Homily for the Feast of Saint Kyriaki (Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

Homily for the Feast of Saint Kyriaki 

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

(Delivered on Monday 7 July 2025 in the Church of Saint Kyriaki in Leptokarya of Mountainous Nafpaktia)

We came here today to the settlement of Agia Kyriaki, in order to celebrate this great Saint, whom we respect and honor, and in fact this entire region of Nafpaktia, of mountainous Nafpaktia, respects and honors Saint Kyriaki, who was a Great Martyr, a Venerable Virgin Martyr, who was martyred at the beginning of the 4th century, when there were very great persecutions within the Church of Christ. And we came here to this place, which is about 1,300 meters above sea level, to honor this Holy Great Martyr and Venerable Virgin Saint Kyriaki. I see that all the people, not only those who live here in the area and in the villages, but also in Nafpaktos, love Saint Kyriaki and come up here not only during her commemoration, that is, today and yesterday during Vespers and today during the Divine Liturgy, but they come up regularly because the environment is also beautiful and therefore to appreciate it and pray to the Holy Venerable Virgin Martyr Kyriaki the Prize-Bearer. 

As I look around this chapel, I see the trees that are towering and especially the fir trees and other plants, and I can feel that the Saints are the plants, they are the flowers of Paradise. If we think, of course Paradise is uncreated, but if we think of some images about Paradise, then, as the Hymnographer of our Church says, the texts of our Church, the Saints are the plants of Paradise. The blessed plants. And one of these plants is Saint Kyriaki. And as we read the service of Saint Kyriaki, we see a troparion that the Hymnographer composed to praise the Saint and present this characteristic that I mentioned earlier. The Sacred Hymnographer says here in a troparion that was chanted yesterday during Vespers:

"From an illustrious root Kyriaki, you appeared as a most beautiful branch, bringing forth the fruit of salvation from the achievements of the contest, and by grace you wither the plants of impiety."

We have, he says, plants that are plants of piety and of course one example was the family in which Saint Kyriaki grew up. But we also have plants of impiety, families that raise their members and especially the children in a different way. Saint Kyriaki, says the Sacred Hymnographer here, had an illustrious root, that is, her blessed parents, who were called Dorotheos and Eusevia. Two names that show exactly what two parents were in reality, who were Christians and their family was Christian, at that difficult time, not now when everything is easy. 

Back then it was difficult and if you see now also in some countries it is very difficult. If you see how Christians are doing in Syria, and especially Orthodox Christians, the Romans, then you will understand how they lived in those years. In Syria, where these crimes, as I would call them, are taking place, who killed people inside the temple. We are gathered here today, now imagine someone comes in here and starts shooting, killing 10, 15, 20 people, and they do this to create intimidation and so that people don't go to church. They are going through a period of persecution there in Syria, like in the first Christian period. And they remain faithful. I was reading the day before yesterday, and it made a big impression on me, when the funeral of these people took place, a lot of people went, while there is fear and terror and the regime there wants to eliminate them. The regime there wants to expel all Christians, especially the Roman Orthodox. With the idea that Syria should remain and become a country where only Muslims will live, and yet there are Christians who go to church despite the difficulties. And I was reading how these days Patriarch John of Antioch, despite the difficulties he has, whom I know from when he was a priest when we served together and taught Orthodox theology there at the Theological School in Lebanon, went to the funeral and spoke with courage and even against the regime and against the current President of Syria, saying openly: "We turn to you now, Mr. President, and I want to tell you that you are not ignorant of these situations, you are complicit in all this happening." In what situation does he say this? Do we say it or can we say it in a country where there is freedom? The Patriarch will immediately have a problem there, because he is a martyr in reality, and we do not know what the development of his life and the end of his life will be, because of such boldness, which he had and still has.

Well, in such an environment Saint Kyriaki grew up, as did her parents, who begged God to give them a child, since they were childless, and she was born on Sunday and because she was born on this day, they gave her the name Kyriaki. And as the Sacred Synaxaristes says, the parents raised their child in the education and admonition of the Lord. When she was relatively young and they told her to deny Christ, she had received such a great Christian education from her home by her pious parents, that she said, "I will not deny Christ," and she dedicated her entire life to Christ, she sacrificed her life, herself to Christ. So the Sacred Hymnographer says here, she comes from an illustrious root, namely her parents, if we imagine a tree, or a plant that has a root, these are the parents, the pious and the devout who raise their children in the education and admonition of the Lord; from there this plant, Saint Kyriaki, came forth. 

We then heard the Sacred Hymnographer say, she came from a pious root, and as a blessed branch brought forth fruits from the achievements of her contest, and with faith and love she withered, he says, through the Grace of God, the plants of the impious. That is, all those idolaters who subjected her to terrible and severe tortures are the plants of impiety and they lost their honor, and here none but a few of them are written in some books in the library, while everyone remembers Saint Kyriaki and we love and venerate her.

