Collected aphoristic thoughts and quotes on Palestine

All thoughts are my own unless quoted otherwise.

I honestly think that for most people, they simply parrot [about the conflict] what their favoured media outlets tell them to, and CNN, Fox, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo and WSJ all tell them the same thing... with some surface-level permutations based on domestic political / cultural / tribal alignment. God forbid we should read actual books about each region’s history and the roots of each conflict, instead of just regurgitating easily-digestible headlines, op-ed columns and talking-head takes.

~~~

One thing that Vladimir Solovyov got very much right in War, Progress and the End of History, is that there is a kind of falsehood, a deep moral obscenity, in those who preach non-violence to the powerless, from a position of safety and security.

The argument between the General and the Prince in the first conversation was over the Armenians in the late 1800s, but equally so I think it could apply to the Palestinians today.

~~~

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English, or France to the French.

- Mahatma Gandhi

~~~

We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.

- Nelson Mandela

~~~

It’s tragic that so many people are made unable to tell the difference between “explanation”, “justification”, and “apologia”. Often, those things are conflated on purpose with the help of the media to prevent/shut down any civilised discussion around certain subjects.

- Denis Vladimirovich

~~~

A few assorted thoughts. Not all of them are completely consistent with each other, but so be it.

1. All war is bad on all sides.
2. Some casus belli are more just than others.
3. Few conflicts have stable solutions (this side of Parousia).
4. Still fewer conflicts have obvious solutions.
5. That does not mean we (individually and collectively) shouldn't look for solutions.
6. No one who isn't in a position of power should be expected to have the solutions.

~~~

Imagine engaging in abstruse academic debates about dogmatic vs. hopeful universalism as Gaza burns.

~~~

To have empathy is not to assert power or to take revenge. It is to feel broken with those who have been broken—and if you are a follower of Jesus, which, de facto, we are not, is to be broken with them.

- Fr Marc Boulos

~~~

My hope and prayer is to be a source of light, and not darkness. Let’s be honest: this pain we’re all feeling isn’t specific to this moment; it’s ongoing. The truth is that for me, for my family, for Palestinians: this is life.

- Mo Amer

~~~

Enough oppression against the Palestinian people! Peace does not come from the bodies of children, killed people, innocent people, and women. Peace comes when the decision-makers in this world realize that our people have dignity, as all the peoples of the world. We are not advocates of war, we reject violence and killing, and we are seekers of peace, but at the same time, we seek justice and have a right that we will not give up.

- His Holiness Patriarch John X (Yazigi) of Antioch

~~~

In the Middle East, the net effects [of European cultural hysteria] are:

1. that Europe is burdened with the heavy baggage of interventions that inflame Muslim hostility toward the West, and
2. to create the psychological imperative to find some way to assuage their own sense of guilt by finding, and magnifying, the sins of their victims.

- Dr Michael Brenner

~~~

Moral discourse in the West has degraded so far that even the most basic calls for justice and humanity are considered to be Marxist, subversive or terroristic.

~~~

The descent to evil. “Do unto others what you would like them to do to you” has increasingly been replaced by “Do unto others the evil they did to you”, and even by “Do to others the evils before they might do it to you.”

