Coptic); Libya (Tamahaq, Greek and Latin); Rome (Latin); Crete (Greek); and Arabia (Arabic). These languages were all explicitly sanctified in Scripture by the Holy Spirit. And even those which were not explicitly sanctified here were blessed in the Great Commission. (As a result, it makes better sense, following the logic of Pentecost, for Orthodox Christians to celebrate June as Indigenous History Month the way they do in Canada. The languages of those who were here first are similarly blessed. But I digress.)

The fire that descended upon the Apostles at Pentecost was not a destroying fire. It was not the fire that consumes. It was the same as the fire that Moses beheld in the Burning Bush—a fire which illumines, is the essence of creativity. This is the fire of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost calls us to a creative and self-giving relationship to the world. What better evidence could there be of this, than of the Word being preached in the tongues of all the nations present in Jerusalem? It ought to go without saying, though, that Pentecost also calls us to be humble. As Saint John of Kronstadt said: ‘The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who fills the whole universe, passes through all believing, meek, humble, good, and simple human souls, dwelling in them, vivifying and strengthening them.’ Pride has no place at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit finds no place to dwell in those who are filled up with themselves, their own ‘me’-ness.

So ‘Humility Month’ gets at least this one thing—and it is quite an important thing—right. Humility before the Holy Spirit is very much needful; without it, we are nothing. On the other hand, though, the whole ‘Humility Month’ business strikes me as a purely reactive posture. It takes as primary, not the witness of the Orthodox Calendar and the Liturgical cycle ordained by the power of the Holy Spirit… but instead the imitative liturgics of the surrounding secular culture. It bases its witness not on Pentecost, but on an evil or a privation to be opposed. This is, to put it bluntly, almost an anti-Pentecost approach.

If such reaction is at times a deep and understandable temptation in an age where identity politics and ‘woke’-ism seem to have gone completely amok, we should nonetheless understand the impulse as temptation, as a passion in the Patristic sense. Orthodox Christians should certainly not strive to mimic the culture in opposition—in other words, to posture as a set-theoretical not-X to the culture’s X. There is so much that is truly good, that is original in the Orthodox culture—what I should say is, the Orthodox cultures that were sanctified at Pentecost, be they Greek, Arabic, African, Persian, Syriac, Latin, or any of the cultures that were baptised afterward—that there should be no need for us to make a commemorative ‘Month’ that is simply the stated opposite of what a weak, shallow and exhausted consumerist culture finds ‘good’.

Let us be truly humble, then, if that is our aim. Let us proclaim the Pentecost in whatever language we can find to hand—surely that language will by no means exhaust the Holy Spirit’s glory. Let us be creative and self-giving as the Apostles were then. Let us make more than a Month of it, for the Pentecost is the fiftieth day, the fullness of time in the new creation. Let us be proclaimers of Christ Risen and Ascended. Let us be seekers of the Father’s abundant mercies. Let us be witnesses of the Holy Spirit’s work in the world.

Does God take sides?

Sometimes one hears it said in American theopolitical discourse, that God does not take sides in politics. There is one sense in which this is a true and worthy impulse to say. And there is another sense in which this glib characterisation becomes dangerously wrong.

Firstly, I tend to believe that it is fully right and accurate to hold that the God of the Holy Scriptures, the Creator of the cosmos, has little to choose in terms of American politics. I believe it is proper to say that God is neither a Democrat nor a Republican.

The first reason that such a characterisation is true, is because the agendas of both parties take moral positions which would be thoroughly and irreconcilably repugnant to the early Church. The first-century Apostolic text called the Didachē, to take one example, explicitly condemns the practice of abortion. This practice is, sadly, ‘unequivocally’ countenanced as a ‘reproductive right’ by the official platform of the Democratic Party.

The Republican Party is no better than the Democratic Party—indeed, in one fundamental way it is worse. The Didachē condemns idolatry as thoroughly as, and in fact more often than, it condemns abortion. And the Republican Party upholds, from the very first sentence of the preamble of its own platform, an explicit form of idolatry: the idolatry which exalts the nation-state as ‘exceptional’ and ‘unlike any other nation on earth’, and which exalts the US Constitution as a sacred ‘covenant’. What does God have to choose between one party for which destroying innocent children is a sacred right, and another party which proclaims aloud with the priests of the Sanhedrin that they have ‘no king but Cæsar’?

Although for a long time I have personally refused to support either major party with my vote, I say this not to cast aspersions on the ordinary American Christians who decide to vote with one major party or the other. Most people have independent reasons, driven by pragmatism or by personal and contextual considerations, for preferring, even strongly preferring, one party over the other. I assuredly do not believe that having such reasons makes one evil or an enemy of God. I say this merely to demonstrate that the God Who created the whole of the cosmos, Who revealed Himself by the law and the prophets to ancient Israel, and Who Himself took human flesh from a certain virgin in first-century Galilee, has nowhere to lay His head when it comes to the halls of power in Washington.

But does this mean that God does not take sides in politics, full stop?

First-order, it strikes me as rather presumptuous for American Christians to assume, that simply because the two main Coke-and-Pepsi options in their own particular powerful nation-state are both distant from God, that God must be equally distant from all possible forms of political expression. Yet many high-minded and well-intentioned evangelicals, Catholics, even Orthodox Christians, make an explicit and public point that ‘God is not political’ and that it is the job of Christians to ‘rise above politics’.

However well-intentioned this apolitical impulse may be in its attempt to engender benefit of the doubt between neighbours on opposing sides of the political divide, it nevertheless confuses a particular point. Politics is, at its basis, merely the art of learning to live together with one’s neighbour. The call to love one’s neighbour is a fundamentally political statement, and even the strictest hermits and most cloistered monks in Christian history were enjoined by their vows to uphold this particular substance in their politics. But then comes the question of the scholar of the law to Christ: ‘Who, then, is my neighbour?’

Christ answers this in the immediate sense with the parable of the Good Samaritan. However, He also more generally answers the question of this scholar of the law in the Beatitudes of Matthew 5. If nothing else, the Beatitudes tell us, in their apportioning of blessing, the political position of God. In short: God does take sides. God takes the side of the poor; of those who sorrow; of the meek; of those who hunger and thirst for justice; of the merciful; of the innocent; of the peacemakers; of the persecuted.

