By Fr. George Dorbarakis
Saint Anastasia lived when the persecutors of the Christian faith, Decius and Valerian, were emperors and Probus was governor. She was a Roman by origin, young in age and lived in a monastery. Arrested for her faith because she confessed this faith with boldness, she was beaten in the face. Then, she was laid on hot coals and whipped with rods. She was then hung on a tree, pressed in a vice and pierced with iron spikes. While hanging, she was scratched all over her body, her breasts were cut off and her nails were pulled out. Her hands and feet were amputated, her tongue was removed and her teeth were pulled out. In the end, her head was also cut off.
The martyrdom of Saint Anastasia is astonishing. She did not simply suffer some torture for the sake of her faith in Christ, but each member of her body received multiple wounds, to the point of almost disappearing. The description of her martyrdom brings to mind the troparion from Great Friday for the Lord Himself: “Each member of your holy flesh endured dishonor for us.” That is why the hymnographer Saint Joseph, who seeks enlightenment from the Saint in order to properly glorify her holiness, covers a large part of her Canon with specific reference to each type of her martyrdom. The case of the Holy Martyr is reminiscent of the tortures of other great martyrs, such as Saint Euphemia, for whom Elder Paisios also expressed his admiration, when she appeared in his cell in 1987.
The Holy Hymnographer certainly tries to explain how the Saint was able to endure so much suffering. She reached, he says, the glorious height of martyrdom, with her lawful contest, after having previously overcome the passions of the flesh with her self-control. And this overcoming was not a matter of a moment or a short time, but of her entire life, since she was dedicated to God from infancy. “From infancy you were entrusted to God, venerable one, mortifying the passions of the flesh with self-control.” In other words, Saint Anastasia, with her sanctified life before martyrdom, was also ready for the struggles of martyrdom itself, which means that no one can unconditionally become a martyr. Without excluding the case of an extraordinary leap into martyrdom – someone at that moment receiving enlightenment and grace to give their life for Christ – the “normal” course is for someone to have prepared for it. Here, the so-called “aleiptes” also have a place, that is, the spiritual trainers of the prospective martyrs, whom the synaxaria and hymns of the Church very often speak of: they prepare the faithful with words and spiritual exercises, in view of the martyrdom, so that the prospective martyr will not find himself in the position of denying the Lord. In this case, a general and important truth is emphasized: no one achieves something great and important if he has not previously prepared for it for a long time. If the Lord Himself prepared for thirty years before His public action, if the Apostle Paul needed several years of isolation and reflection to begin his tours, how much more is this necessary for everyone?
With the tortures of the Saint, her body was distorted, to the point, as we said, of her final destruction. On this, however, the ecclesiastical poet makes two observations. First, the distortion of the Saint’s body, for the sake of Christ, revealed her mental stability, the uprightness of her choice. The more they beat her and “cut her skin,” the stronger her spirit became and remained upright. “With the body distorted by afflictions, it revealed the uprightness of your will toward God, all-laudable Anastasia." In other words, the Saint confirmed in practice what the Lord had said: “Do not be afraid of those who destroy the body, but cannot destroy the soul.” The soul is what counts in the difficult moments of life, and this is what the Saint showed. Secondly, in the midst of all these sufferings, in which the young girl should have had her facial features altered by pain and suffering, she seemed even more beautiful in appearance: “The beauty of your heart, your inner beauty, glorious one, was also transmitted to your visible, external form, and made you appear most beautiful to those who saw you." The Saint revealed, even in suffering, the grace of God present in her, which truly makes a person shine and beautify even externally. “A heart that rejoices, brightens the face,” the word of God reminds us. The Holy Hymnographer, with this hymn, emphasizes precisely the charismatic character of the martyrdom of Saint Anastasia. Whatever she suffered, she suffered with the power of God. But for this power to function, it had to meet the good will of the Saint, for whose existence, as we have said, she herself worked ascetically from her youth.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
