commemorated: Sept 16

“With the streams of your blood you ever make a deluge for the ungodly, O most praised martyr of Christ; and ever watering the noetic meadows with showers of grace, you produce the grain of faith therein. Wherefore, even after your repose you have most gloriously been shown to be a cloud pouring forth a witness to Life. O all praised passion bearer, entreat Christ God, that He grant remission of transgressions unto those who honor your holy memory with love.”

~Matins Sessional Hymn

When legions of demons appeared to St. Anthony the Great and other desert-dwellers, they guarded themselves with the Sign of the Cross, and the demons vanished.
When they appeared to Saint Symeon the Stylite, who was standing on his pillar, what seemed to be a chariot to carry him to heaven, the Saint, before mounting it, crossed himself; it disappeared and the enemy, who had hoped to cast down the ascetic from the height of his pillar, was put to shame.

One cannot enumerate all the separate examples of the manifestation of the power of the Cross in various incidents. Invisibly and unceasingly there gushes from it the Divine grace that saves the world.
The Sign of the Cross is made at all the Mysteries and prayers of the Church. With the making of the Sign of the Cross over the bread and wine, they become the Body and Blood of Christ. With the immersion of the Cross, the waters are sanctified. The Sign of the Cross looses us from sins. “When we are guarded by the Cross, we oppose the enemy, not fearing his nets and barking.” Just as the flaming sword in the hands of the Cherubim barred the entrance into paradise of old, so the Cross now acts invisibly in the world, guarding it from perdition.

The Cross is the unconquerable weapon of pious kings in the battle with enemies. Through the apparition of the Cross in the sky, the dominion of Emperor Constantine was confirmed and an end was put to the persecution against the Church. The apparition of the Cross in the sky in Jerusalem in the days of Constantius the Arian proclaimed the victory of Orthodoxy. By the power of the Cross of the Lord, Christian kings reign and will reign until Antichrist, barring his path to power and restraining lawlessness (Saint John Chrysostom, Commentary on 11 Thes. 2:6-7).

The “sign of the Son of Man” (Matt. 24:30), that is, the Cross, will appear in the sky in order to proclaim the end of the present world and the coming of the eternal Kingdom of the Son of God. Then all the tribes of the earth shall weep, because they loved the present age and its lusts, but all who have endured persecution for righteousness and called on the name of the Lord shall rejoice and be glad. The Cross then will save from eternal perdition all who conquered temptations by the Cross, who crucified their flesh with its passions and lusts, and took up their cross and followed their Christ.

But those who hated the Cross of the Lord and did not engrave the Cross in their soul will perish forever. For “the Cross is the preserver of the whole universe, the Cross is the beauty of the Church, the Cross is the might of kings, the Cross is the confirmation of the faithful, the Cross is the glory of angels and the scourge of demons”

~St John of San Francisco

hat tip: Holy Theophany Sunday Bulletin

“When you begin to hear the footsteps of God, then nothing but God can satisfy you. You don’t want anything except God… You don’t cause problems. You don’t concern yourself with problems. No matter what happens, you remain peaceful and serene, because you are waiting on the Lord.”

~Elder Aimilianos

Truly [the Cross] is thought despicable, but it is so in the world’s reckoning, and among men; in heaven and among the faithful it is the highest glory.  Poverty too is despicable, but it is our boast; and to be cheaply thought of by the public is a matter of laughter to them, but we are elated by it.  So too the Cross is our boast … And what is the boast of the Cross?  That Christ for my sake took on Him the form of a slave, and bore His sufferings for me, the slave, the enemy, the unfeeling one; He even so loved me as to give Himself up to a curse for me.  What can be comparable to this! … Let us then not be ashamed of His unspeakable tenderness; He was not ashamed of being crucified for your sake, and will you be ashamed to confess His infinite solicitude?…

~Saint John Chrysostom

“Commentary on Galatians,” Chapter 6, as quoted in Appendix II- Major Feasts, in The Bible and the Holy Fathers for Orthodox, Johanna M. Manley (ed), Monastery Books, Menlo Park, CA, 1984, p. 1019.

Geronda Paisios

from Mystagogy

St Barsanuphius of Optina

The Jesus Prayer has enormous significance in the life of a Christian.  It’s the shortest path to the attainment of the Kingdom of Heaven.  However, even that path is a long one, and once we have set foot on it, we should be ready for sorrows.  It’s true that other prayers also have no small significance.  A person who does the Jesus Prayer listens to the words of the prayers and hymns in church and performs his obligatory…rule, but the Jesus Prayer brings a man to a repentant frame of mind more quickly than the other prayers, and shows him his infirmity – consequently, it draws him close to God more quickly.  A man begins to feel that he’s the greatest sinner, and that’s just what God is looking for.