Worth noting is that these categories are not merely symbolic or transcendental. The Beatitudes are not a parable—in fact, they are one of the few places in the Greek Scriptures where Jesus is not speaking in a way that points primarily to the symbolic. The Beatitudes are specific, direct and concrete. And they have immediate ramifications to present-day political situations.

Would Jesus be found on the side of the Iraqi people who still suffer from poverty, infant deformity and internal displacement—or would He be found on the side of their invaders and occupiers?

Would Jesus be found on the side of the Yemeni people, overwhelmingly children, who still suffer from the attacks of bombs and rockets and the threat of starvation—or would He be found on the side of the Croesuses of Saudi who launch those bombs and rockets and blockade Yemen’s ports?

Would Jesus be found on the side of the Syrian people who still suffer from the effects of war, invasion, religious persecution, starvation, sanctions—or would He be found on the side of the Turkish, Saudi, Qatari, Emirati, Uighur and other CIA-funded Wahhâbi religious extremists who invaded and murdered them?

Would Jesus be found on the side of the Palestinian people whose livelihoods are destroyed, who are evicted from their homes, and who are shot dead and detained on the streets of their own cities and villages—or would He be found on the side of the settlers and military who do the destroying, evicting, shooting and detaining?

Would Jesus be found on the side of the Haitian people who are protesting in the streets against the dysfunction of their state and the theft of their country’s wealth—or on the side of those who would send in tanks and planes to oppress them?

Would Jesus be found on the side of the ordinary people in Donbass who have suffered from nearly nine years of non-stop shelling and from deliberately-engineereed lack of access to schools and hospitals—or would He side with the race-nationalist paramilitaries, SBU, AFU and NATO forces who are doing the shelling?

Would Jesus be found on the side of ordinary Venezuelan people—or on the side of the foreign operatives and mercenaries who tried to overthrow their elected government? Would Jesus be found on the side of ordinary Bolivian people—or on the side of the lithium mining consortiums which foisted a coup on them? Would Jesus be found on the side of Indigenous water and land defenders—or on the side of huge multinational energy conglomerates who use police forces and National Guard to harass and repress them? Would Jesus be found on the side of ordinary Africans—or on the side of the French and British and American governments who continue to siphon off Africa’s wealth? Would Jesus be found on the side of innocent children—or on the side of those who traffic and exploit their bodies, or kill them in the womb?

In my own humble opinion, even to pose these questions in the light of the Beatitudes, is to answer them. Unfortunately, in each of these cases, the considerations and interests of worldly power—sometimes soft-pedalled into the conversation under the guise of soi-disant ‘democracy’, ‘rule of law’, ‘nuance’, ‘impartiality’, ‘objectivity’—serve to cloud and muddy the consciences of those who would otherwise clearly answer in each of these instances. But if Jesus does promise the blessings He did in the Beatitudes, then we must say that He would take the side of the Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, Palestinians, Haitians, New Russians, Venezuelans, Bolivians, Indigenous nations, African nations, children—over their oppressors and persecutors. Jesus Himself took just such a political side when He chose to be crucified by the Roman authorities in conjunction with the Sanhedrin and their Herodian puppets… between two bandits. They discredited Him and crucified Him as a political agent, as a would-be ‘King of the Jews’.

Those of us who live in an empire with pretensions of universality, a latter-day Rome, where the primary political choices are between infanticidaires on one side and open idolaters on the other, have a responsibility to choose a radical third option, and to side with those throughout the world who suffer at the hands of Cæsar. And we must do so even at the risk of being called ‘communists’, ‘tankies’, ‘campists’ and worse. To do otherwise would be to betray the Gospel, and the Beatitudes in particular which place God on the side of those who suffer, rather than those who of design and intent inflict suffering.

Five points on the Ukraine conflict

1. The Russian assault on the Ukraine is morally wrong, full stop. Ukrainians do not in the least deserve what Russia is doing to them as we speak. Indeed, they have not deserved what has been done to them by multiple actors since (and including) the ouster of Yanukovych in 2014. I stand firmly with Metropolitan Onufriy of Kiev, and support and endorse his call upon President Vladimir Putin for an immediate cessation of violence.


2. This war was entirely preventable from multiple sides. It is an expression of a long-standing failure of diplomacy between NATO countries and Russia, going back at least to 2008, possibly even to 2004. Given what happened to Yugoslavia five years prior to that, Russian distrust of NATO is entirely legitimate and warranted.


3. It is also an expression of long-standing failure of peace-keeping in afflicted areas like the Donetsk Basin. The people in the Donetsk Basin have been suffering mortar attacks and wanton destruction of their schools, hospitals and homes for the past eight years, and the culprits of this waste of human life and limb have been overwhelmingly the Ukrainian Army.


4. The long ignorance of people for the humanitarian suffering in Donbass, over the past eight years, is intolerable. The people who are only now discovering that being mortared non-stop by a hostile army from across a line of control is bad, have some deep soul-searching to do.


5. Reiterate point 4, a fortiori, for Yemen, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. Remember the commandment: Thou shalt give equal worth to tragedies that occur in non-English speaking countries, as to those that occur in English speaking countries.

May peace and justice prevail. May God have mercy upon the Ukraine. May God have mercy upon the Donbass. May God have mercy upon Russia. And may God have mercy upon us all.