- Fr John D’Alton

~~~

As an Orthodox Christian leftist with Semitic ancestry, I have two questions.

1. By what moral logic are the Arabs supposed to shoulder 80 years of responsibility, at the cost of their lives and their homes, for the crimes of Hitler?
2. By what moral logic are Palestinian Christians supposed to shoulder responsibility, at the cost of their lives and their homes, for the recent crimes of Hamas?

‘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.

‘When we fast, we fast together’

Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson recently Tweeted in response to Pope Francis, who was speaking of the Church’s obligation to uphold human dignity: ‘There is nothing Christian about #SocialJustice. Redemptive salvation is a matter of the individual soul.’ Needless to say, I—and, I would hope, most other Orthodox Christians—demur on this particular point.

‘Redemptive salvation’ (something of a linguistic redundancy there) is very much so a communal matter in the Orthodox Church. As Fr Thomas Hopko of blessed memory very aptly and pithily put it: ‘You cannot live the Christian life alone. The only thing you can do alone is go to hell.’ It is worthy of note that he said this in the midst of a lecture on the uniqueness and unrepeatability of each person and the irreducibly-personal work each human being is given of using his or her gifts for the glory of God. But that work is also inescapably social—we work out that salvation by being, in Fr Tom’s words, ‘faithful to, accountable to, answerable to’ and ‘responsible for’ each other.

The communality and sociality of the work of redemption, the work of salvation, is particularly important to understand and embrace during our period of the fast of Great Lent. Even though the discipline of fasting is intensely personal and even private—no one can fast for you, you have to do it yourself—there is nonetheless a public and communal dimension to its observance. I am posting here a couple of excerpts from an op-ed by Oriental Orthodox commentator Natnael Yeibyo:

[Lenten] fasting is not eating and drinking, but as a religious duty it is an act of sacrifice — an act of self-denial and humiliation. It is denying comfort to the flesh but feeding strength to the spiritual personality. The fast should be kept not by the mouth alone but also by the eye, the ear, the feet, the hands and all parts of the body: the eye must abstain from impure sights, the ear from malicious gossip, and the hands from acts of injustice.

How do people fast?

As fasting is a way to subdue the flesh for the sake of the spirit it must be done sincerely and should be kept private. The person fasting is not supposed to reveal it to anyone. For those who fast, the first week is probably the hardest. By the second week, without noticing, they have already gotten used to eating shiro, made from ground chickpeas, ades (lentil), a lot of vegetables and fruits …

When I was a kid, I used to love Ramadan of all other similar fasting seasons of other religions, for during the month of Ramadan our daily supply of dates, pastry and other sweet meals was assured. The Asmara shuk (marketplace) would be busy with street vendors hawking their sweet scented merchandise displayed on a long table for all to see and smell.

Feturek Yasaim! (Eat with healthy relish, O thou who are fasting!) they would shout. We enjoyed the show, the smell, the chanting from the nearby Mosque, the hustle and bustle of the people, bicycles, wheel barrows, taxis, etc. We toured the food sites with our small allowance, we bought some pastry and ate them on the spot, a practice unthinkable to our Muslim friends; for they had to wait until a white thread became impossible to detect in the dusk.

However, this year we will be all fasting at the same time and having a go at a meat sambusa some of our Muslim friends bring for us will be unacceptable. Perhaps they will bring us sambusa made completely from vegetables.

At the end of the day, we Eritreans eat together no matter where we are from or what we believe in. It is a testament to the close knit society Eritreans display everywhere in the world. Fasting, whether it is Lent or Ramadan, is done to further foster love, peace and unity among us.

Note that although the personal reasons for doing the fast, and the rules of the fast, are different between Islâmic Eritreans and Christian Eritreans, nonetheless they still encourage and respect each other in their spiritual strivings. How much more so should it be the same among Christian believers ourselves! Lynette Horner describes for us in her blog that the very structure of the Lenten fast is corporate: we individually don’t decide ‘what to give up’ for Lent—in the spirit of humility, we follow the path on which the Church directs us.

Additionally, Lent isn’t ultimately about food. Abstaining from flesh meats, animal products and alcohol is the basic and necessary means—but it is not the end goal. The end goal is unity with God. This is why we do so many prostrations during Clean Week as we listen to the exhortations to the soul of Saint Andrew. This is why the Holy Fathers, particularly Saint Basil and Saint John Chrysostom, speak so much about the importance during Lent, not only of redoubling our prayers, but also redoubling our charitable efforts, and fasting from evil words and deeds. Here is the Golden Mouth:

Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works! Is it said by what kind of works? If you see a poor man, take pity on him! If you see in enemy, be reconciled to him! If you see a friend gaining honour, envy him not! If you see a handsome woman, pass her by! For let not the mouth only fast, but also the eye, and the ear, and the feet, and the hands, and all the members of our bodies.

And again, here is Saint Basil:

Do not, however, define the benefit that comes from fasting solely in terms of abstinence from foods. For true fasting consists in estrangement from vices. “Loose every burden of iniquity.” Forgive your neighbour the distress he causes you; forgive him his debts. “Fast not for quarrels and strifes.” You do not eat meat, but you devour your brother. You abstain from wine, but do not restrain yourself from insulting others… For neither through greed do you attain to righteousness, nor through wantonness to temperance, nor, in short, through vice to virtue.

Let us consider the example of the man who takes the Lenten fast as an opportunity to draw nearer in love and peace to his Muslim neighbours. Let us take upon ourselves the humility of the converted woman discovering for herself the humble approach of fasting according to the Church’s will, not of her own will. And let us listen with the appropriate reverence to the Holy Fathers who insist that fasting is not merely an abstinence from food and drink, but has much more to do with how we treat others. ‘Loose every burden of iniquity’—this is very much the point of the fast. And this cannot be done except socially, in communion with others.

Holy Martyrs Maurikios and the Seventy at Apameia

Russian Orthodox icon of Saint Maurikios

Today, the twenty-seventh of December, the third day of the Nativity Feast of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, is the feast-day in the Holy Orthodox Church of Saint Maurikios and the seventy soldiers who were martyred for Christ at Apameia (now Qal‘at al-Maḍîq in Syria). They are also commemorated in the OCA on the twenty-second of February, and in the Greek church on the first of July. These military martyrs suffered during the reign of Emperor Maximianus Herculius. Besides Maurikios and his son Phōteinos, two of these soldiers are known by name to human history: Theodōros [Gk. Θεόδωρος] and Philippos [Gk. Φίλιππος]. The names of the rest are known by God and sung in praise by the host of angels.

Saint Maurikios [Gk. Μαυρίκιος, Ar. Mûrîs موريس] was apparently a native of Apameia. He served in the Imperial Guard – a position of high honour and trust. As Emperor Maximianus was passing through the city of Apameia, possibly on campaign against the Persians, he overheard a rumour that his guardsman Maurikios and his family were, in fact, secretly Christians. In particular, the pagan priests complained that Maurikios had been spreading his belief in Christ among the Roman Army. Maximianus summoned Maurikios before him, along with his entire unit of seventy men, and attempted to force them to make sacrifices to the pagan gods. Maurikios refused to do so, and to a man so refused all of his soldiers as well. Instead, they firmly confessed Christ crucified and risen again. Neither threats nor blandishments were of any avail to the Emperor in enforcing the pagan worship on these men.

Saint Maurikios and his men were stripped of their belts, the insignia of their rank. They were publicly humiliated and thrown into prison. After three days the Emperor called them before him, and they again confessed their faith in Christ. Maximianus then gave them over to the executioners to be tortured. They were flogged mercilessly with whips, and then cast into a fire to burn their flesh. Then they were hung from wooden poles and their flesh lacerated with iron hooks. Because Maurikios was the commander of the men, Maximianus wished to make an example of his family, and had his innocent son Phōteinos [Gk. Φωτεινός] put to death by the sword. But even this cruel tyranny of the emperor did not shake the faith of Maurikios, who knew that his son had thus joined the company of martyrs.

