By Fr. George Dorbarakis
According to Saint Joseph the Hymnographer, the Saints we celebrate today are “multi-luminous stars” for the Church. Stars that illumine all creation, first with the light of their wondrous struggles, and then with the radiance of their miracles:
“As multi-luminous stars…you illumine all creation, victorious martyrs, with the light of your contests and the radiance of your miracles.”
What raised these Saints to such heights, according to our Church, and enabled them to extinguish the fire of atheism, was the flame of their God-inspired zeal:
“Burning with divine zeal, they extinguished the fire of atheism.”
It was also the fact that these Saints, like all the others, set the foundation of their lives upon Christ, so much so that even death itself appeared to them as something sweet:
“Sweet to me, cried Hermogenes, is the death by which I die; for to me, life is Christ, and death is infinite gain. Let my limbs be cut off.”
This is the charismatic experience of all the Saints, revealing that wherever the flame of faith in Christ has made its dwelling, even the greatest sufferings, the greatest sorrows and trials, can be faced with great endurance. And this is exactly the message the Saints offer to us today — who likewise endure afflictions and tests — namely that the goal is not ultimately the removal of trials, but the increase of our faith: that our own hearts may be kindled with the fire of Christ.
The hymns of our Church, beyond their general references, focus on the martyrdom and the gift of each Saint celebrated today. For example, the gift of speech possessed by Saint Menas — supported by extensive studies and worldly wisdom — becomes an occasion for the Hymnographer to emphasize how greatly he used his trained tongue to proclaim the true faith and the saving dogmas:
“Truly your tongue, O athlete Menas Kallikelados, was shown to be like the pen of a swift-writing scribe, clearly proclaiming the pious faith and the saving dogmas, through which God was glorified.”
And it is as though our Church is saying that whatever gift each believer possesses — especially the one who likewise has the gift of speech — must always be directed upward: toward the glorification of God. As the Apostle Paul notes, even about the simplest, most everyday things of life:
“Whether you eat or drink, do everything for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).
Even our food and drink should be taken in such a way that God is glorified. How moving it is to see this practiced by Athonite Fathers, who make the sign of the cross before drinking a cup of water.
What is truly astonishing is the sudden transformation of Saint Hermogenes, the prefect. He becomes an instrument of the tyrant king, as well as of the wicked devil, subjecting Saint Menas to cruel tortures. And yet, God grants him the grace, in the midst of this tragedy, to behold angels. The judgments of God are a deep abyss! Not only does he convert, receiving at that very hour the baptism of the Lord, but the bishops of the region are enlightened by God to judge him worthy of the episcopacy! This is the overturning of every formality and every presumed canonical rule. But as we have said before:
“Where God wills, the order of nature is overcome” (2nd Kathisma, Matins for the Nativity of Christ).
The Hymnographer, Saint Joseph, naturally points out this wondrous event:
“The transformation of Hermogenes toward the Lord was truly sudden and clear; for he is cleansed by the bath of baptism, and by divine judgment receives the light of the episcopacy, illuminating with his teachings those who dwelt in the night of grievous sins.”
His story indeed recalls the calling of Saint Matthew the Evangelist by the Lord — at the very moment he was in the sin of the tax booth — and the calling of the Apostle Paul — at the very moment he was persecuting Christians.
The final confirmation of all these paradoxical and “upside-down” events, which our human logic may not easily accept, comes at the end of the martyrdom of all three Saints. It is not pious Christians who recover their holy relics, but the Lord Himself, who takes them from the river into which they had been thrown. How rightly we Orthodox honor the relics of our saints, “I venerate the relics,” as Saint Joseph says — to place them in a location where they could be properly honored by Christians.
Thus the Hymnographer’s association is clear: the Lord rescued them as He once rescued the Prophet Jonah from the belly of the sea-monster. Just as Jonah prefigured the burial of the Lord, so too these bodies, now relics, were brought to burial and are therefore ready both to bestow grace upon the faithful and to receive the resurrection at the Second Coming of the Lord:
“You saved Jonah from the beast, prefiguring Your three-day burial, O Almighty; and the bodies of the Martyrs, thrown into the sea, You guided to a most tranquil harbor of burial, where Your divine will ordains, for the benefit of us the faithful.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