I repeat that Saint Kyriaki came from a Christian family of parents who loved God and raised her with piety in the education and admonition of the Lord. I remember a similar incident before Saint Kyriaki. That is, we read the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles of the Apostle Paul and there we see his disciple Timothy, whom the Apostle Paul met on his first tour of Asia Minor and there he found him young and took him to himself, so he is a spiritual child of the Apostle Paul. When I see the lives of both of them I marvel at how this Timothy, who met the Apostle Paul at a young age, remained with him until the end of his life. He followed him on all the difficult tours and the Apostle Paul writes an epistle to him, when it was about 67 AD. He was in Rome for the second time and was about to be martyred, he wrote him an epistle which is the last epistle that the Apostle Paul wrote, the second epistle to Timothy shortly before his death, and he said: "My child, Timothy, please, I am about to leave this world, come to me, I am waiting for you," and Timothy went again, although he followed the Apostle of the Gentiles all his life and went to him and remained until the end of his life. And in this epistle which the Apostle Paul sends to his disciple Timothy, I repeat whom he knew from his young age, and helped him to grow spiritually, in the first chapter of this epistle he writes to Timothy: "I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also." 

You see here this characteristic example, that Timothy was that worthy disciple of the Apostle Paul, a worthy submissive, we would say today of the Apostle Paul, who followed him throughout his life, as a child he clung to the Holy Apostle Paul, but he came from such a family, from such a grandmother and from such a mother Lois and Eunice who raised him in the education and admonition of the Lord. That is why towards the end of this second epistle to Timothy the Apostle Paul writes to Timothy: "From childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." When he speaks of the Holy Scriptures he means the Holy Bible. Of course at that time the Old Testament existed, the New Testament was not yet part of the Bible. The Old Testament, which means his mother, his grandmother, when he was little, they taught him, they read the Holy Bible to him, from childhood he knew the holy writings which have the power to make you wise through faith in Christ Jesus, which were capable and powerful to develop you, to make you wise in the faith, wise in Christ Jesus. 

You see, my dear brethren, the great importance that family has. I have mentioned only two incidents to you. There are many other incidents, both old and modern, to show what exactly family is, how in a family where a blessed man and woman who love God, keep all the commandments of God, make the mystery of marriage a blessed institution,  give birth to their children and raise them by telling them about Christ, leading them to the church. I repeat, raising them in the education and admonition of the Lord, and then the children having freedom, they have the ability to choose. There may be pious parents and their children have taken a different path. It does not matter. But basically the point is to take some characteristics of Christian life from the parents. Because even when children grow up good at home and take a different path, this life that they lived in the home of pious parents, will make them return home again like the Prodigal Son. What was it that made the Prodigal Son return to his father's house? He remembered the love that existed in the father's house. There were no teachers then, nor were there preachers then in the sense that we have today to teach him, but when he himself left home, got involved with bad company and led a bad life, then how many memories he had in his father's house, "How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!" He remembered the love of his father, who showed his love even to the hired servants and this made him return home. 

I repeat, it is very important for a child to be born and grow up in such a blessed family that hears Christ, hears the Panagia, hears the Saints, the pious parents, the father and mother, especially the mother, to bring the child into the church from a young age, just as we all experienced, to the Sacred Bema, to the Sacred Psaltirion, to learn the songs, to hear everything and say it happens in the church, then something will remain in his tender heart. And this will become an element of good and blessed education. I repeat, if he moves away from God, this will make him return to God and to the straight path. This is the great importance and value of blessed families. Traditional families. Families that are created with faith and love for God, where even if they have problems, the spouses will find a way to overcome them and not break up the families. We need such traditional families because that is where the plants of reverence and piety grow in children. 

And yet if we look at reality today, we will see, if you open the computers a little and you will see there, that there are ten types of families. The traditional monogamous one is one form, there are other forms of families, even unnatural forms of family. What will this child see in this family? What will they see when they grow up only with their mother, only with their father, or in unnatural and abnormal forms, what will the child see and who should they take as role models in order to grow up and have a proper education? Of course, there are other factors that help him. The Church can help the child, it can help them with its catechism schools, the school can help him with good teachers and see there the role model of another mother and take the lead. But ultimately it has a very great importance. What we call the mother tongue that the mother teaches to the children, is the maternal joy, the maternal life. Very great importance. 

That is why on this day we celebrate this blessed flower and fruit of a pious family, of the blessed couple Saints Dorotheos and Eusevia, in the era in which we live, when there are different movements to divide the family. I am amazed. I watch the news every night mainly to see the world in which we live. The crimes that are committed. And journalists come out, asking why did he do this, why did he do that? But what is today's family? What ethos and what models and what prototypes do our own media give and the information with the serials that they play? What role model families do they show? Since they spread the poison of impiety, indecency, the poison of atheism and unbelief, then what role models should children have? They go ahead and commit such crimes and rapes and other crimes. It is a natural result of an anti-Christian and anti-ecclesiastical life. 

Let us pray fervently to God through the intercessions of Saint Kyriaki, to strengthen the pious families, who fight and struggle to raise their children. To give repentance to all those who want to live their lives but must think about the future of their children. Because they may want to live a different life, but they must make themselves role models because it is not the fault of these children to see such role models and be unhappy throughout their lives. May Saint Kyriaki intercede with God, that we may have such blessed families, such blessed children. Amen.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.