Seeing that even the death of his only son had failed to sway Maurikios, in a fury the wicked emperor ordered that the men be led to a marsh that lay at the confluence of two rivers, where there were many biting and stinging insects – wasps and midges and mosquitoes. The emperor ordered that they be stripped naked and their bodies smeared with honey, and then tied to trees and left to be eaten alive by the insects. To further torment Maurikios, Maximianus had the headless body of his son flung into the swamp before his eyes. God’s seventy holy martyrs endured the bites and stings of the pests for ten whole days and nights, and they were weak from thirst and from exposure, but none of them begged for mercy nor recanted Christ. When at the end of the ten days of their suffering the emperor returned and found them alive, he ordered his soldiers to behead them with the sword, and in this way the thrice-blessed martyrs departed to the infinitely more honourable court of their Heavenly Lord. The emperor wanted to leave their bodies exposed, for he did not want them to be given a decent burial. However, local Christians came and claimed the bodies of these martyrs, and had them buried and commemorated in the place of their execution.

The beloved memory of these holy martial martyrs of the Church was promulgated in particular by Saint John Cassian, who spoke highly of their martyrdom to his disciples and spiritual sons in the Ægyptian desert. Over time, Saint Maurikios’s legend took on a local flavour, and he became a patron of Thēbai, with the historical details of his life being tailored to that place. Later legends in the Middle Ages placed his martyrdom in Switzerland, in the ancient Roman city of Agaunum. As a result, in the Western Church in particular, ‘Saint Maurice’ is remembered as an Ægyptian and as a patron of the Swiss Guard, and he is often traditionally depicted as a dark-skinned, African Roman soldier. Holy martyr Maurikios, and the seventy faithful soldiers whose duty to Christ exceeded even your duties to any earthly kings, pray unto Christ our Lord for our salvation!

Apolytikion to Saint Maurikios and the Seventy at Apameia, Tone 4:

Your holy martyrs O Lord,
Through their sufferings have received incorruptible crowns from You, our God.
For having Your strength, they laid low their adversaries,
And shattered the powerless boldness of demons.
Through their intercessions, save our souls!

Holy Hierarch Philogonios, Archbishop of Antioch

Saint Philogonios of Antioch

Today, the twentieth of December, is – along with being the feast-day of the glorious and right-victorious God-bearing hieromartyr Saint Ignatios of Antioch – the feast-day of Saint Philogonios, another of the great and holy early primates of Antioch. It is truly meet that today we remember both the third and the twenty-second primates of Antioch, for both were bold confessors of Christ and both shared a great love for the living Truth and for the right beliefs of the Church. Saint Philogonios was also a ‘social justice saint’, who while he was still in his sæcular life was a scholar of the law who defended the poor, the widows and orphans from the predations of the rich and greedy. When he was anointed archbishop of Antioch, he was among the first of the hierarchs of the Church to oppose the hæresy of Arius.

We do not know much about the early life of Saint Philogonios [Gk. Φιλογόνιος, Ar. Faylûjûnûs فيلوجونوس]. We do know, however, that he was well-spoken and thus probably also well-educated. According to his hagiography, he was married and had one daughter. The Latin hagiography departs somewhat from the Ægyptian and Greek hagiographies, however. According to our tradition, after Philogonios’s wife died, he took his property, set aside a portion for his daughter, distributed the rest to the poor and needy, and left the world to become a monk. He had made great progress in the ascetic life before he was chosen as Archbishop. According to the Latin hagiography, he was actually chosen as Archbishop by œconomia, without having become a monk: the canons were dispensed with in his case on account of his great virtue. Whichever is the case, it is clear that the people of Antioch chose Philogonios as their Archbishop on account of his many personal excellences, his vast and profound learning, his ascetic way of life and his true devotion to Christ. His demonstrable love for the poor, the vulnerable and the oppressed clearly also had a great deal to do with his election.

The people’s choice of Archbishop was not in error, for it turned out that Saint Philogonios proved to be a wise archpastor, and a keen expounder and defender of the true doctrines and the true knowledge of Christ. According to the eulogy by Saint John Chrysostom, the flourishing of the Church of Antioch in his own day was evidence of Saint Philogonios’s wisdom and careful stewardship. As archbishop he refused all of the comforts and material dignities that his office was due, setting an example for the Church in future generations that, for example, Patriarch Pavle of Serbia of blessed memory followed. Renouncing all such vanities, Saint Philogonios never kept for himself one single denarius or even one extra tunic. He was among the first to denounce the doctrines of Arius, being a close friend of Pope Saint Alexandros of Alexandria, who informed Saint Philogonios by letter of his decision to excommunicate Arius for the second time.

There was a well-documented persecution of Christians under Emperor Maximianus Herculius, under which suffered the holy Antiochian martyrs Barbara, Ioulianē, Hesychios and Theoteknos. There was another politically-motivated persecution of Christians under Emperor Licinius, who campaigned against the Sauromatæ [Ossetians] in the East during this time. Many army officers in this campaign lost their commissions – and possibly also their lives – if they refused to worship the pagan Roman gods; it was during this time also that Saint Abibos of Edessa was martyred.

The Latin and Orthodox hagiographies of Saint Philogonios tell us that he suffered under both of these persecutions for his confession of faith. He may also have been arrested and interrogated for his faith. However, Licinius was defeated in battle by Emperor Constantine and deposed prior to Saint Philogonios’s repose. In addition, the Ægyptian hagiography of Saint Philogonios tells us that he ‘departed in peace’: it is therefore likely that he was released on the orders of Emperor Constantine and restored to his see for the last three months of his life. Holy hierarch Philogonios, right-believing confessor of Christ, defender of the defenceless and needy poor, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion for Saint Philogonios of Antioch, Tone 4:

In truth you were revealed to your flock as a rule of faith,
An image of humility and a teacher of abstinence;
Your humility exalted you;
Your poverty enriched you.
Hierarch Father Philogonios,
Entreat Christ our God
That our souls may be saved.

Venerable Father Teodosii of Tărnovo

Saint Teodosii of Tărnovo

Today in the Orthodox Church of America we commemorate the life of Saint Teodosii of Tărnovo, along with his disciple Saint Roman (who is also venerated on 17 February). A disciple of Saint Grēgorios of Sinai and a hermit who resided in the vicinity of Tărnovo, Saint Teodosii did much to propagate and popularise the practice of hesychasm during the Middle Ages, at a time when the inward approach to prayer was still considered an ‘innovation’ by many Orthodox authorities. Saint Teodosii was a mentor to Patriarch Saint Kallistos I of Constantinople, who committed his Life to writing, and also to the great Patriarch Saint Evtimii of Tărnovo. Teodosii is recognised as a saint throughout the Orthodox Church, though his cultus is centred in Bulgaria.

Saint Teodosii [Bg. Теодосий] was born in northwestern Bulgaria, though his origins were deliberately obscured by his hagiographer to emphasise his citizenship in the heavenly Jerusalem. He left his native place when he was still a youth and went to Vidin, where he entered the Monastery of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, which was then under Abbot Iov – who, seeing the love of Christ in the young man, administered to him the tonsure and gave him his monastic name. At the Vidin Monastery, Teodosii was a model of humility and hard work, and gladly accepted any task the abbot gave him, no matter how menial, as if he had received the command from God Himself. He lived a life of fasting, askēsis and prayer, taking particular delight in reading from the Psalter.