~Saint Barsanuphius of Optina

The practice of the Jesus Prayer can be divided into three, or even four, steps.

The first step is oral prayer, when the mind often runs away, and a man has to make great effort to collect his scattered thoughts.  This is a hard-earned prayer, but it gives a man a repentant frame of mind.

The second step is prayer of the heart, when the mind and the heart, the reason and the feelings, act in concert.  Then the prayer is performed uninterruptedly; no matter what a man does – eating drinking, or resting – the prayer keeps going on.

The third step is creative prayer which is capable of moving mountains with a single world.  Such prayer was possessed by the holy desert-dweller Saint Mark of Thrace.  Once a certain monk came to him for  edification.  During their conversation Mark asked, “Those men of prayer who can move mountains – do they exist now?”  While he was saying this, the mountain on which they were located shuddered.  Saint Mark addressed the mountain as though it were a living being: “Calm down – I wasn’t talking about you.”

Finally, the fourth step is the kind of exalted prayer that only the angels have, and which could hardly be given to one man in all of humanity.

~Saint Barsanuphius of Optina

“On the Jesus Prayer,” Talks With Spiritual Children, in The Orthodox Word, Vol. 49, No. 3, May-June, 2013, Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, Platina, CA, p. 137.

commemorated October 13
Zlata was born of poor peasant parents (who also had three other daughters) in the village of Slatina, in the province of Meglin. She was a meek and devout girl, wise in the wisdom of Christ and golden, not only in name but also in her God-fearing heart. Once when Zlata went out to get water, some shameless Turks seized her and took her to their home. When one of them urged her to become a Moslem and be his wife, Zlata fearlessly replied:  “believe in Christ and Him alone do I know as my Bridegroom. I will never deny Him, even though you subject me to a thousand tortures and cut me into pieces.” When her parents and sisters found her, her parents said to her:  “O daughter, have mercy on yourself and on us, your parents and sisters; deny Christ in words only, so that we can all be happy, for Christ is merciful. He would forgive such a sin, committed due to the necessities of life. ”Her poor parents, sisters and relatives wept bitterly. However, the noble soul of St. Zlata resisted such diabolical snares. She answered them: “When you counsel me to deny Christ the true God, you are no longer my parents or my sisters. I have the Lord Jesus Christ as my father, the Theotokos as my mother, and the saints as my brothers and sisters.”  The Turks then cast her into prison for three months, flogging her every day until her blood soaked the ground. Finally, they suspended her upside down and lit a fire, to suffocate her with the smoke; but God was with Zlata, and gave her strength in suffering. At last they hanged her from a tree and cut her into small pieces. Thus, this brave virgin gave her soul up to God, and went to dwell in Paradise in the year 1796. Pieces of her relics were taken by Christians to their homes for a blessing.

spotted on FB

Dear readers,

This is the first post in a series this week on martyrs under Islam. Given the current persecution of Christians under Islam, I offer these in honor of our brothers and sisters around the world. I pray we find strength in their example.

handmaid leah

In the early 18th century in the Ottoman Empire, in the provincial town of Prusse there lived a beautiful Greek girl called Argery. She was brought up by pious parents and when she was young she met her love – a kind Greek youth. They got married in the church and their honeymoon was happy. But their Turkish neighbour was inflamed with lust towards Argery and tried with his sweet words to talk her into committing adultery in the absence of her husband. The pious wife declined his advances. Then the embittered Turk slandered her before the judge of Prusse by telling him that she had promised to become Moslem. According to the laws of Sharia, a person who expressed the wish to become Moslem must adopt Islam; if he denies thereafter he must be punished: for a man – death penalty, for a woman – life imprisonment. The judge, having believed the plaintiff, immediately put Argery into prison. Her husband, who thought the judgment was biased, demanded its transferal to Istanbul.

But it didn’t help. Both Argery and the Turkish plaintiff came to the court of the capital where the Moslem witnessed against her, giving the false evidence about her before the judge. Argery replied that she had never said anything like she was charged with She also said that she was not going to betray her faith; she was a Christian and wanted to die as a Christian. According to the judge’s order she was beaten and sentenced to life imprisonment.

