July: Day 16: Holy Hieromartyr Athenogenes of Pedachthoe

July: Day 16:
Holy Hieromartyr Athenogenes of Pedachthoe
 
(What Does It Mean to Love the Lord?)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Hieromartyr Athenogenes with his ten disciples, whose memory is celebrated today, suffered during the persecution by Emperor Maximinus II in 311. He was a Bishop in one of the Armenian cities, Pedachthoe, and lived in a monastery. When soldiers were sent to take him, he was not in the monastery at that time, so they took his disciples. Returning, Athenogenes went to Sebaste to look for his disciples. There he was seized and thrown into prison. His disciples were also in prison. The Saint urged them not to fear torture. In the morning, he, together with his disciples, was brought to the governor, who demanded that they all offer sacrifice to the idols. The Martyrs remained adamant, and then they began to beat them and scrape them with iron combs, and finally all the disciples were killed with the sword. During the torture, Saint Athenogenes heard a voice from heaven: “Be of good cheer, my chosen one!” At his request he was put to death in his monastery. Before his death, on the way to the place of execution, he sang the sacred song: "O Gladsome Light"* and psalms, encouraging his soul, which lived with Christ and for Christ, to fearlessly meet torment and death.

II. The Holy Hieromartyr Athenogenes loved the Lord with all the strength of his soul, as shown by his piety, his love for the Savior, for whose glorification he sang a sacred hymn before his death, and his fidelity to the Lord until his martyrdom.

He who loves the Lord with all the strength of his soul strives to: 

a) be close to Him, 

b) willingly follow Him, 

c) be ready even to be crucified with Him, and 

d) with all generosity gladly serve Him from his possessions.

a) Do you wish to constantly remain with the Lord, to hear His divine teaching, to see His signs and wonders? Visit the holy temple of God as often as possible. Here He Himself is invisibly and mysteriously present, surrounded by cherubim and seraphim. Here are proclaimed the same divine words of eternal life, which He Himself preached with His most pure lips in Judea. Here are narrated the same saving, life-giving signs and wonders of His, which He performed with His most pure hands. Here are performed new, even greater miracles in the Holy Mysteries: every day bread is transformed into His most pure Body, and wine into His most pure Blood, believers in Him are reborn into a new life of grace in the font of Holy Baptism, receive from Him the remission of sins in the Mystery of Holy Repentance. Come to Him, Who calls to Himself all who labor and are heavy laden; with a contrite and humble heart fall down before Him, Who alone has the power to forgive sins; with living faith and love fall down before Him, Who says to all: “Take, eat, this is My Body, which is broken for you for the remission of sins. Drink of it, all of you, for this is My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you for the remission of sins.” But in every place and at every time one can and must abide with the Lord by unceasing remembrance and meditation on Him, by prayerful and God-inspiring conversation with Him; for He is omnipresent everywhere and is always with us “even to the end of the age.”

b) Do you want to follow the Lord? Follow without hindrance, as He Himself invites: "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me, so that where I am, there will My servant also be." Do you see how He, your Lord and Master, comes to fulfill all righteousness, to accomplish the will of the Heavenly Father? Follow Him and carefully observe all the commandments of the Lord, willingly fulfill the will of the Heavenly Father, so that everything written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and Psalms will be fulfilled in your life and deeds, as all this was fulfilled in the life of the Lord Himself. Do you see how the Lord hastens to help the suffering, comforts the grieving? Hasten after Him, and feed in His name the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the sick and those in prison, teach the ignorant, protect the falling, serve the dead by burying his body; and the Lord will not only accept your service, but will also impute it to Himself: "Inasmuch as you have done it for one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it for me." Do you see the Lord in Gethsemane, in the heavy struggle and anguish of the soul, praying for the sins of men? Follow Him, and shut yourself in the cage of your heart, remember the Kingdom of God awaiting the righteous, and the eternal torment prepared for sinners, and in the sorrow of your heart, in the illness of your soul, in the sighs of your spirit, beseech the Heavenly Father for the forgiveness of your sins, for deliverance from the torments of hell, for inclusion in the ranks of those being saved. Do you see the Lord coming to Golgotha with the cross? Do not shrink from following Him, too, by good-naturedly enduring the sorrows and calamities sent down by God in the spirit of faith and devotion to His will, submission and trust in His all-good Providence, by enduring to the end all insults and offenses inflicted from foolishness or from human malice: “for he who endures to the end will be saved”!

c) Thus, one cannot only follow the Lord Jesus Christ and remain with Him in His tribulations, but also co-suffer with Him, being crucified with Him, fulfilling, in the manner of the Apostle, the sufferings of Christ in one's own flesh. How so? By crucifying one's flesh with its passions and desires, that is, by rejecting one's own will and fulfilling the will of God, even if it costs not only sufferings and torments, but also the very death of the body. And if you always maintain this elevation of self-denial, you will always be crucified with Christ and "bear His wounds in your body." In this co-crucifixion with Christ in one's spirit lies the essence of all Christian virtues; from this, they draw life and strength, light and beauty; without this inner cross, even the heaviest external cross will not be salvific or beneficial for our souls. Thus, to the cross-bearers who suffer and are co-crucified with the Lord, He bequeathed His eternal kingdom: "You are those who have stood by Me in My trials; and I bestow upon you, as My Father has bestowed upon Me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom" (Luke 22:28-30).

d) Do you finally want to serve the Lord from your possessions? Serve Him with your participation in the splendor and adornment of the holy temples of God, and He who praised the zeal of the widow who threw two mites into the Temple fund will also accept your gift as an acceptable sacrifice and will reward you a hundredfold. Serve Him in the person of His servants and co-workers, whom He Himself chooses and sends to the work of service, to the edification of the Body of Christ, who, according to His divine command, by His gracious power and His heavenly authority, regenerate you into a new life of grace in Christ, pray and intercede for you before the throne of God, feed you with the flesh and blood of Christ, give you to drink the milk of the sound teaching of Christ, and reconcile those who sin again with God by the remission of their sins in the name of the Lord Jesus - who bring a dread sacrifice for the salvation of not only the living, but also the dead of our fathers and brothers. "He who receives whom I send," says the Lord Himself, "receives Me; and he who receives Me receives the Father who sent Me." Serve Him in the person of the least of His brethren, and He will say to you at His Judgment: “Come, blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

III. Whoever thus loves the Lord Jesus Christ and his brethren in Christ with all his heart and with all his soul, will be deemed worthy not only of gracious consolation in life, but also of eternal joy in heaven, in the never-ending days of the Kingdom of Christ. Amen. 

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

* On July 16th there is another martyr with the name Athenogenes who is commemorated and should not be confused, as many do, with the Hieromartyr Athenogenes. The former was martyred in 196 A.D. by being burnt alive in Pontus of Asia Minor. As he approached his martyrdom, he sang the hymn "O Gladsome Light", for which reason Saint Basil the Great calls it the "Hymn of Athenogenes". Therefore it was not the Hieromartyr Athenogenes that sang the hymn "O Gladsome Light", but the Martyr Athenogenes.