After the repose of Abbot Iov, for whom he prayed with great fervour in his last days on earth, Saint Teodosii left Vidim for the Monastery of the Mother of God in the Holy Mount in Tărnovo, and soon thereafter for the village of Cherven, where he found an abbot who was willing to teach him for a time. From here he left for Mother of God Monastery, called Epikerni’s, in Sliven, where he spent a number of years in ascetic striving under the tutelage of the abbot. When he heard by word of mouth that Saint Grēgorios the Sinaïte, fleeing the Turkish predations on Athos, had arrived in Bulgaria, and had settled at Mount Paroria in Strandzha (which is now a protected nature park). The site of Saint Grēgorios’s final strivings in this life is thought to be the modern-day Chapel of Sveta Petka in Mount Paroria.

Saint Teodosii was drawn to Holy Father Grēgorios, as his hagiography puts it, as iron is drawn to a magnet. Saint Grēgorios welcomed the young monk warmly, and Teodosii soon became one of his favoured disciples. Saint Grēgorios tutored Teodosii in the elements and concepts of the hesychasts’ method. When it happened that a number of robbers and brigands took up residence in Paroria and harassed Grēgorios and his disciples, the Sinaïte sent Teodosii to seek help from Tsar Ivan Aleksandăr for the protection of the monks. The pious Tsar happily agreed to Saint Teodosii’s request, and sent men and horses, and gave a great deal of money to shore up the fortifications in Paroria. Teodosii himself laboured alongside the builders, and prayed many hours besides, until the fortifications were complete. For a time the bandits were kept at bay, but when they again became a problem, Saint Grēgorios and the monks of Paroria again sent Teodosii to Tărnovo to ask for aid.

This time, when Teodosii came to the capital city, a youth named Roman [Bg. Роман] came out to meet him. Roman came from the noble parentage of the Old Bulgars, but he was drawn not to the military life of a feudal lord but instead to the monastic life. He begged Saint Teodosii to take him back to Paroria, to learn the ways of holiness. Teodosii accepted the young nobleman gladly, and Roman was brought back to Saint Grēgorios, who tonsured him a monk. Roman would turn out to be a faithful and loving disciple of Teodosii for the rest of his life. Soon thereafter Saint Grēgorios’s earthly labours were at an end, and he reposed in the Lord on this day in 1347.

The monks at Paroria besought Saint Teodosii to take Saint Grēgorios’s place as abbot, but he did not have any wish to take on such cares, and he left Paroria before the monks could make him an abbot. He went to visit his disciple Roman in Sliven. Here he found that Roman was downcast, because he was absent from the monastery on the day of the holy father’s repose, and did not get to take part in saying farewell to the great hesychast. Saint Teodosii took Roman and went with him to the Holy Mountain, where the two monks undertook as deep a study as might be allowed of the methods of hesychasm. Their stay on Athos was not long, however, for the Turks still harassed the monks there and subjected them to various indignities and persecutions. Saints Teodosii and Roman wandered around to various places in the Greek-speaking world – including Thessalonikē and Constantinople – and Bulgaria, staying in no one place long, emulating the bees in their collection of sweetness and light from whatever place might house them and their purification of themselves in the word of God as bees condense honey.

At length, they came again to the vicinity of Tărnovo, where they met with the warm and hospitable welcome of Tsar Ivan Aleksandăr, and were given leave to make cells for themselves in the Holy Mount. Saints Teodosii and Roman set up their hermitage in the mountain, at Kilifarevo. The two of them laboured there in holy solitude for three years, but soon Kilifarevo became renowned for its holiness on their account, and men from all walks of life went to seek them out and learn from them. Soon fifty were living with them, and the hermitage was not large enough to accommodate them. Kilifarevo soon became a monastery – indeed one of the most famous in the Holy Mount at Tărnovo. Among the most renowned disciples of Saint Teodosii at Kilifarevo was the future Patriarch of Bulgaria, Saint Evtimii, whose love for Christ ran just as deep, and who embraced both the ascetic life and the hesychastic method with an unmatched zeal. Saint Evtimii’s later labours would go on to shine far more brightly for this strong early foundation in monasticism.

Saints Teodosii and Roman had to contend, however, with opponents of hesychasm, who were at that time as numerous as the followers of hesychasm and who viewed the pursuit of silence and inward prayer as an unacceptable ‘innovation’ in the life of the Church. Teodosii engaged in polemical exchanges against a certain Phanariote monk and persecutor of the hesychasts named Theodōrētos, and apparently got the better of him in these exchanges, because the Tsar evicted Theodōrētos and vindicated Teodosii. On another occasion, a certain hæretical nun of Thessalonikē named Eirēnē (who apparently preached some kind of Gnostic dualism related to or influenced by Bogomilism) also sent two of her disciples, Lazarus and Bozota, together with Bozota’s disciple Stefan, into Bulgaria. These two preachers apparently stirred up significant dissension within the Church to the point that the Patriarch of Bulgaria found himself compelled to organise a local sobor, to which Saint Teodosii was invited. When the followers of Eirēnē were called forth and stood to defend their doctrines, the holy hesychast stood up and delivered a rousing defence of all the holy things which the errant preachers attacked: the institution of marriage, the material world, icons, the Holy Cross, the Eucharist. His monologue put the Gnostics to shame, and Orthodoxy was vindicated at this sobor. The heretics were expelled from Bulgaria by the Tsar. On another occasion, Teodosii converted, with kindly and meek words of correction instead of with polemics, a certain monk who was teaching a similarly Gnostic doctrine and living together in an irregular fashion with men and women alike. Seeing the error of his ways, the Gnostic preacher returned to Orthodoxy, abjured his former beliefs, and set up two separate monasteries for men and women which held to a regular discipline.

Saints Teodosii and Roman were also marginally involved in a certain political crisis involving Tsar Ivan Aleksandăr and his wife Sarah, who had converted from Judaism to Orthodox Christianity in order to marry the Tsar. Certain extremist members of the Jewish community in Bulgaria apparently committed several acts of blasphemy against the Church shortly after Sarah’s conversion and marriage. Sarah’s conversion had been sincere, however, and these actions were enough for her to call forward a sobor to condemn the members of her former faith who attacked the Orthodox Church. Unfortunately, this sobor proved to be an occasion for a general persecution of the Jews in Bulgaria, which punished the innocent along with the guilty. It is equally unfortunate that Saint Teodosii’s Phanariot hagiographer uses the opportunity of this sobor to indulge in a hateful anti-Semitic diatribe which has very little to do with the actual life of this saint.

Saint Teodosii did, however, have to endure the attacks of the Turks against his homeland, and subsequent long periods of exile from his monastery, as well as painful bouts of illness which caused his flesh to waste and wither. However, he endured all these things with the patience of one who has a great hope and faith in Christ. Towards the end of his life he came to visit his fellow student of Grēgorios of Sinai and his hagiographer, Patriarch Kallistos of Constantinople, where he was received with great joy. Although his trials, sent by the Evil One, had greatly afflicted his body, it was clear to all when he arrived in the city that he had been tried and tested in the fire like gold, and that his spirit shone brightly for all to see, radiating the love of Christ. He took up residence in Constantinople for the last months of his life, and instructed the disciples around him to be steadfast in their love for each other, in their love for their neighbours, and in their love for Christ – as well as in their love for the truth in the person of Christ against the hæresies that afflicted the people of the Balkans. On the twenty-seventh of November of 1362 or 1363 – being the same date as the repose of his teacher Grēgorios of Sinai – Saint Teodosii gave up his own spirit and reposed in the Lord.

Saint Roman, when his mentor left for Constantinople, was left in charge of the flock at Kilifarevo. He faithfully bore his charge and upheld the ascetic life and the emphasis on hesychastic prayer that his teacher Teodosii had taught him. He continued to pray and fast and keep long vigils through the night, being gentle with his monks but being strict upon himself as an example for their edification. Although he was afflicted with several illnesses, including the whooping cough, Saint Roman redoubled in his labours for he was eager to be found worthy of his beloved teacher’s example. When his end was near, Saint Roman gathered the monks of Kilifarevo around him and blessed them, instructed them one final time, and he himself departed to the Lord on the seventeenth of February. (The footnote to the hagiography says that the year is unclear.) Saint Roman was buried with due honours by the monks at Kilifarevo. Holy venerable father Teodosii, blessed hesychasts and defenders of the divine Truth, pray unto Christ our God for our salvation!