She had fear, bitter separation with her beloved husband, the uncomforts of imprisonment, not to mention the regular insults from the Moslem criminals around her cell. Torment of the body, of the soul, of the heart, every day without interruption. And she could stop all this at any moment if she agrees to adopt Islam…

But spiritual joy helped her to overcome the sufferings and temptations. The martyr herself exhausted her body with fasting and other kinds of abstinence as was witnessed by other Christian women who were imprisoned together with the saint and later released.

So, she laboured in the prison during seventeen years. The saint’s heart was filled for joy because she labored for Christ. She considered her imprisonment such consolation that when one Christian called Manuil Curtsibasis offered her freedom she refused, choosing the prison rather than honor and freedom. In such a way, imprisoned for the sake of Christ, she passed away on 30th April 1725. Her holy relics were laid in the church of St. Paraskevi by the blessing of Patriarch Paisios and up until today the faithful venerate them.

from Journeytoorthodoxy.com

from OCA Lives of the Saints

The holy New Martyr and wonderworker Ephraim was born in Greece on September 14, 1384. His father died when the saint was young, and his pious mother was left to care for seven children by herself.

When Ephraim reached the age of fourteen, the all-good God directed his steps to a monastery on the mountain of Amoman near Nea Makri in Attica. The monastery was dedicated to the Annunciation and also to St Paraskeva. Here he took on his shoulders the Cross of Christ, which all His followers must bear (Matt. 16:24). Being enflamed with love for God, St Ephraim eagerly placed himself under the monastic discipline. For nearly twenty-seven years he imitated the life of the great Fathers and ascetics of the desert. With divine zeal, he followed Christ and turned away from the attractions of this world. By the grace of God, he purified himself from soul-destroying passions and became an abode of the All-Holy Spirit. He was also found worthy to receive the grace of the priesthood, and served at the altar with great reverence and compunction.

On September 14, 1425, the barbarous Turks launched an invasion by sea, destroying the monastery and and looting the surrounding area. St Ephraim was one of the victims of their frenzied hatred. Many of the monks had been tortured and beheaded, but St Ephraim remained calm. This infuriated the Turks, so they imprisoned him in order to torture him and force him to deny Christ.

They locked him in a small cell without food or water, and they beat him every day, hoping to convince him to become a Moslem. For several months, he endured horrible torments. When the Turks realized that the saint remained faithful to Christ, they decided to put him to death. On Tuesday May 5, 1426, they led him from his cell. They turned him upside down and tied him to a mulberry tree, then they beat him and mocked him. “Where is your God,” they asked, “and why doesn’t he help you?” The saint did not lose courage, but prayed, “O God, do not listen to the words of these men, but may Thy will be done as Thou hast ordained.”

The barbarians pulled the saint’s beard and tortured him until his strength ebbed. His blood flowed, and his clothes were in tatters. His body was almost naked and covered with many wounds. Still the Hagarenes were not satisfied, but wished to torture him even more. One of them took a flaming stick and plunged it violently into the saint’s navel. His screams were heart-rending, so great was his pain. The blood flowed from his stomach, but the Turks did not stop. They repeated the same painful torments many times. His body writhed, and all his limbs were convulsed. Soon, the saint grew too weak to speak, so he prayed silently asking God to forgive his sins. Blood and saliva ran from his mouth, and the ground was soaked with his blood. Then he lapsed into unconsciousness.

Thinking that he had died, the Turks cut the ropes which bound him to the tree, and the saint’s body fell to the ground. Their rage was still not diminished, so they continued to kick and beat him. After a while, the saint opened his eyes and prayed, “Lord, I give up my spirit to Thee.” About nine o’clock in the morning, the martyr’s soul was separated from his body.

These things remained forgotten for nearly 500 years, hidden in the depths of silence and oblivion until January 3, 1950. By then a women’s monastery had sprung up on the site of the old monastery. Abbess Makaria (+ April 23, 1999) was wandering through the ruins of the monastery, thinking of the martyrs whose bones had been scattered over that ground, and whose blood had watered the tree of Orthodoxy. She realized that this was a holy place, and she prayed that God would permit her to behold one of the Fathers who had lived there.

After some time, she seemed to sense an inner voice telling her to dig in a certain spot. She indicated the place to a workman whom she had hired to make repairs at the old monastery. The man was unwilling to dig there, for he wanted to dig somewhere else. Because the man was so insistent, Mother Makaria let him go where he wished. She prayed that the man would not be able to dig there, and so he struck rock. Although he tried to dig in three or four places, he met with the same results. Finally, he agreed to dig where the abbess had first indicated.