A calendar of the Saints of Antioch and Syria

Synaxis of the Great Saints of the Holy Church of Antioch
Apex: Our Lady of Sayyidnaya, Our Lord Christ
Top Row: Ss. Symeōn the Stylite, Daniēl the Stylite
Second Row: Ss. Pelagia, Rōmanos, Ignatios, Christina, Artemios
Third Row: Ss. Kyra, Marōn, Ephraim, Ioulianos, Ananias, Maranna
Fourth Row: Ss. Kyprianos, Kosmas, Theodōros, Barbara, Raphael, Damianos, Isaac
Fifth Row: Ss. Ḥabîb, Andrew of Crete, Meletios, Kosmas the Melodist, Victōr, Sergios, Bacchos
Bottom Row: Ss. John Damascene, John Chrysostom, Peter, Paul, George, Thekla


THE MOST HOLY THEOTOKOS AND EVER-VIRGIN MARY
☩ Our Lady of Sayyidnaya ☩ (8 Sep)

THE HOLY, GLORIOUS AND ALL-LAUDABLE LEADERS OF THE APOSTLES
☩ Apostle Peter (29 Jun) and his Throne at Antioch (22 Feb)
☩ Apostle Paul (29 Jun)

THE HOLY, GLORIOUS AND ALL-LAUDABLE APOSTLES
☩ Euodios of the Seventy (7 Sep)
☩ Thekla the Protomartyr (24 Sep)
☩ Ananias of Damascus (1 Oct)
☩ Luke the Evangelist (18 Oct)
☩ Barnabas of Cyprus (11 Jun)

THE HOLY SAINTS OF ANTIOCH
☩ Symeōn Stylitēs ‘the Elder’ of Antioch (1 Sep)
☩ Babylas of Antioch (4 Sep)
☩ Iouventinos of Antioch (5 Sep)
☩ Maximinos of Antioch (5 Sep)
☩ Sergios I, Pope of Rome (8 Sep)
☩ Dōrotheos of Gaza (16 Sep)
☩ Theodore of Tarsos (19 Sep)
☩ Flavian I of Antioch (27 Sep)
☩ Rōmanos ‘the Melodist’ of Blachernæ (1 Oct)
☩ Kyprianos ‘the Former Wizard’ of Nikomedia (2 Oct)
☩ Ioustina of Nikomedia (2 Oct)
☩ Peter ‘the Confessor’ of Bayt Ra’as (4 Oct)
☩ Domnina of Edessa (4 Oct)
☩ Verinē of Edessa (4 Oct)
☩ Prosdokē of Edessa (4 Oct)
☩ Sergios of ar-Ruṣâfa (7 Oct)
☩ Bacchos of Bâlis (7 Oct)
☩ Pelagia ‘the Penitent’ of Antioch (8 Oct)
☩ Poplia ‘the Deaconess’ of Antioch (9 Oct)
☩ Andronikos of Wâdî an-Naṭrûn (9 Oct)
☩ Athanasia of Wâdî an-Naṭrûn (9 Oct)
☩ Theoteknos of Antioch (10 Oct)
☩ Iakōbos of al-Ḥamaṭûrâ (13 Oct)
☩ Theophilos of Antioch (13 Oct)
☩ Kosmas ‘the Melodist’ of Gaza (14 Oct)
☩ Loukianos of Antioch (15 Oct)
☩ Sarbēlos of Edessa (15 Oct)
☩ Bebaia of Edessa (15 Oct)
☩ Barsimaios of Edessa (15 Oct)
☩ Ioulianos ‘Saba’ of Edessa (18 Oct)
☩ Artemios of Antioch (20 Oct)
☩ Makarios ‘the Roman’ of Mesopotamia (23 Oct)
☩ Terentios of Syria (28 Oct)
☩ Neonillē of Syria (28 Oct)
☩ Abramios ‘the Recluse’ of Mesopotamia (29 Oct)
☩ Maria of Mesopotamia (29 Oct)
☩ Zēnobios of Cilicia (30 Oct)
☩ Zēnobia of Cilicia (30 Oct)
☩ Serapiōn of Antioch (30 Oct)
☩ Theodotē of Kyrrhos (1 Nov)
☩ Kosmas ‘the Unmercenary’ of Asia (1 Nov)
☩ Damianos ‘the Unmercenary’ of Asia (1 Nov)
☩ Kaisarios of Damascus (1 Nov)
☩ Agrippa of Damascus (1 Nov)
☩ Adrianos of Damascus (1 Nov)
☩ Dasios of Damascus (1 Nov)
☩ Saba of Damascus (1 Nov)
☩ Sabianos of Damascus (1 Nov)
☩ Thōmas of Damascus (1 Nov)
☩ Markianos of Kyrrhos (2 Nov)
☩ Akepsimas of Kyrrhos (3 Nov)
☩ Galaktiōn of Homs (5 Nov)
☩ Epistemē of Homs (5 Nov)
☩ Viktōr of Damascus (11 Nov)
☩ Stephanida of Damascus (11 Nov)
☩ John ‘Chrysostom’ of Constantinople (13 Nov)
☩ Gourias of Edessa (15 Nov)
☩ Samōnas of Edessa (15 Nov)
☩ Abibos of Edessa (15 Nov)
☩ Gennadios I of Constantinople (17 Nov)
☩ Agabbas of Syria (22 Nov)
☩ Iakōbos ‘the Solitary’ of Kyrrhos (26 Nov)
☩ Grēgorios III of Rome (28 Nov)
☩ John of Damascus (4 Dec)
☩ Barbara of Ba‘albak (4 Dec)
☩ Ioulianē of Ba‘albak (4 Dec)
☩ Sabbas ‘the Sanctified’ of Jerusalem (5 Dec)