Apolytikion for Saint Teodosii, Tone 8:

Let us imitate you, O Father, that we shall be saved,
For having taken up the Cross, you followed Christ.
And indeed you have learned to despise the flesh for it is transitory;
But instead care for the immortal soul.
For this reason you rejoice with the angels O Venerable Teodosii.

Kilifarevo Monastery, Dimitrovgrad, Bulgaria

Holy Martyrs Galaktiōn and Epistēmē of Homs

Saints Galaktiōn and Epistēmē

Today, the fifth of November, is the feast-day in the Orthodox Church of two holy Syrian martyrs of the city of Homs: Saints Galaktiōn and Epistēmē. At first husband and wife, they also struggled together as ascetics, and they went together into their martyrdom for Christ after a lifetime of such struggle. The hagiography of Saints Galaktiōn and Epistēmē, though it bears the marks of historicity and indeed of first-hand witness, nonetheless displays something of a Christian answer to the pagan understanding of erotic love.

Saint Galaktiōn [Gk. Γαλακτίον, L. Galation or Galacteon, Ar. Jalâktiyyûn جلاكتيون] is the son of well-to-do pagan parents in Emesa – modern-day Homs in Syria – named Kleitophōn and Leukippē, who are themselves accounted as saints after their conversion. (These names, it should be noted, are also the protagonists of a contemporary Greek romantic comedy by the rhetor Achilleus Tatios, which also takes place in the city of Tyre in Phœnicia.) This couple, although wealthy, nonetheless had a problem: Leukippē was barren. Being desirous of children, Kleitophōn made generous gifts of gold and valuables to the pagan temple, but it was to no avail, and the couple remained childless.

At that time, the city of Emesa was ruled by a governor named Secundus, who was a cruel and zealous persecutor of Christians. He set up the instruments of torture on public display in the streets, and further issued a proclamation that anyone suspected of belonging to the ‘sect of the Galilean’ was to be handed over for punishment. And so it was the case that many were handed over, and still more Christians gave themselves up voluntarily to martyrdom, being unwilling to let their neighbours suffer on their account.

Among these was a man named Onouphrios, an elderly priest, who used a disguise of beggar’s rags to hide his office. He went from door to door in Emesa, begging alms – and when he saw the opportunity, he preached the Gospel of Christ. It so happened that amidst this persecution he came to the threshold of Leukippē’s home, and he asked for alms. Leukippē herself came out and attended to Onouphrios, but the wise priest sensed that the woman was troubled. He asked her about it, and Leukippē revealed her family situation to him. Onouphrios consoled her, and taught her that the one true God does not turn His back upon those who come to Him in prayer.

Leukippē believed, and consented to be baptised a Christian. It so happened that several months after her baptism, by a wonder of God, she conceived, and it was revealed to her in a dream that her son by Kleitophōn would become a true follower of Christ. She was joyful at this news, but still kept it from her husband until after their child was born. Upon hearing this, Kleitophōn also assented to be baptised, and the two of them raised their son together in the Christian faith.

Galaktiōn grew up strong and handsome, and his inward virtue was every bit as comely as his person. Kleitophōn and Leukippē saw to it that he received the best education, the wisest teachers. Inwardly, however, he was drawn toward the Church, and harboured an ambition to enter the monastic life. When he reached the age of twenty-four, his mother Leukippē departed this life. His father desired to see him marry, however, and so he found a young woman named Epistēmē [Gk. Επιστήμη, L. Epistemia, Ar. ’Ibistimiyya إبستمية], who was his match in every way. She was fittingly named, for she had all manner of knowledge and wit, in addition to being outwardly attractive; and most importantly yet, she was meek, decorous and kind-hearted. She was, however, still a pagan.

Galaktiōn had kept his monastic ambitions secret from his father, and so when he told him that he had arranged a marriage for him, Galaktiōn, understanding the Law to honour his father, went along. He visited Epistēmē several times before their marriage, and during that time he spoke to her of the Good News of Christ and convinced her to accept baptism in secret – along with one of her family’s servants, a man named Eutolmios. After their marriage, Galaktiōn and Epistēmē agreed between themselves each to retire separately into a monastic community, and they left Homs and travelled into Ægypt, where they parted ways amicably and each went into a different monastery – one for men, the other for women – on Mount Publion, which is near to Sinai. Eutolmios also became a monk, and entered the cell together with Galaktiōn.

The husband and wife each toiled and struggled in their separate cells for several years. Epistēmē received a vision during her labours, that she and Galaktiōn were standing together before a radiant King seated upon a throne, and that this King bestowed crowns upon them. This was a foreshadowing of the martyrdom that was soon to befall them.

During the reign of Trajan Decius, one detachment of Roman soldiers discovered the monasteries on Mount Publion, and moved to seize them and the monastics living there. The mountainous terrain being familiar to these holy men and women, most of them were able to flee and hide from the Romans with ease; however, Galaktiōn alone chose to remain in his cell, reading from the Psalter. That is where the soldiers founded him, arrested him, beat him and dragged him out of the monastery down the mountain.

From her vantage point Epistēmē could see the groom she had parted from when she entered the cloister, and she begged her mother superior to be allowed to share in Galaktiōn’s fate for Christ’s sake, for it had been he who had brought her to Christ. With tears in her eyes, the mother superior allowed her to leave. She too was apprehended by the soldiers. The two saints Galaktiōn and Epistēmē suffered great torments for their Lord. They were condemned to death; their hands were severed at the wrists and their feet at the ankles. Their tongues were removed, and finally they were beheaded. In this way they did truly receive the crowns that had appeared in Epistēmē’s vision.

It was Epistēmē’s former servant, Eutolmios, who went and reclaimed the relics of Christ’s holy martyrs and had them buried decently. The account we have of this Life of the two saints, in fact, comes to us from Eutolmios, who put his account together based on what he himself had seen and heard. The fact that he attributed to Galaktiōn the heritage of a pagan love story only renders more poignant his own love and the love of Epistēmē, as models of a Christian erōs which transcends even death. Holy martyrs Galaktiōn and Epistēmē, betrothed fellow ascetics in life and fellow witnesses to Christ in death, pray unto Him who loves mankind to save our souls!

Apolytikion for Saints Galaktiōn and Epistēmē of Homs, Tone 4:

Let us the faithful honor these two betrothed athletes:
Galaktiōn and modest Epistēmē.
Their ascetic labors blossomed into martyrdom, therefore we cry to them:
“Glory to Him who has strengthened you!
Glory to Him who has crowned you!
Glory to Him who through you grants healing to all!”

Holy and Glorious Greatmartyr Artemios of Antioch

Saint Artemios of Antioch
القديس أرتيميوس الأنطاكي

The twentieth of October in the Holy Orthodox Church is the feast-day of Saint Artemios, an elderly Roman nobleman and military officer who was martyred under the persecutions of Julian the Apostate in the fourth century. Although Saint Artemios lived much of his life in Alexandria, in Ægypt, he is most commonly associated with the city of Antioch where he was killed. However, his veneration is universal throughout the Christian world.

Few details are known for certain about the early life of Saint Artemios [Gk. Αρτέμιος, L. Artemius, Ar. ’Artîmiyyûs أرتيميوس], but the Holy Tradition holds that he was an officer in the army of Emperor Saint Constantine the Great, who ruled from 306 to 337. He had a long and distinguished service in the army both under Constantine and under his son Constantius II, who ruled from 337 to 361. Artemios was rewarded for his military service by being appointed military præfect of Ægypt with his headquarters in Alexandria. While he was in Alexandria he did much to strengthen the Church there.

He was tasked by Emperor Constantine with bringing the relics of Saint Luke the Evangelist from Thēba, and the relics of Saint Andrew the Apostle from Patmos, to Constantinople for veneration at the Church of the Holy Apostles. During the Arian controversies, there was some question as to which party Artemios supported, and impious tongues have suggested that the holy martyr was of the Arian party. But his actions during both emperors’ reigns showed him to have supported the true, Orthodox faith, and of course his martyrdom laid any such doubts and partizan murmurings to rest.