In the ruins of an old cell, he cleared away the rubble and began to dig in an angry manner. The abbess told him to slow down, for she did not want him to damage the body that she expected to find there. He mocked her because she expected to find the relics of a saint. When he reached the depth of six feet, however, he unearthed the head of the man of God. At that moment an ineffable fragrance filled the air. The workman turned pale and was unable to speak. Mother Makaria told him to go and leave her there by herself. She knelt and reverently kissed the body. As she cleared away more earth, she saw the sleeves of the saint’s rasson. The cloth was thick and appeared to have been woven on the loom of an earlier time. She uncovered the rest of the body and began to remove the bones, which appeared to be those of a martyr.

Mother Makaria was still in that holy place when evening fell, so she read the service of Vespers. Suddenly she heard footsteps coming from the grave, moving across the courtyard toward the door of the church. The footsteps were strong and steady, like those of a man of strong character. The nun was afraid to turn around and look, but then she heard a voice say, “How long are you going to leave me here?”

She saw a tall monk with small, round eyes, whose beard reached his chest. In his left hand was a bright light, and he gave a blessing with his right hand. Mother Makaria was filled with joy and her fear disappeared. “Forgive me,” she said, “I will take care of you tomorrow as soon as God makes the day dawn.” The saint disappeared, and the abbess continued to read Vespers.

In the morning after Matins, Mother Makaria cleaned the bones and placed them in a niche in the altar area of the church, lighting a candle before them. That night St Ephraim appeared to her in a dream. He thanked her for caring for his relics, then he said, “My name is St Ephraim.” From his own lips, she heard the story of his life and martyrdom.

Since St Ephraim glorified God in his life and by his death, the Lord granted him the grace of working miracles. Those who venerate his holy relics with faith and love have been healed of all kinds of illnesses and infirmities, and he is quick to answer the prayers of those who call upon him.

relics of St Ephraim of Nea Makri

read more at Death to the World: Overdose

and at Mystagogy

(amateur translation and summary from: http://www.synaxaristis.googlepages.com/12σεπτεμβριου)

The following is a (quite prophetic) quote from St. Chrysostom’s statement at his consecration as Metropolitan of Drama in 1902:
“Ζητώ μεγάλον Σταυρόν, επί του οποίου θα δοκιμάσω την ευχαρίστησιν, καθηλούμενος και μη έχω έτερον τι να δώσω προς σωτηρίαν της ημετέρας λατρευτής πατρίδος, να δώσω το αίμα μου. Ούτως εννοώ το έπ’ εμοί την ζωήν και την αρχιερωσίνην”… “…και η μίτρα, έλεγε, την οποίαν αι άγιαι χείρες σου εναπέθεσαν επί της κεφαλής μου, εάν πέπρωται, να απολέση ποτέ την λαμπηδόνα των λίθων της θα μεταβληθεί εις ακάνθινον στέφανον μάρτυρος ιεράρχου”
(http://egolpio.com/AGIOLOGIO/xrusostomos_smurne.htm)
 

“I seek a great Cross, upon which I will put my pleasure to trial, I am called and I don’t have anything else of my own to give towards the salvation of our worshiping homeland, other than to give my blood. Thus I perceive of my life and the arch-priesthood…and the miter, which your holy hands placed upon my head, if it is called for, may the radiance of its stones never be destroyed; it will be converted to the crown of thorns of martyrdom of a hierarch.” (http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/09/saint-chrysostomos-of-smyrna.html)

The following is an actual account of the brutal lyching of St. Chrysostom:

“According to the French observers,…’The mob took possession of Metropolitan Chrysostom and carried him away,…a little further on, in front of an Italian hairdresser named Ismail…they stopped and the Metropolitan was slipped into a white hairdresser’s overall. They began to beat him with their fists and sticks and to spit on his face. They riddled him with stabs. They tore his beard off, they gouged his eyes out, they cut off his nose and ears.’ The French soldiers were disgusted by what they saw and wished to intervene, but their commanding officer was under orders to remain strictly neutral. At the point of a revolver, he forbade his men from saving the metropolitan’s life. Chrysostom was dragged into a backstreet in the Iki Cheshmeli district, where he eventually died from his terrible wounds.”