☩ Athēnodōros of Mesopotamia (7 Dec)
☩ Daniēl Stylitēs of Constantinople (11 Dec)
☩ Ignatios ‘the God-bearing’ of Antioch (20 Dec)
☩ Philogonios of Antioch (20 Dec)
☩ Maurikios of Apameia (27 Dec)
☩ Phōteinos of Apameia (27 Dec)
☩ Theodōros of Apameia (27 Dec)
☩ Philippos of Apameia (27 Dec)
☩ Abo of Tbilisi (8 Jan)
☩ Theodosios ‘the Cœnobiarch’ of Palestine (11 Jan)
☩ Iakōbos of Nisibis (13 Jan)
☩ Mausimas of Kyrrhos (23 Jan)
☩ Makedonios ‘the Barley-Eater’ of Antioch (24 Jan)
☩ Poplios ‘the Ascetic’ of Zeugma (25 Jan)
☩ Marēs ‘the Cantor’ of Omeros (25 Jan)
☩ Isaac of Nineveh (28 Jan)
☩ Ephraim of Syria (28 Jan)
☩ Palladios ‘the Hermit’ of Antioch (28 Jan)
☩ Aphraates the Sage of Persia (29 Jan)
☩ Zēnō ‘the Letter-Bearer’ of Cæsarea (30 Jan)
☩ Peter ‘the Hermit’ of Galatia and Antioch (1 Feb)
☩ Abraham of Erbil (4 Feb)
☩ Julian of Homs (6 Feb)
☩ Nikephoros of Antioch (9 Feb)
☩ Peter of Damascus (9 Feb)
☩ Meletios of Antioch (12 Feb)
☩ Abraham of Harran (14 Feb)
☩ Marōn ‘the Hermit’ of Kyrrhos (14 Feb)
☩ Eusebios ‘the Hermit’ of Syria (15 Feb)
☩ Maruthas of Martyropolis (16 Feb)
☩ Eugenios of Antioch (19 Feb)
☩ Makarios of Antioch (19 Feb)
☩ Eustathios of Antioch (21 Feb)
☩ Thalassios of Tillima (22 Feb)
☩ Limnaios of the Syrian Desert (22 Feb)
☩ Baradatos of Kyrrhos (22 Feb)
☩ John ‘the Ascetic’ of the Syrian Desert (23 Feb)
☩ Antiochos of the Syrian Desert (23 Feb)
☩ Antōninos of the Syrian Desert (23 Feb)
☩ Zebinas of the Syrian Desert (23 Feb)
☩ Polychronios, disciple of Zebinas (23 Feb)
☩ Moses, disciple of Polychronios (23 Feb)
☩ Damianos of Ieros (23 Feb)
☩ Raphael of Brooklyn (27 Feb)
☩ Asklēpios of Nimouza (27 Feb)
☩ Iakōbos of Nimouza (27 Feb)
☩ Thalelaios ‘the Lamenter’ of Jablah (27 Feb)
☩ Maranna of Aleppo (28 Feb)
☩ Kyra of Aleppo (28 Feb)
☩ Barsanuphius of Damascus (29 Feb)
☩ Eudokia of Ba‘albak (1 Mar)
☩ Domnina ‘the Younger’ of Syria (1 Mar)
☩ James ‘the Faster’ of al-Jiyyeh (4 Mar)
☩ Theodorētōs of Antioch (8 Mar)
☩ Sōphronios of Jerusalem (11 Mar)
☩ Malchus of Chalkis (26 Mar)
☩ Markos of Arethousa (29 Mar)
☩ Kyrillos of Ba‘albak (29 Mar)
☩ Platonida of Nisibis (6 Apr)
☩ Isaac of Spoleto (12 Apr)
☩ Artemōn of Latakia (13 Apr)
☩ Anikētos of Rome (17 Apr)
☩ Anastasios I of Antioch (20 Apr)
☩ Anastasios II of Antioch (20 Apr)
☩ Grēgorios of Antioch (20 Apr)
☩ Geōrgios of Lydda (23 Apr)
☩ Thōmas Salos, Fool-for-Christ (24 Apr)
☩ Hēsychios of Antioch (10 May)
☩ Christophoros of Antioch (21 May)
☩ Symeōn Stylitēs ‘the Younger’ of Antioch (24 May)
☩ Ephraim of Amida (8 Jun)
☩ Zōsimas of Phœnicia (8 Jun)
☩ Theophanēs of Antioch (10 Jun)
☩ Pansemnē of Antioch (10 Jun)
☩ Akylina of Byblos (13 Jun)
☩ Antipatros of Bostra (13 Jun)
☩ Leontios of Tripoli (18 Jun)
☩ Hypatios of Tripoli (18 Jun)
☩ Theodoulos of Tripoli (18 Jun)
☩ Ioulianos of Tarsos (21 Jun)
☩ Febrōnia of Nisibis (25 Jun)
☩ Andreas of Crete (4 Jul)
☩ Martha of Antioch (4 Jul)
☩ Joseph of Damascus (10 Jul)
☩ Ḥabîb of Damascus (16 Jul)
☩ Marina of Antioch in Pisidia (17 Jul)
☩ Dios of Antioch (19 Jul)
☩ Theodōros ‘the Sabbaite’ of Edessa (19 Jul）
☩ Christina of Tyre (24 Jul）
☩ Seraphia of Antioch (29 Jul）
☩ Eusignios of Antioch (5 Aug）
☩ Paulos and Ioulianē of Ptolemaïs (17 Aug)
☩ Barsēs of Edessa (25 Aug)
☩ Eulogios of Edessa (25 Aug)
☩ Prōtogenēs of Ḥarrân (25 Aug)