For the successor to the second Constantius in New Rome was the thrice-accursed infidel and warmongering apostate Julian, who ruthlessly oppressed the Church and ushered in a new wave of persecutions. Hundreds of believers in Christ perished under Julian’s reign. He also fomented division within Christendom. Part of his strategy of persecution involved supporting the Arians and reinstating their hierarchs; it would have made little sense for an Arian to take the side of the Orthodox.

And yet this is just what Artemios did. Julian had embarked on his needless bloodthirsty war with Persia, and was using Antioch as a base for his invasion. After Julian had sentenced to death two bishops who had confessed Trinitarian Christianity – possibly referring to the hieromartyrs Saint Basileios of Ankyra and Saint Donatus of Arezzo – Artemios embarked on a journey to Antioch to confront the wicked emperor. When he arrived in Antioch he went straight to the Emperor’s residence and began loudly declaiming his impiety and unfitness, invoking his service with Julian’s infinitely worthier forebears.

Julian’s pride would not permit him to refrain from response. He had Artemios seized, and thrown into prison, and then subjected to the most excruciating tortures. As he was languishing in prison, he was visited by Christ, who told His martyr that He would preserve him from every hurt, and that He had already prepared for Artemios the crown of everlasting glory. Because Artemios had confessed Christ before men on earth, so Christ would acknowledge Artemios before the Father in heaven. Artemios offered up praises and thanksgiving to God.

The day afterward, the Emperor had Artemios dragged out of prison. Julian commanded Artemios to offer sacrifices to the pagan gods, but Artemios still refused, confessing Christ. Julian had Artemios subjected to still more gruesome tortures, until his blood soaked the ground below him, but Artemios would not break. He foretold that Julian himself would be repaid in kind for the gross indignities he had inflicted upon the Christians, and at this the Emperor became truly enraged and ordered the martyr of Christ to be beheaded. And in this way, the glorious Saint Artemios was given the laurel he was promised, the elderly athlete of Christ having earned the victory and the heavenly glories of the æternal kingdom. After his death, the Christians of Antioch took his relics and buried them with great and solemn honour and reverence.

The prophecy that Artemios had uttered amidst his tortures concerning Julian’s fate proved true, for Julian was killed in battle against the defending Persian šâh Šâpur II. His armies were ruined and his reign ended in ignominy. After the death of the apostate emperor, the relics of Saint Artemios were moved from Antioch to Constantinople, where they were enshrined at the Lips Monastery, in the chapel dedicated to Saint John the Forerunner. Many wonders were attributed to Saint Artemios, who took special care of men suffering from hernias, prostate cancer, testicular cancer, infertility and other maladies of the genitals. He was at one time invoked by Saint Febrōnia of Nisibis for aid in healing a woman suffering from an illness in her womb. Holy greatmartyr Artemios, fearless confessor of Christ before the apostate, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion for Saint Artemios of Antioch, Tone 4:

Your holy martyr Artemios, O Lord,
Through his sufferings 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!

Lips Monastery, Constantinople

Venerable Ioulianos Saba, Hermit of Edessa

Euphratēs River

The eighteenth of October, in addition to being the feast-day of Saint Luke the Evangelist, is also the feast-day of another Levantine saint. Saint Ioulianos Saba of Mesopotamia was a fourth-century Syrian ascetic who lived on the banks of the Euphratēs River, and pursued a solitary desert existence there. Celebrated by both Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Ephraim the Syrian, Saint Ioulianos is considered to be one of the most important founding fathers of Syriac monasticism, and his life is treated at length in Blessed Theodoret of Kyrrhos’s History of the Monks of Syria.

Saint Ioulianos [Gk. Ἰουλιανὸς, L. Julian, Ar. Yûliyyân يوليان] was apparently ‘self-taught’, possibly suggesting humble social origins, and lived as an ascetic for many years in the desert outside Edessa, now ar-Ruhâ. He received the honourific cognomen of ‘Saba’, meaning ‘the grey(-headed)’, or ‘the old man’. Following the call of Christ out into the deserts of Mesopotamia, Ioulianos found a small, damp cave on the riverbank ‘not made by hands’, and lived there. He held his meagre, uncomfortable cell to be more valuable than a palace filled with gold and silver. He ate only once a week, subsisting on barley bread taken with some salt, and drinking meagre handfuls of water from a holy well nearby. He counted it as luxury to sing from the Psalter, and to spend long hours in prayer. The lifestyle of the ‘Saba’ began to attract younger men to him, who themselves sought the quietude and austerities of the desert. Ioulianos soon had around him not just a handful of disciples, but a full hundred monastics, who made up a community on the banks of the Euphratēs.

The hundred dwelt in a monastic complex, and emulated Saint Ioulianos’s way of life. The first building they were given permission to make was a store-house for the wild vegetables they would gather for the infirm amongst them, which would spoil and go rotten in the damp cave. Saint Ioulianos instructed them to go out into the wilderness in pairs, and alternatively throughout the day either to stand and sing from the Psalter, or to kneel in contemplative prayer to God.

Saint Ioulianos had a favourite disciple, a tall Iranian youngster named Iakōbos (or James), who followed him at a distance while they were walking in the desert. This Ioulianos did to keep conversation from distracting Iakōbos’s mind from the contemplation of God. One time as they walked Iakōbos saw a huge serpent lying across the path between him and Ioulianos. Iakōbos was stricken with fear, and could not move for a long time. At length he reached down and tossed a pebble at the beast, and only then did he observe that it was dead. He hurried to catch up with his master, and later on in the day he asked Ioulianos about the serpent. At first Ioulianos refused to tell him anything, but as Iakōbos kept insisting, Ioulianos relented. Forbidding his disciple to speak a word about it as long as he was alive, Saint Ioulianos related how he had come across the venomous reptile which had reared up to strike him, but when the hermit had made the Sign of the Cross the serpent fell down dead.

At another time, a well-bred youth named Asteriōn begged Saint Ioulianos to allow him to accompany him into the desert, on a long vigil which would last over a week. Seeing how ill-suited Asteriōn was to such feats of ascesis, Ioulianos refused at first. But the youngster pressed him until at last the elder relented. The youth accompanied Saint Ioulianos into the desert, and for three days he was well. But the sun beat down upon him, and the dry wind scorched his mouth and throat, and though he did not say a word of complaint he succumbed to heat stroke. Ioulianos revived the boy and told him to return to the cave to recover. Weak as he was, though, Asteriōn could not find the way. Ioulianos knelt down and wept, praying to God to save the young man, and then the wonder – the streams of the saint’s tears became a holy well of pure, cool spring water. With this the holy man tended to Asteriōn’s heat stroke, and quenched his thirst, and by God’s grace the youth was saved.

Asteriōn would go on to become a great ascetic himself, and would become the spiritual father and mentor of the bishop Akakios of Beroia (that is, Aleppo). Lifelong Asteriōn held his elder Ioulianos in reverence, twice a year bringing him a heavy load of fresh figs on his back. The first time he did this, Ioulianos sternly rebuked Asteriōn, and told him he would not eat them, for it was not seemly for an elder to enjoy the fruit that the younger had sweated and suffered in bringing him. But Asteriōn, as stubborn as ever, refused to put down his sack until Ioulianos agreed to eat the contents. At last the Saba agreed, so long as Asteriōn would put down the sack of fruit at once. Saint Ioulianos did not like it that others should serve him, but out of love for his student he accepted the service that was given to him.

At length, in order to escape from his growing fame and the temptations of praise and vainglory, the Saba set out with a handful of close disciples into the desert and made for Mount Sinai, taking with them only salt and bread, and a cup and sponge for water. Ioulianos climbed Sinai with his pupils, and when he had ascended there, he and his disciples built with their own hands a little chapel at the summit where Moses hid from God, which is actually still standing today, and is governed under the care of Saint Catherine’s by the autonomous Orthodox Church of Sinai. Once this chapel was completed, Ioulianos returned to the deserts of Mesopotamia.

