July: Day 15: Teaching 1: Holy Prince Vladimir, Equal to the Apostles

  

July: Day 15: Teaching 1:
Holy Prince Vladimir, Equal to the Apostles
 
(What Did the Orthodox Faith Give To Our Fatherland?)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Today we celebrate the memory of that unforgettable Great Prince for our fatherland, whom our ancestors called nothing less than the Sun of the Russian land, and the Holy Church called Equal to the Apostles. He enlightened the entire Russian land with the light of the faith of Christ, led it out of the darkness of idolatry into the wondrous light of the grace of God and revived it with Holy Baptism; he established in our fatherland the Orthodox Church - the pillar and ground of truth, and thus established in the Russian kingdom the kingdom of Christ - the source of life, strength and power of Russia.

You already know that the Blessed Princess Olga accepted the Christian faith and took care to enlighten the Russians with it; it is also known that some Christians even suffered for the faith of Christ. But Olga's son Svyatoslav remained a pagan until his death. Her grandson Vladimir Svyatoslavich was also an idolater. Almost in his old age, the good thought came to him to leave the pagan faith. Wanting to test which faith is the best, Vladimir sent ambassadors to various countries, and having learned that the best faith is the Greek Orthodox, he decided to accept it; but according to his pagan convictions, he did not ask for Holy Baptism, but intended to take it by force. He went to war in Perekop, laid siege to the city of Korsun, which belonged to the Greeks, and took it. There he was enlightened by Holy Baptism, and having married Anna, the sister of the Greek emperor, he returned to Kiev with bishops, priests, church utensils and books. Upon his arrival in Kiev, he ordered the baptism of his twelve sons, and then all the people of Kiev. The people of Kiev who obeyed the Prince's command were baptized in the Pochaina River, where it then flowed into the Dnieper, and after them the Russians were baptized in other places of the Grand Duchy of Vladimir. Having been washed clean of all sins by Holy Baptism, Vladimir lived piously and pleasing to God, built churches, founded schools, sent preachers of the Christian faith to various places in the Russian land, helped the poor and unfortunate, and by this earned God's mercy and the Kingdom of Heaven, and the unforgettable memory of the Russian people as the enlightener of the Christian faith of the entire Russian land.

II. a) The Holy Faith, planted in our Fatherland by the Holy Prince Vladimir, has brought countless fruits of grace. Everything that we see that is good, great and glorious in our Fatherland, everything that our cities and villages boast, everything that is valiant, famous and ever-memorable in the history of the Russian Kingdom, is the fruit of the Holy Faith, its gracious actions and its precious gift. It has gathered into one the Russian people, previously divided by tribes, and has expanded the borders of Russia to the ends of the earth.

She introduced laws and civil welfare among us, arranged the entire order of social and family life, sanctified mutual relations and connections by which all members of the great family of the Russian people are connected into a single living and strong body of the Russian state.

She raised great and wise kings, famous military leaders and city governors, wise men of the council and leaders of the people.

She raised, elevated to heaven and glorified with eternal glory before God entire ranks of our holy compatriots and relatives and made them intercessors, guardians and protectors of the Russian land.

It inspired our forefathers and fathers with courage, unanimity and self-sacrifice, with which they defended and upheld the heritage of their ancestors from a multitude of their enemies. And now, if there remains anything good in our morals and customs, in our societies and families, in our entire public and private life, all this is the fruit of the Holy Faith, which alone teaches and instructs people in everything, “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is praiseworthy, if there is any virtue and if there is any praise” (Phil. 4:8).

b) But, my brethren, to whom much has been given, much will be required. Holy faith is the life-giving seed that should bear good fruits in each of us; it is the talent entrusted to us by the Lord that we are obliged to cultivate and multiply. "A tree is known by its fruit," says the Lord, "every good tree bears good fruit." The Apostle states, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control" (Gal. 5:22). Therefore, let us ask ourselves: do we possess these gracious fruits of the faith of Christ, which the all-just Judge of the world patiently awaits, but from which He will demand accountability at His dreadful Judgment?

Does holy love for the Lord grow and mature in our hearts – that love as strong as death, which would prefer nothing more than God, would desire nothing more than the fulfillment of God’s will in everything, would fear nothing more than the transgression of God’s commandment? Is our heart animated by that sincere love for our neighbor which not only “does not envy, does not exalt itself, is not proud, does not seek its own, does not think evil, but provides what is good for all” (1 Cor. 13:4-5), blesses all, does good to all, prays for all, wishes for everyone everything that it wishes for itself?

Does holy joy about the Lord live in our hearts, that is, joy that the Lord God has enlightened us with the light of true knowledge of God, purified and justified us by the grace of Holy Baptism, revealed His holy will to us, granted us Holy Mysteries for our sanctification and salvation, adopted us as His own in Christ Jesus as an inheritance of eternal life, commanded His Holy Angels to guard us in all our ways, is long-suffering for us who sin before Him, not destroying us with our iniquities, but mercifully awaiting our repentance and conversion to the path of truth and virtue, to good and God-pleasing deeds?

Does blessed peace dwell in our souls - the peace of thoughts and desires, the peace of conscience and heart, the inner feeling that we are truly children of God and are in His fatherly love and favor? Is this inner peace of the soul manifested in our external actions and relationships with each other, in mutual condescension to each other, in good nature, meekness and humility before each other, in mutual forgiveness of each other's insults and griefs, in the readiness to sacrifice everything in order to maintain harmony, peace and love with all our neighbors?

Is our soul trained in long-suffering, so that no earthly loss would grieve it beyond measure, no temporary sorrow and grief would plunge it into despondency and hopelessness, no unpleasantness would disturb its inner world, no insult would irritate it and extinguish in it the love for its brothers; so that it would live and breathe devotion to God, entrust all its feelings to Him, seek its consolation in Him, entrust its entire fate to Him, place all its hope in Him, expect from Him its deliverance and salvation from every sorrow and misfortune?

Is our heart filled with goodness, that goodness which does not distinguish between friend and foe among its brethren, but embraces all equally with brotherly love, rejecting no one, treating all with the same good disposition of heart: giving to the one who asks, yielding to the one who takes away, praising the well-wisher, blessing even the one who curses you, being grateful to the one who does good, praying for those who do you harm, not remembering and not recalling evil and “conquering evil with good”?

Is faith alive in our hearts, that is, a sincere, firm, and unwavering conviction in God's truth, for which every word of the Holy Gospel is a resounding 'yes' and 'amen', which sees the unseen, delights in the hoped-for, foresees the Lord before oneself, lives with Christ in God – this is the living and strong conviction that cannot be shaken by temptations and trials, nor by suffering and death, for which it is a hundredfold better to die in body rather than to renounce faith or to transgress God's holy commandment and die in spirit, which, even if it walks through the valley of the shadow of death, will not fear evil?

Is our soul adorned with meekness, which the Lord promised as an inheritance a new land - that is, childish meekness, in which there is no mistrust, no suspicion, no envy, no ill will, no grumbling and discontent.

Have our souls and bodies been tempted in self-control? Have we become accustomed to be content with little, not to please our flesh, to deny ourselves everything, to quench every carnal desire, to curb and mortify every impure lust and passion; to be comforted not by food and drink, not by clothing and adornment, but by the grace of the Holy Spirit and the word of God? “For they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the desires and lusts.”

III. These, my brethren, are the spiritual fruits that our Lord Jesus Christ, who shed His blood for us on the cross, expects from us. Only by these fruits can we know whether the faith of Christ, the root of all good things, is alive in us, and whether we live by faith – whether we are alive or dead before God?

 

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