Our venerable father Daniēl Stylitēs of Constantinople

Saint Daniēl the Stylite of Constantinople
القدّيس دانيال العمودي البار

Today in the Orthodox Church is the feast-day of another great Eastern holy man and hermit, Saint Daniēl the Stylite. A native of Mesopotamia who lived during the fifth century, Saint Daniēl is exemplary of both the idiosyncratic personalism of Antiochian ascetic spirituality, and of the general tendency after the wave of fourth-century Roman persecutions of the Christian faith to seek higher forms of ‘training’ and escape from compromise with the world with its snares. Saint Daniēl embodies, in a literal way that is unique only to a handful of saints in the Orthodox Church, this striving after a higher spiritual perfection in Christ.

Saint Daniēl [Gk. Δανιήλ, Syr. Dānī‘êl ܕܢܝܐܝܠ, Ar. Dâniyyâl دانيال] was born in a small village outside Samosata in Mesopotamia – what is now Samsat in Turkey – in the year 409. This village may have been Marutha, a name which means ‘the caves’ and which is also the name of an earlier Mesopotamian saint. His parents were ’Ilyâs and Marṯâ (which was also the name of the mothers of each of the other holy Syrian stylites).

Marṯâ the mother of Daniēl was, for a long time, barren – and this was the cause of many unkind words of reproach toward her, both from her husband and from the others in the village. Like Saint Joachim the righteous ancestor of God, who was also berated and reviled for his childlessness, Marṯâ fled out of the house into a deserted place, raised up her hands in supplication to God, and wept and prayed to Him to remove from her the reproach. She came back into the house and lay down with her husband ’Ilyâs. That night, sleeping beside him, she received an angelic vision of two great circular lights descending from heaven and settling near her. The following morning she related her vision to her husband and her family – each of whom had a different ‘take’ on it. But Marṯâ committed her vision into God’s hands, and not long afterward conceived.

When the saint was born he was given a different name by his parents. But when he was five he went to visit a monastery together with them, and brought with him fruit as a gift for the monks in God’s name. The abbot asked the boy’s name, but when ’Ilyâs told it to him, the holy monastic became angry and berated him. ‘That is not the boy’s name!’ the holy man said. Then he turned to the child and asked him kindly in Syriac: ‘Go, young one, and fetch a book from the altar.’ The boy obediently ran in and grabbed the Old Testament book of the Righteous Prophet Daniel. Then the abbot turned to the boy’s parents and told them that this was the boy’s name, as it had been revealed by God before all. ’Ilyâs and Marṯâ asked the abbot to take the boy and teach him the knowledge of the monastics, but the abbot refused on account of the boy’s young age. Gently he told the parents to care for young Daniēl until he came of age.

When he was twelve years old, Daniēl heard his mother say that she had dedicated him to God. Hearing this he left home and sought out the abbot, fell at his feet, and begged to let him join the monastery. Again the abbot told him he was too young, but as Daniēl insisted repeatedly and with great fervour, at last the abbot relented and allowed him to stay. When his parents found out where he was, they were happy. Seeing him still going about in his sæcular clothes, though, they asked the abbot to tonsure him and to give him the garb of a monk. The abbot did so, and counselled ’Ilyâs and Marṯâ for their son’s sake not to visit him too often.

The boy made rapid progress in the spiritual life, being humble and obedient and never seeking praise for himself. Indeed, it made him uncomfortable and distressed when other monks praised him, and he sought to flee their praise. He told the abbot that he desired solitude, but the abbot forbade this, saying that in his present stage he must learn to live together with other monks. Even so, when the Church bade all the local monastic hegoumens and anchorites to attend a local sobor in the city of Antioch, the abbot took Daniēl along with him as an assistant.

Along the way the Mesopotamian monks stopped by the village of Galanissa, and found the monastery at which Symeōn Stylitēs had made his home and ascended his first pillar. The monks at Galanissa spoke praises of the stylite, while the Mesopotamian monks were perhaps less-than-politely sceptical. Having never heard of this discipline even among hermits, they accused the pillar-dweller of wilfulness and self-seeking vainglory. The monks of Galanissa invited the abbot and his followers to see Saint Symeōn for themselves, and they did so – Saint Daniēl among them. When they approached the pillar and saw the harsh elements to which the saint was daily exposed, and further when they heard the meek and gentle voice in which the holy man called down to them, full of love for them, the monks were amazed and ashamed. Understanding that they had shot far wide of the mark, they did not say anything further against Symeōn. Symeōn asked that a ladder be brought, so that he might kiss the holy monks from Mesopotamia who had come to visit him. But the abbot and his entourage wept for shame, and dared not ascend to kiss with their mouths the man they had just been slandering with their lips.

However, Daniēl told the elders that he was willing to go, and the abbot gave him leave. Daniēl climbed the ladder and kissed the holy Symeōn. The pillar-dwelling saint joyfully laid his hand upon Daniēl, and encouraged him to be strong and brave, for he must still endure many hardships for God’s sake. Then he gave his blessing and sent Daniēl back down the ladder among his fellows.

The monks attended the sobor in Antioch and were dismissed back to their monasteries. Soon afterward Daniēl was found worthy of being named abbot. However, taking the opportunity, he left the monastery by night and went again to see Symeōn at his pillar. Saint Daniēl stayed there two weeks and received much instruction from the holy man. Saint Symeōn begged him to stay longer, for he enjoyed discoursing on holy things with the earnest young man. But Daniēl told the elder stylite that he must go for himself to see the Holy Places and retreat into the desert of the heart, and with sad joy Saint Symeōn gave him leave and blessing to go.

Daniēl embarked on the road to Palestine, which was then experiencing great political upheavals. On the road, however, he met an elderly monk who began inquiring into his purposes in going to the Holy Places. After some discussion, the holy elder advised him not to go to Palestine, but instead turn about and go in the other direction, toward the New Rome where too he could be in the presence of the martyrs and those who had sincerely followed Christ, without the perils of brigands and political rebels. They came to a monastery and Daniēl asked the elder if he would come in with him; he was told ‘Go, I will follow.’ However, he lost sight of the elderly monk, and it was then that he began to doubt if it was not in fact an angel that had visited him.

On the road to Byzantium Daniēl came to a small chapel near what is now the Roumeli Hisar fortress on the Bosporus, associated with a Greek-speaking Orthodox church dedicated to Archangel Michael. This chapel had been abandoned and then used as a pagan temple, and there the dæmons of the wilderness had taken up abode. Daniēl heard some monks conversing in Syriac about the problem, and he asked one of them to lead him to the church. They took him there – going in upon the church ground Daniēl armed himself for battle not with weapons, but rather with the Psalms of David and with the sign of the Cross. Although the dæmons assailed him with stones and howls and nightmares, the holy man of God persevered and took up his abode in this church. Many of the simple folk, Greek and Syrian, from the nearby countryside came to visit him to receive advice or blessings.

The Greek dean of the Church of Archangel Michael, provoked by the Evil One, grew jealous of this Syriac holy man, and complained to the Patriarch of Constantinople about his presence there. This man, the dean complained, was a Syrian and the Greeks could not understand him. Further he complained that the man was a hæretic and should be expelled. But the Patriarch, Saint Anatolios of Constantinople, saw through and understood the priest’s jealousy, and mildly advised him: ‘If you do not speak his language, how do you know he is a hæretic? If he comes with the blessing of God, he will stay. If he comes with the hæresies of the Devil, then the devils in that place will drive him out. You need have no fear and bring scandal where there is none.’ Chastened, the dean put away his complaints for a time.