It later happened that Antioch came under the persecutions of the warmongering, idolatrous Emperor Julian the Apostate – ‘who shared his name,’ as Blessed Theodoret says, ‘but not his piety’. The emperor set out to make war on Persia, breathing threats against Christ’s Church. Ioulianos retreated into his cave and held a vigil in fervent prayer that lasted for ten days. When the Emperor Julian was killed in battle with the Persians, the Saba received a whisper from God telling him what had happened. At once Saint Ioulianos’s prayers of supplication were transformed into hymns of joy. ‘Having rebelled against God who is Creator and Saviour, he has justly been slain at the hand of a subject,’ the Saba said to his disciples.

The Saba also gave voice to the Church’s stand against the impieties of Arius, though it took some persuasion for him to leave his desert solitude. The Arians had shamelessly propagated the lie, that Saint Ioulianos was of their party. In answer to this, Saint Flavianos, then a priest recently ordained from the diaconate, took counsel with his friend Diodoros and with Saint Aphraatēs the Persian, and together they applied to Akakios of Beroia and Asteriōn to ask Saint Ioulianos’s help. Asteriōn, however, having turned to the Arian doctrines himself, was of no help. Akakios alone came to the Saba’s desert abode and, reminding him of the Lord’s admonition to Peter in the Gospel of John – if he loved Him, to ‘feed my sheep’ – asked him to come out with them into Antioch and enter disputations with the Arian party. When it was put to him like this, the Saba agreed, and came out of his desert abode and went with Akakios into the city.

On the way into Antioch, a wealthy woman came out to greet the Saba and his party, and invited them all into her house. She at once began making ready to serve Saint Ioulianos… but one of the household servants came in and told her that her infant son had fallen down a well. The wealthy woman was stricken, but she went right on serving the holy man as though nothing was wrong. When at last, though, Saint Ioulianos asked that her son be brought to him to receive his blessing, the woman could not hide her grief and vexation. And so the Saba asked to be shown the well. The household servants brought him there, and he peered down into it, and saw the young child laughing and playing on the surface of the water below as though nothing was wrong. When the child was brought up, he ran at once to Saint Ioulianos, and recounted that he had seen Saint Ioulianos beckoning to him from above the surface of the water and then holding him up, keeping him from drowning. In this way the Saint requited the hospitality of this kind woman.

Such wonders accompanied Saint Ioulianos all the way into Antioch. However, when he drew near the church, the saint himself was suddenly stricken with a fever, and had to go withindoors to rest. The humble saint told his followers not to despair, and that if health was something God saw fit to give him, He would give it. He prayed to God, touched his forehead to the ground. He went into a sweat and his fever broke. He proceeded into the assembly of the Orthodox Christians, and he healed many who were sick, including a beggar who had been lame since childhood, and a military governor who was bedridden with a strange sickness. In this way he bore witness to the truths of the Orthodox faith, and confounded the falsities and insinuations of the Arians. Saint Ioulianos, having already advanced to a great old age, reposed in peace in the year 367.

Saint Ioulianos Saba was the first of many anchorites to seek struggle in the breathtakingly-beautiful arid landscapes of what is now northeastern Syria and northern Iraq. It may justly be said of him that he founded a tradition – an entire Syriac mode of holiness, if it can be described in so monistic a way – which emphasised extreme renunciations of both physical comfort and social standing, even social standing within the Church. It is with gratitude that we ask of him today: Holy and venerable Ioulianos Saba, humble and gentle athlete of the desert in Edessa and on Sinai, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Jabal Mûsâ Summit Greek Orthodox Chapel, Sinai, Ægypt

Venerables Andronikos and Athanasia of Skētis

Saints Andronikos and Athanasia of Ægypt

The ninth of August is also the feast-day of a married couple of Antioch who became monastics in Ægypt, Saints Andronikos and Athanasia. They were natives of Antioch and lived there during the late fifth and early sixth centuries.

Saint Andronikos [Gk. Ἀνδρόνικος, Ar. ’Andrawnîqûs أندرونيقوس] lived in Antioch and worked as a craftsman, probably as a smith in precious metals. Given that Antioch was a thriving city in trade, being one terminus of the Silk Road, he probably did thriving business in his craft. As a result, he was probably fairly well-to-do, but he earned his money honestly by labour, and divided it into three parts: one part he donated directly to the poor; another part he gave to the Church (and specifically to monastic communities); and the third part he retained for himself and his family. He fell in love with a Christian woman named Athanasia [Gk. Αθανασία, Ar. ’Aṯânâsiyâ اثاناسيا], and they married. They lived together in an ordinary marriage for several years, and had two children: Yaḥyâ and Maryam.

Athanasia encouraged her husband’s selfless habits, and also pursued virtue in her own right. After the birth of their second child, the two of them felt that it was no longer sufficient merely to give money to the poor, and they sought another form of ascetic pursuit. She and Andronikos decided by mutual agreement to live together as brother and sister, without coupling in the flesh. On Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the husband and wife devoted themselves to serving the poor and destitute: Saint Andronikos would serve the men, washing them and feeding them and clothing them, and Saint Athanasia would serve the women in the same way.

One Sunday, when Yaḥyâ was 12 and Maryam was 10, Athanasia returned home from her ministry to the poor, and found both of her children seriously ill in bed, with high fevers. When her husband came home, he went straightaway to the shrine of Saint ’Ilyân the Unmercenary of Homs to pray for healing – after all, Saint ’Ilyân was a pharmacist and he had worked wonders both in life and by the power of his relics for those in need. However, when he returned home, he found that both of their children had died of the illness.

His wife was stricken with grief. She spent her every waking moment praying over the graves of her children, and nothing Andronikos could say, nor any of their friends, could console her. Athanasia continued in this way until she was visited by Saint ’Ilyân, who assured her that although her children had been deprived of good things upon the earth, that God Who is just had not deprived them of the good things that were their heavenly inheritance. Then ’Ilyân gave to her a monastic robe, and clothed her with it, and told her not to weep over her children, but instead over her own sins. In repentance, he assured her, she could rejoin her children in the proper way.

Saint Athanasia went back and told her husband what she had seen, and they agreed then to enter the monastic life. Andronikos sold the business, gave everything he had to Athanasia’s father for the purpose of establishing a monastic wayhouse and hospital, and then went with his wife to Alexandria, in Ægypt – taking with them as their sustenance only a handful each of prosphora. They journeyed together until they came to the shrine of Saint Menas, where they parted ways. Saint Andronikos entered the desert abode of Abba Daniel of Skētis in the Wâdî an-Naṭrûn, and Saint Athanasia entered a women’s convent at Tabenna near what is now Naj‘ Ḥammâdî – both in Ægypt.

Husband and wife thus lived apart under their monastic vows for twelve years. They did not have any sight or physical contact with each other. After this time, the monk Andronikos had a desire to visit the Holy Land and to pray in the Holy Places; his spiritual father gave him permission to leave. Along the way he met a fellow pilgrim to the Holy Places, named Athanasios. This ascetic suggested to Andronikos that they should travel together to Jerusalem for mutual protection, but that they should undertake to do so in silence. The two of them, Athanasios and Andronikos, prayed together at Bethlehem, at Gethsemane, at the Sepulchre. And when they were done they returned to Ægypt, where they requested of Saint Daniel that they might live together in the same cell. This request was granted, and they lived together in companionable silence, growing in virtue.

When Athanasios felt death approaching, the ascetic told Andronikos to take a letter to the abbot, to be opened only after the ascetic’s repose. Athanasios then took the Holy Gifts one last time, and was taken into heaven. All was done in due reverence, but then it was discovered as the body was being prepared for burial that ‘Athanasios’ was, in fact, a woman.