Milton, Giles. Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of Islam’s City of Tolerance. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., London, 2008. pp.268-269. (http://orthodoxwiki.org/Chrysostomos_(Kalafatis)_of_Smyrna)
  

I also heard somewhere that St. Chrysostom was ultimately dragged to and martyred at the place where St. Polycarp the Hieromartyr and the first Bishop of Smyrna also gave his life for Christ. Thus the beginning and end of Christ’s Church in Smyrna were sealed with the precious blood of their shepherds.

from: Full of Grace and Truth

It happened that, at that time, a certain Bulgarian converted to Islam and when Christodoulos saw him he was very much saddened over the loss of the man’s soul. So he decided he’d die a martyr’s death. On 26 July, then, without telling anyone what he was doing, he sat down and wrote out all the sins he’d committed from his youth up, picked up his cross and went to his confessor. He gave the cross to his confessor, read out the paper himself and confessed his sins and then, after confession, went to his friend, the verger of Saint Athansios’.

Icon of Bishop Teodor being skinned alive by Turkish
Muslims. St Sava of Serbia at top right.

hat tip: Mystagogy

Our father among the saints Hieromartyr Teodor or Theodore (Nestorović) of Vršac or Vrsha (Свети свештеномученик Теодор (Несторовић) Вршачки) was a Serbian Orthodox bishop of Vršac in the sixteenth century. His feast day is May 16/29.

During the Austro-Turkish War (1593-1606), many Serbians suffered under the Turkish Islamic warriors. The Serbs in Banat decided to protect their families from these Turkish troops and asked their bishop, Teodor, to lead them. He joined the rebellion against the Turks in 1593. The Serbs liberated some towns but in the end were defeated. Bishop Teodor, along with a large group of people, left for Transylvania. The Turks then promised that they would stop killing innocent people if Teodor were to return. When he did, he was seized in 1595 and then killed in a terrible fashion: his skin was ripped off.

Kontakion in Tone 8
Let God be praised in the fields and meadows, on the green mountain tops and in the valleys below, on the rushing rivers and in dark caves, since every place has been watered by the innocent and holy blood of many Serbian Martyrs: worthy stewards, brave soldiers, young boys and children and chaste virgins; let God be praised and let everyone keep silent, for the Lord of all rules the world.

hat tip: Facing Islam
by Seraphim Maamdi
November 21, 2011

hat tip Mystagogy

Ilya Repin’s Christ Raising Jairus’ Daughter (1871)

Before the resurrection of the ruler’s daughter, Christ raises her in His words, saying, “The maid is not dead, but sleeping” (Mt 9:18-26).  And with …respect to Lazarus also, He says, “Our friend Lazarus is sleeping” (Jn 11:11) …He is teaching us not to fear death; for that it is not death, but has henceforth become a sleep …Let no man therefore torture himself any further,  nor wait, nor disparage Christ’s achievement.  For indeed He overcame death.  Why then do you wait for nothing?  Henceforth it is now a sleep.

~Saint John Chrysostom

Catherine was the daughter of King Constus. After the death of her father, she lived with her mother in Alexandria. Her mother was secretly a Christian who, through her spiritual father, brought Catherine to the Christian Faith. In a vision, St. Catherine received a ring from the Lord Jesus Himself as a sign of her betrothal to Him. This ring remains on her finger even today. Catherine was greatly gifted by God and was well educated in Greek philosophy, medicine, rhetoric and logic. In addition to that, she was of unusual physical beauty. When the iniquitous Emperor Maxentius offered sacrifices to the idols and ordered others to do the same, Catherine boldly confronted the emperor and denounced his idolatrous errors. The emperor, seeing that she was greater than he in wisdom and knowledge, summoned fifty of his wisest men to debate with her on matters of faith and to put her to shame. Catherine outwitted and shamed them. In a rage, the emperor ordered all fifty of those men burned. By St. Catherine’s prayers, all fifty confessed the name of Christ and declared themselves Christians before their execution. After Catherine had been put in prison, she converted the emperor’s commander, Porphyrius, and two hundred soldiers to the true Faith, as well as Empress Augusta-Vasilissa herself. They all suffered for Christ. During the torture of St. Catherine, an angel of God came to her and destroyed the wheel on which the holy virgin was being tortured. Afterward, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself appeared to her and comforted her. After many tortures, Catherine was beheaded at the age of eighteen, on November 24, 310. Milk, instead of blood, flowed from her body. Her miracle-working relics repose on Mount Sinai.

The Prologue of Ohrid