The dæmons continued to attack Daniēl, and again they stirred up the rage and jealousy of the Greeks against him. At length, Saint Anatolios himself was obliged to come and meet the holy man, breaking into the chapel with crowbars. By means of an interpreter, the Constantinopolitan hierarch held a discussion with the Syrian monk, and soon beheld the sincerity of his faith and the meek humility of his life. He dismissed the priests who had summoned him there, telling them that the holy man was blameless. Indeed he invited Saint Daniēl to come stay in the palace in Constantinople, and although he benefitted greatly from Daniēl’s discourse (and the holy man even healed him of an ailment that had been vexing him deeply), Daniēl wanted nothing for himself but pardon for those who had slandered him, and to be allowed to return to the place that God had showed him. Reluctantly, Saint Anatolios allowed him to return. Many supplicants flocked to the hermit’s abode, to hear his words of grace, and to receive healing and help. He spent nine years living alone in this chapel.

At length, Saint Daniēl received a vision of Saint Symeōn atop his pillar, bidding him come up to him. Shortly after this vision, Saint Symeōn’s disciple Sergios came to Constantinople, bearing with him the leather garment of the saint, who had reposed in the Lord. He brought it to Saint Daniēl. Sergios led Daniēl out into a desert place in Thrace where he saw a dove ascending and descending from heaven, and here Daniēl, with the help of Sergios and an Imperial guardsman named Markos (who had been a friend to the holy Syrian monastic from the beginning), made plans to set up a pillar in that place.

However, that land belonged to Gelanios, the steward of the holy table to Emperor Saint Leōn. Gelanios – as well as the villagers and shepherds who used the land on which they were building the pillar – were angry with Saint Daniēl for having made such use of their land without permission. And although the Emperor had not given them permission to do so, they first tried to destroy the pillar, but the same wedge and lever which they tried to use to topple it, were the very implements which the man of God used to ascend the pillar, which remained fixed. Then Gelanios berated the saint, and tried to have him fetched down, but a hailstorm arose which began to destroy the vineyards and the grazelands around them, and Gelanios was prevailed upon to withdraw.

Gelanios then called up to the saint in his own Syriac language to come down and explain himself, and he did so mildly this time, and with promises that his feet need not touch the ground, such that the saint was obliged to obey. But when Saint Daniēl began descending the ladder, the heels and ankles of Gelanios began to break out in sores and welters. And so Gelanios ran to the holy man and entreated him to ascend the column again, and to forgive his sin against him. Saint Daniēl ascended the column again, and Gelanios was healed. From that time on Gelanios believed in the holy man’s sanctity, and even offered to build the saint a higher column at his own expense. Sergios and Markos both made hermit-dwellings for themselves near the pillar, and lived as his first disciples.

Living as he did near the Second Rome, many eminent people from the City came to visit Saint Daniēl. Among them were Kyrrhos, a former prætorian præfect, whose daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit – she the Saint exorcised. The princess and empress Eudoxia also visited Saint Daniēl and was deeply edified by his teachings. Even Saint Leōn himself benefitted from the Stylite’s blessings, as after one visit to the pillar he returned to his wife Verinē and she conceived for him a son.

Some of the jealous detractors of the saint hatched a plot whereby they conscripted the services of a notable courtezan of Constantinople, Vassianē, to feign illness, mount the column and seduce the holy man. They offered her payment of 100 gold pieces if she could do this. She tried for many weeks to achieve her aim, but despite her evident beauty and subtle allures, Daniēl did not give into the temptation. Later, a dæmon took possession of Vassianē and dragged her into the streets, causing her to shout out and reveal the whole of the plot in the public square, along with the names of all the conspirators. In this way, Saint Daniēl’s good name was further established. However, some people took pity upon Vassianē and brought her to Saint Daniēl for healing. The meek hermit bore the woman no ill-will, for all she had tried to cause him to stumble, and so he earnestly entreated God for several days to forgive Vassianē her sins and to expel the dæmon from which she was suffering, and made her to drink holy oil. God was merciful upon Vassianē – and, having been freed from the dæmon by Saint Daniēl’s prayers, she praised God and Saint Daniēl, went down from the pillar, and reformed her way of living.

It was at this time as well that Saint Daniēl sent word to Saint Gennadios, Archbishop of Constantinople, and to Emperor Saint Leōn, that a very great wrath from God would be sent down upon Second Rome for its sins, and a massive fire would erupt in the city. Because it was Holy Week and the preparations for the Lord’s Pascha were well underway, Patriarch and Emperor thought it best not to disturb the people with such news. Pascha came and went and Saint Daniēl’s prophetic warning was forgotten. The fire did break out – many people were killed, and many more were injured or left homeless. They went to Saint Daniēl, who wept with them and prayed with them, and urged them to bear up under their losses and help each other. He gave comfort to those who came to him. And having seen the devastation, the Patriarch and the Emperor understood the wrong they had done. Leōn went with Verinē in repentance to Saint Daniēl, and Saint Gennadios did the same, and begged his forgiveness for having failed to heed his warnings.

Accounts of several other miracles follow in Saint Daniēl’s hagiography. He endured several vicious storms that blew ice and hail and mighty winds against his pillars, and the saint endured much suffering on their account; however, he would not accept from the Emperor an offer that an iron cage be built over his pillar to protect him from the worst of the elements, for – as he said – his holy prædecessor Symeōn had not availed himself of such amenities. Several other deceptions and complots were played upon him similar to the one in which the former prostitute Vassianē played a rôle; however, Saint Daniēl retained his innocence and simplicity throughout all of them, and in the end all of them were exposed as shams.

Saint Daniēl was active in Emperor Leōn’s foreign policy – as an impartial judge and an effective peacemaker. At that time the Roman Empire had a dispute with the independent, Georgian-speaking Christian kingdom of Lazestan in the Caucasus and northeastern Anatolia, whose prince Gubazi had been attacked by a previous Emperor, and several unjust demands placed upon him and his heirs. For this reason he had come to Constantinople, and Emperor Leōn took him to see Saint Daniēl. Upon seeing the pillar, the Lazestani prince fell upon his face and gave glory to God, for he had never before beheld or heard of such an example of living holiness. Saint Daniēl mediated the dispute between Lazestan and Rome, and Gubazi departed for his homeland, and Leōn to his palace, each satisfied that right had been done. Prince Gubazi maintained a lifelong correspondence with Saint Daniēl, and continually besought his prayers until the end of his life.