Abba Daniel took the letter that ‘Athanasios’ had left, broke the seal and read it. Within it, he discovered the reason for her dissembling: as it happened, ‘Athanasios’ was indeed the wife of Andronikos – Saint Athanasia. In all their time together, Saint Andronikos had never once recognised his wife, though she knew him well enough from the start. (This aspect of the hagiography of Saints Andronikos and Athanasia seems to have been the basis, at least in part, for one of the plot devices in Edith Pargeter’s eleventh book in the Cadfael series, An Excellent Mystery.)

Saint Andronikos reposed only ten days after his wife. They had lived together conjugally, parented children together, then as brother and sister, and finally as fellow monastics urging each other toward greater heights of virtue. They shared together, finally, in sainthood. Holy monastics Andronikos and Athanasia, inseparable fellows in life and in æternity, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!

Apolytikion for Saints Andronikos and Athanasia, Tone 1:

You adorned your divinely-wrought robe of chastity
With the sublime varied colors of sacred virtues in God,
When with one accord ye strove in the ascetic life.
Wherefore, your silence on the earth was received equally
With the thrice-holy hymn in heaven;
O wise Andronikos, pray God, with Athanasia, that we all be saved.

Holy Hierarch Flavian I, Patriarch of Antioch

Saint Flavian of Antioch
القدّيس فلافيان الأول، أسقف أنطاكية

Today in the Orthodox Church, we commemorate one of the early holy Patriarchs of Antioch, the predecessor to our beloved Patriarch John X (Yazigi): Saint Flavian. Flavian was the thirty-third in the apostolic succession of the hierarchs of Antioch, the immediate successor of Saint Meletios.

Flavian [Gk. Φλαβιανός, Ar. Falâfyân فلافيان] was a native Syrian of Antioch, born to a wealthy family around the year 320. His father died when he was quite young, and left him the heir of a rather sizeable patrimony. Although he was robbed of a father in his life and although his mother exercised little control over him, Flavian was nonetheless not particularly disposed to the prideful, riotous excesses of other wealthy young men, and Saint John Chrysostom praises him in his homiletics as having been sober and simple in his wants from an early age. He was close friends with Diodoros, a young man of Antioch who would later become a priest, and thereafter a bishop in Tarsos (and one whose theological writings would influence Mâr ’Ishâq). When a mild form of the Arian hæresy began cropping up in Antioch, Flavian and Diodoros left their homes and lived in the wilderness as hermits.

An Arian bishop named Leontios ‘the Eunuch’ arrived in Antioch, having replaced the exiled Orthodox bishop, Saint Eustathios. It is a testament to how weak the Nicene, Orthodox faithful were in numbers, that they were disparagingly called ‘Eustathians’ at this time, after Eustathios. Before he departed, the holy Eustathios besought his flock to remain in unity with each other and to follow his successors. The Orthodox ‘Eustathians’ were at this time led by Flavian and Diodoros – still laymen, but who managed to attract a sizeable following. Flavian and Diodoros held meetings of the Orthodox faithful outside the city walls, in the open air and on the slopes of Mons Silpius around the tombs of the martyrs, for the church properties all belonged to the wealthier Arian party. During these meetings Flavian and Diodoros reintroduced the practice of antiphonal singing to the Orthodox Church in Antioch.

The hæretical bishop Leontios was not particularly pleased with this. He attempted to proscribe the meetings at the tombs, and bring the Orthodox ‘Eustathians’ back into the churches. Flavian and Diodoros did not resist this edict, and the followers of Eustathios went back into the churches – though in so doing they gained still more followers while not compromising the faith revealed at Nicæa. A frustrated Leontios was, in the words of Blessed Theodoret, ‘compelled to retrace his steps’.

This time was a particularly tricky one in the church of Antioch, as a messy four-way schism ruptured the church of Christ in the wake of Eustathios’s exile. There were the professed Arians, who had a steady supply of bishops and considerable financial and institutional clout given to them by a succession of Arian-leaning emperors starting with Constantius II.

The majority of the Nicene followers of Eustathios, including Flavian and Diodoros, accepted the election of the gentle Saint Meletios as the Patriarch of Antioch. Meletios was by temper mild and sweet, and he discoursed primarily on ethics. Most of the Nicene Christians in Antioch had no objections to such a man, who at the very least they trusted not to manipulate or persecute them as Leontios had.

However, Meletios was objectionable to the Eustathian Zealots because he also early on enjoyed the support of some moderate members within the Arian party, and for a long time would not speak openly on Christological matters. Some of these Zealots broke away in schism from Meletios, under a priest named Paulinus who was consecrated a bishop by a Sardinian churchman named (I kid you not!) Lucifer Calaritanus. These Eustathian Zealots considered themselves to be, and behaved as, an underground church in resistance. One further offshoot of these extreme Eustathians led by a man named Vitalian, out of reaction against the reigning Arianism, took refuge in an opposite hæresy – that of Apollinarios of Latakia.

Saint Meletios, like Saint Eustathios before him, was banished from Antioch on the orders of Emperor Valens, who conducted a harsh persecution on the Orthodox faithful in that city. Meletios had appointed the two friends Flavian and Diodoros to the diaconate and later to the priesthood, and in his absence as well the Orthodox flock he led was fed with the body of Christ and heard the word of truth rightly divided. Once again the Orthodox gathered in the ravines and caves and mountains outside the city. But they were not without sufferings. The soldiery under Valens had orders to beat, humiliate and disperse the meetings of the Orthodox under the priests Flavian and Diodoros. And yet they persevered through these trials, strengthened in faith, until Valens met his end in 378.

His successor, Emperor Gratian, with good intentions attempted to return the churches to the Orthodox Christians and affect reconciliation between the moderate Nicenes under Saint Meletios – who had for the past decade been openly professing an Orthodox Christology – and the zealous followers of Paulinus. This attempt did not succeed. Paulinus was recognised by Rome and Alexandria; Meletios by Constantinople and Jerusalem. Flavian was instrumental, however, in persuading Gratian’s governor that Saint Meletios was the rightful claimant and should have charge of the churches.

Flavian accompanied Saint Meletios to the Second Œcumenical Council called by Emperor Saint Theodosius. Meletios, however, reposed in the Lord before the Council was completed. In the wake of Meletios’s passing, Flavian was elected bishop of Antioch and consecrated by his friend Diodoros over the objections of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus. There was some controversy surrounding Flavian’s accession to the Patriarchate. Two church historians record that Flavian had promised not to seek the archepiscopal see in the event that either Meletios or Paulinus reposed, and Paulinus – as well as the bishops of Rome and Alexandria – cried foul to the Emperor. For most of his tenure as Patriarch of Antioch, the Roman and Alexandrian prelates shunned Saint Flavian as forsworn and illegitimate.

As bishop, however, Flavian behaved himself with admirable discretion. He converted his father’s mansion, which he had inherited in his youth, into a hospital for the sick. He also gave up all his personal funds and divided them among the poor in Antioch. In 386 Patriarch Flavian ordained John Chrysostom to the priesthood. In the following year, Antioch rose up in a tax revolt against Emperor Theodosius and destroyed his statue in the city. The emperor’s well-attested wrath (as witnessed later in the hippodrome massacre at Thessaloniki) threatened the city with harsh reprisals. Saint Flavian personally went to Theodosius and managed to cool the emperor’s temper sufficiently to ward off any violent demonstrations against Antioch’s citizenry.

Flavian’s bishopric and reputation among the churchmen in the West were saved entirely owing to his friend and fierce advocate, Saint John Chrysostom, soon to be Archbishop of Constantinople. It was Chrysostom whose golden tongue managed to convince Pope Saint Siricius of Rome and even the paranoid Pope Theophilos of Alexandria to reconcile with Saint Flavian and recognise him as a brother-bishop. Saint Flavian, for his part, returned Saint John Chrysostom’s loyalty when the saint came under attack in the Roman court. Saint Flavian protested even until his very last breath, the ill-treatment, deposition and exile of his friend. The blessed repose of Saint Flavian in 404 was peaceful and without illness or pain. He had been bishop of Antioch for twenty-three years. Holy archbishop Flavian, benefactor of the sick and defender of Christ’s flock against hæresies, pray unto Christ our God for us sinners!