May: Day 21: Teaching 2: Saints Constantine and Helen, Equal to the Apostles

May: Day 21: Teaching 2:
Saints Constantine and Helen, Equal to the Apostles
 
(Lessons From Their Lives: Christians Must Turn To the Power of the Honorable and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord and Contribute To the Spread of the Christian Faith)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Under Saint Constantine the Great, whose memory is celebrated today with his Holy and Equal-to-the-Apostles mother Helen, the Christian faith, persecuted before his time, became dominant in the Roman Empire. The father of Constantine the Great, Constantius Chlorus, respected Christians and gave them honorary positions at his court. His son Constantine, born of Helen, learned the Christian faith in his father's house and from his youth was accustomed to respect it. When his father died in Britain (present-day England) in 306, Constantine was proclaimed Western Emperor. He was then 32 years old. He ruled his subjects with love and meekness. But in other regions of the West, the evil and self-interested Maxentius ruled. In 312, the subjects of Maxentius, unable to endure his oppression, began to ask Constantine to deliver them from the tyrant. Constantine marched against Maxentius, and as he approached Rome, suddenly, in the middle of the day, he and his army saw in the heavens a cross shining with stars, with the inscription: "By this conquer." That same night, Christ Himself appeared to Constantine in a vision and commanded him to make a banner in the likeness of a cross and to depict the cross on the weapons, shields and helmets of the soldiers. Under the banner of the cross, he defeated Maxentius, who, fleeing, drowned in the Tiber River.

Having accepted Christianity, Constantine persuaded Licinius, the ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire, to issue decrees in favor of the Church, allowing Christians to build churches and freely profess their faith. But Licinius hated Christians in his soul. Then Constantine declared war on him and, having defeated him, became the sole ruler of the entire Roman Empire; from that time on, he began to openly patronize Christians.

Wanting to make all his subjects Christians, he acted on them not by force, but by advice and persuasion. Since paganism was still strong in Rome, Constantine chose a new capital for himself, in Byzantium, a small town near the Black Sea. He called this town New Rome and Constantinople. Later, the city was called Constantinople. Today it is the capital of the Turkish Empire. The emperor built many magnificent churches in Constantinople.

Under Constantine the Great, the Christian Church was troubled by pagans, heretics and schismatics, but the Church found protection from them in the Emperor, who, in order to support Orthodoxy, convened the First Ecumenical Synod.

Under Constantine, Jerusalem arose from its ruins, sanctified by the preaching, deeds and sufferings of the Savior. This city had been desolate for more than 150 years; pagan temples stood on the holy Christian sites; the city bore the pagan name of Aelia Capitolina. The emperor's mother, Saint Helen, having gone to the Holy Land in 326, found the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord there and built churches on Golgotha, in Bethlehem, in Nazareth and on the Mount of Olives. The Church calls her Equal-to-the-Apostles, since by her exploits she contributed to the spread of Christianity within the Roman Empire.

Being a faithful son of the church, Constantine, however, on the one hand out of respect for the Mystery of Baptism, on the other hand wishing to cleanse himself of all the sins of his life before death, did not accept it until his death and was in the rank of catechumen. Ten years after the death of his mother, he was baptized on the feast of Pascha and died in the suburbs of Nicomedia, in the year 337 after the birth of Christ, at 65 years of age. His body was solemnly transferred to Constantinople and buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles.

II. The Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Emperors Constantine and Helen offer us two great lessons for our imitation: the first is that we should turn in all cases of our lives to the power of the honorable and life-giving cross of the Lord; the second is that we should, following their example, contribute to the spread and strengthening of the Christian faith among those who do not know the true God.

a) "By this conquer!" read the wondrous inscription seen by Saint Constantine, Equal-to-the-Apostles, under the wondrous heavenly sign of the cross. And the emperor conquered not only his external enemies with it, but also his internal enemies: the cross of Christ was for him a constant protective and guiding force in his spiritual pious life, for which he was glorified above all else, and for which he was canonized by the Church. And how could the cross of Christ not be victorious, when with it Christ, our Savior, once and for all, on Golgotha, defeated all the enemies of our salvation; how could it not be victorious, when in it is hidden the saving, invincible power of the God-man, Christ our Savior?

Let us, my brethren, also more often use the saving, victorious power of the cross of Christ in the struggle with the enemies of our salvation; let us, like the Apostle, boast of the cross of Christ especially before those who, to our greatest sorrow, do not honor it, do not use its holy, powerful power and even allow themselves to blaspheme it, like the Christ-hating Jews - I mean our miserable Stundists of various kinds.

"O Cross! Be our strength, our fortress and our power, our deliverer and our champion against those who fight against us, our shield and our guardian, our victory and our confirmation, always guarding and protecting us."

""O all-powerful Cross! Cast down the wicked enemies who madly hate and blaspheme you; silence their tongues and extinguish their strife!""

b) Saint Constantine and Helen, Equal-to-the-Apostles, are also glorified by the Holy Church for their apostolic zeal for the spread and strengthening of the Christian faith among people.

Each of us is obliged to have zeal for the Christian faith and to contribute to its spread and strengthening among people.

Out of love for Christ our Savior, who has enlightened us with His grace-filled teaching, and out of love for people perishing in the darkness of paganism and ignorance, we, listeners, must do everything in our power to ensure that the holy faith of Christ spreads everywhere on earth. And there are still, listeners, many people on earth who do not know Christ the Savior. In our Orthodox Russia alone, there are millions of people who do not know Christ the Savior, such as Jews, Tatars, Kalmyks, and other pagan peoples. According to the calculations of scholars from all nations on Earth, there are approximately 1.43 billion people; of these, only 335 million are Christians, that is, believers in Christ the Savior, while the rest are either pagans, Muhammadans, or Jews. How many people, therefore, perish in the darkness of ignorance of the true God! The words spoken by Christ the Savior to the apostles are still applicable today: "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers," that is, the preachers of Christ's teaching, "are few."

"Pray to the Lord of the harvest that He will choose worthy laborers for His harvest."

And we, every time during the Divine Liturgy, hearing the prayer of the Holy Church about the catechumens, that is, those preparing for baptism, must offer up a prayer with all our hearts to the Heavenly Father, so that all people on earth would turn to Christ the Savior and together with us glorify the most honorable and magnificent name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Besides prayer, do not forget, listeners, to contribute to the spread of the Christian faith with your own material means. In the temple of God, a tray has been specially set up for this purpose with the inscription: "For the spread of the Christian faith among the pagans." To our extreme regret, it must be said that this tray has existed in the temple of God for a long time, and many times it has been said about the need to help with your donations to spread the Christian faith; but few of you have yet responded to this holy cause. There are such Christian workers who take upon themselves the apostolic feat of preaching the teaching of Christ among those who do not believe in the true God. Following the example of the holy apostles, these workers, far from their families, endure hunger, and cold, and all kinds of oppression, and sorrows from the pagans, preaching the teachings of Christ. They establish churches and schools among the new Christians, buy crosses and icons for the newly baptized, and even help them set up a household. It is for the support of these holy workers who preach the teaching of Christ among the pagans that our pennies will go, which we will donate to the spread of the Christian faith.

A great reward is promised by Christ the Savior for the apostolic feat of spreading the Christian faith. Even he who gives a cup of water to the preacher of the word of God will not lose his reward, according to the word of the Savior.

III. Thus, imitating the Holy and Equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine and Helen, let us, to the best of our ability, contribute to the spread of the Christian faith and in all cases of life resort for help to the power of the honorable and life-giving cross of the Lord. 

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.