Even after the Thracian emperor’s death, Saint Daniēl continued to be active in the lives of Emperor Leōn’s son-in-law Zēnōn and grandson by Zēnōn Leōn II. During the dispute between Verinē’s brother Basiliskos and Zēnōn, Saint Daniēl firmly took Zēnōn’s side. This is possibly because of Basiliskos’s ecclesiastical policies, which favoured the moderately anti-Chalcedonian Miaphysites over the pro-Chalcedonian Orthodox. During this crisis Saint Daniēl was invited into the city by Patriarch Akakios of Constantinople in order to help settle it; a throng of people gathered around him which was so large and so enthusiastic that they nearly crushed the holy man. By the grace of God he was saved when a senatorial personage of the city, Dagalaiphos, and the servants of his household, came to the holy man’s aid. When he came into the cathedral, several people came up to him to beg him for aid, including a noblewoman named Hēraïs who was having trouble conceiving a son. In the end, Saint Daniēl managed to reconcile Basiliskos to Patriarch Akakios and make Basiliskos recant his heterodox beliefs, and the political trouble in Constantinople was temporarily quelled.

Saint Daniēl lived to the age of eighty-four, and was given to know in advance of the time that his course of life would run out. Seven days before he reposed in the Lord he gathered his disciples and the people around the base of his pillar and entreated them to be kind and merciful to one another, to love each other, to show each other hospitality, to be patient and humble to one another, and always to love first Christ and His Church. Three days before his repose he received a vision of the souls of the saints in Heaven. He reposed on the eleventh of December, 493. Many people attended him at his death and burial, and signs of his sanctity, such as luminous crosses in the sky and the flights of doves in the air, as well as wondrous healings, manifested themselves even before his interment. Holy and venerable Daniēl, ascetic and athlete of perfection, peacemaker, beloved by the faithful and feared by devils, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion for Saint Daniēl the Stylite, Tone 1:

You were a pillar of patient endurance,
Having imitated the forefathers, O Venerable One:
Job in suffering, and Joseph in temptations.
You lived like the bodiless ones while yet in the flesh, O Daniēl, our Father.
Beseech Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Holy Martyr Athēnodōros of Mesopotamia

Saint Athēnodōros of Mesopotamia

Today is the feast-day in the Holy Orthodox Church of Saint Athēnodōros, a martyr of the Middle East who suffered for Christ in the year 304, under the persecutions of Diocletian. Saint Athēnodōros was a monastic from his youth, and he lived his entire life in Syrian Mesopotamia. When the persecutions of Diocletian occurred, he was denounced as a Christian and placed under arrest, and brought before the governor, Eleusios.

Saint Athēnodōros was subjected to severe tortures for his faith, but never once broke, enduring them all with a wondrous mental strength. The executioners first strung him up between two pillars, and scorched and branded his flesh with torches of burning resin. Then they heated up two iron bullets until they were white-hot, and pressed them in under his arms, placed iron hooks in his nose, and made him lie down on a copper gridiron that had been heated red-hot. At last a bull cast from copper was prepared, heated red-hot, and Athēnodōros was forced inside. Among the crowds who observed the tortures that Athēnodōros went through, there were fifty pagans who came to understand the power of Christ, and turned toward belief. At last the faithful martyr, who confessed Christ until the end, was beheaded with the sword. The hagiographical legend says that the executioner who was to behead him became paralysed and died soon afterward. Having run the course to its end, he won the crown of victory and was accepted at once into the company of saints. Holy martyr Athēnodōros, glorious athlete and steadfast confessor of Christ, pray unto Him who loves mankind that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion for Saint Athēnodōros, Tone 4:

Your holy martyr Athēnodōros, O Lord,
Through his suffering has received an incorruptible crown from You, our God.
For having Your strength, he laid low his adversaries,
And shattered the powerless boldness of demons.
Through his intercessions, save our souls!

Holy Unmercenaries Kosmas and Damianos of Asia

Saints Kosmas and Damianos of Mesopotamia

Today in the Holy Orthodox Church we commemorate Saints Kosmas and Damianos, the holy anargyroi and wonderworkers of third-century Mesopotamia. Among the most celebrated saints of Syria and of the Arab world, the brothers Kosmas and Damianos embody the selflessness and social concern of the Early Church toward the poor and sick. Their cultus is universal, but – these two saints being from Cilicia in Asia Minor and buried in Mesopotamia – has its centre in the Patriarchate of Antioch.

Saints Kosmas [Gk. Κοσμάς, L. Cosmas, Ar. Quzmâ قزما] and Damianos [Gk. Δαμιανός, L. Damianus, Ar. Damyân دميان] were twin brothers, born in the province of Cilicia, probably in the city of Ægeæ (modern-day Yumurtalık), in the third century, to a pagan father and a Christian mother, Saint Theodotē. The Roman hagiography states that they were the eldest of seven brothers from this marriage. Even so, their father died when they were quite young; as a result, they were raised by their mother. Saint Theodotē took care to read to them from the Scriptures, to teach them the præcepts of the Christian life, and kept them in purity of life. The two boys in particular were impressed by the following commandment from Christ in the Gospel of Saint Matthew: ‘Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.’

Evidently, this is exactly what they did – to the very letter. When they grew to adulthood, full of righteousness and virtue as well as a formidable learning and training in the arts of medicine, the two brothers Kosmas and Damianos went out and healed the sick – paying special attention to the poor, who could not afford to pay another physician for a cure. They cured all manner of ailments of the body, as well as those of the spirit, and they even cured animals that were brought to them. Among the hundreds of wonders they performed: they restored sight to the blind, cooled fevers, enlivened the joints of the paralysed, and destroyed parasites such as intestinal worms. They also set broken bones and, in one famous incident, performed a leg replacement surgery on a Syrian man using the requisite limb of a black Ethiopian man who had recently died. Following precisely the commandment of Christ, they did not ask, nor did they receive, any manner of payment for their services.

There was one exception, and it very nearly cost Damianos the friendship of his brother. The two physicians were called to treat a woman named Palladia, who was deathly ill. None of the other doctors nearby would treat her, as her condition was deemed hopeless. The two physicians came to her and prayed with her and treated her, and by a wonder of God her illness was cured. Palladia rose from her bed in fullness of health, giving praise to God. As the two saints were making ready to leave, the woman quietly approached Damianos and handed him three eggs, telling him: ‘Take this small gift in the Name of the Holy Life-Creating Trinity‭, ‬the Father‭, ‬Son‭, ‬and Holy Spirit‭.‬’ Upon hearing the name of the Holy Trinity, Damianos – who had never taken payment for any work of healing he had done – did not dare to refuse the eggs from Palladia’s hand.

When Kosmas heard of what his brother had done, he was grievously upset, for he believed that his brother had broken their vow. He fell ill sometime later, and on his deathbed he gave very stern instructions that Damianos’s body was to be buried someplace far off from his own. Damianos himself reposed in the Lord shortly after this, and the faithful were left in a quandary as to how to arrange the burial of the two saints. While they were discussing, a cow camel which Kosmas had treated for distemper walked over to them and began speaking in a human voice, saying: ‘Kosmas and Damianos cured not only you men, but also we dumb animals. Therefore I, in gratitude to them, come to tell you that the Lord wills it, that you bury them together.’

It came out thereafter, as the men were investigating Saint Damianos’s acts, that he had not accepted the eggs from Palladia out of greed, but because she had pronounced the Name of the Lord in Three Persons and he sought to honour the Name. Thus the relics of the two saints were buried together side by side in tombs at Thereman in Mesopotamia. A church was built up over their relics.

Many wonders are attributed to the relics of Saints Kosmas and Damianos, but one in particular is mentioned in their hagiography. A certain man named Malchos lived near the church of Saints Kosmas and Damianos, and he knew that soon he would have to undertake a long journey, leaving his wife behind. Before he left, he went into the church and prayed over the relics of the two holy unmercenaries, entreating them to watch over his wife and pray to Christ God for her protection.

One of Malchos’s friends, under the design of the Evil One, plotted to kill Malchos’s wife. Waiting for some time after Malchos had gone, he approached the woman, telling her that Malchos had sent him to bring her home with him. Because he was a familiar face, the woman agreed to go with him, and the two of them set off. But instead of taking her to his house, the wicked man took her into a deserted place and attacked her. In fright, and in deadly peril of her life, the woman called upon the name of the Lord to protect her.

At once two fearsome-looking men appeared. Seeing them, the wicked one let go of the woman and fled, and the two men gave chase such that he fell off of a cliff. The two men then led the woman back to her own home; and once she had reached there safely she turned to them, bowed deeply, and asked them: ‘My saviours, to whom I shall be grateful for the rest of my days: what are your names?’

The two men replied to her: ‘We are the servants of Christ. Our names are Kosmos and Damianos.’ And once they had spoke, they vanished from sight. Joyfully the woman told everyone around her what had happened to her and how she was delivered from death, and then she went into the church, found the icon of the two holy unmercenaries, and revered it with tears and prayers of thanksgiving. From that time forward, Saints Kosmos and Damianos have also been regarded as the protectors of the wholeness and harmony within marriage, and couples seeking help call upon their intercessions. Very early on their cultus spread into Russia, with the earliest centre of their veneration being at Velikii Novgorod, where the temple in their honour dates back to 1271.

There are two other pairs of saints by the names of Kosmas and Damianos: one of these pairs was martyred in Rome and are venerated on the first of July, and the other was martyred in Ægeæ under Diocletian and are venerated on the seventeenth of October. The Saint Kosmas and Saint Damianos whom we venerate today are always portrayed in the garb of laymen; they usually have an attribute of a medicine-box on their icon, and they are shown holding spoons for the medicine. These spoons have handles in the shape of a cross, to show that all cures are ultimately from God. Holy and wise unmercenary physicians Kosmos and Damianos, friends of the poor, healers of the sick and defenders of those without any defence, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion to Saints Kosmas and Damianos, Tone 8:

Holy unmercenaries and wonderworkers, Kosmas and Damianos,
Heal our infirmities.
Freely you have received; freely you give to us.

Holy Saint Theodotē of Asia, Mother of Kosmas and Damianos

Saint Theodotē of Mesopotamia (centre) with her sons

Together with Saints Kosmas and Damianos today, we also commemorate their loving and righteous mother, Saint Theodotē. As with Saint Martha of Antioch, the mother of Symeōn the Younger Stylite, Saint Theodotē was not a noblewoman, not a martyr and not a celibate ascetic. Her sanctity was the sanctity of the married woman, and her sanctity was the sanctity of the mother. It is also somewhat wrong, I think, with either of these saints, to make them mere auxiliaries to their more famous holy sons. The hagiographies are actually clear on this point; it is we modern believers who tend to get it backwards. These sons were not the ones who sanctified their mothers: the mothers were the ones who taught these great saints of the Church sanctity. We honour these women for their own sake, because it is through them and by their work that the holiness of their sons was accomplished.

That having been said, we do not know much, actually, about the early life of Saint Theodotē [Gk. Θεοδότη, L. Theodota, Ar. Ṯiyyûdût ثيودوت]. We know that she lived in a ‘mixed marriage’ – that she was married to a pagan husband, but that she herself was Christian. The two of them had seven children together, the eldest two of whom were the saintly twins. At the same time, she lived obediently within her ‘mixed marriage’ until her husband died, and she took particular care to raise her young sons Kosmas and Damianos in a holy Christian life. The hagiography of Saints Kosmas and Damianos tells us that she taught them by her own gentle example, and also that she read to them from Holy Scripture. She ‘preserved her children in purity of life according to the command of the Lord’. It was because of the upbringing that these saints received from their mother Theodotē that they grew into the virtuous men that they were. Holy Saint Theodotē, loving and selfless mother who set your children upon the path of selflessness, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!