By Fr. George Dorbarakis
The commemoration of our Venerable Father Maximus the Confessor, the “all-blessed and all-great,” constitutes for our Church an eternal proclamation — both of his blood that was shed for the sake of the faith and of his God-inspired teachings. That is to say, our Church does not regard the celebrated Saint as something belonging merely to the past, even a glorified one — perhaps analogous to various anniversaries of national holidays — but as a living and enduring present. For his blood (as indeed that of the other martyrs and teachers of the Church) nourished the Church, and his teachings preserved unadulterated the revelation of Christ and the preaching of the Holy Apostles and the later Fathers. Indeed, these two — his blood and his teachings — were inseparably bound together: his blood was the confirmation of his orthodox doctrines.
This is not merely our own opinion concerning Saint Maximus. It is the common faith of our Church, expressed through the mouth of another great Father and hymnographer, Saint John of Damascus. In his Canon for the Saint, for example, the Holy Hymnographer notes among other things: “Even to this day and unto all the ages, O all-blessed and all-great Maximus, your blood, like that of Abel, cries aloud in the Church of Christ, proclaiming with a piercing voice your divinely-inspired dogmas.”
It does not matter that Saint Maximus did not depart this life through the shedding of blood in martyrdom. He suffered, was tortured, and was wounded for his faith — hence he is called a Confessor — but for our Church he remains a martyr not only of conscience but also of blood. Not only the hymn cited above, but other hymns even more clearly emphasize this dimension: “The great Maximus was truly revealed as both preacher and martyr by blood of the pious faith of Christ.”
Nor should this view surprise us — that his blood too nourished the Church — for it is well known that our Church, founded by Christ, the first Martyr, has been nourished and continues to be nourished first and foremost by His blood, and also by the blood of His holy and eminent members, His holy martyrs. See how beautifully, with his concise and divinely-inspired pen, Saint John of Damascus emphasizes this in his Canon: “By the flow of your blood the Church of Christ was watered.” And he continues: “Therefore the dogma handed down by the Fathers blossomed, as the divine seed from you, O venerable one.”
If the land watered by the blood of heroes who sought to preserve their homeland demands its freedom and does not rest until this is fulfilled — meaning that it is only a matter of time before such blood-soaked soil finds liberation (“fear the wrath of the dead,” says a saying) — how much more does this apply to our Church herself, the living Body of Christ, which literally lives and is nourished by the blood of her Head, as we have said, and of her faithful? “For the gates of Hades shall not prevail against her!”
Yet what today’s hymnography overwhelmingly brings to the fore is indeed the divinely-inspired teaching of the Saint. He confronted the heresy of the Monothelites — those who denied the two wills of the Lord as God and man, thus extending the Christological heresy of the Monophysites. In reality, whoever denies that the Lord has both a divine and a human will, as well as divine and human energy, denies the reality of His Incarnation. And who is it that denies the manifestation of God in the flesh, if not “the one who does not have the Father, nor the Son”? For this reason Saint John of Damascus repeatedly and with full awareness refers to this teaching of his:
“You said that there is one nature of the Trinity, one will, one energy; but of God incarnate you proclaimed two natures, wills, and energies.”
“Holding your divinely-inspired words, Father, as a pillar of Orthodoxy, we venerate the One of the Trinity in two natures and wills.”
And why so much struggle — indeed, bloody struggle — for a few syllables? Why “two” instead of “one”? Because, as we have said, even a single word or syllable can signify a complete distortion of the truth about God and Christ. The Church’s struggle is not about words but about realities — about the truth. And the truth is expressed through words. Christians, therefore, are not devotees of words, but “lovers of the truth,” that is, “lovers of Christ.” Him we desire; Him we seek. Consequently, an image of Him distorted by words causes us to lose communion with Him, which is precisely what is always sought. In other words, with a distorted faith we cannot rightly glorify Christ our God.
This is what Saint John of Damascus has in mind. In his kontakion he calls us in particular “to worthily acclaim, crying out: Rejoice, herald of the faith, lover of the Holy Trinity, great Maximus, for he taught us clearly the divinely-inspired faith, so that we might glorify Christ with two natures and two energies and wills.” That is, without this specific faith we would not have correct doxology of Christ. We would be dealing with an idol of our own mind, bearing merely the name of Christ — precisely what the heretics ultimately offer. “Let us worthily acclaim, crying out: Rejoice, herald of the faith, lover of the Holy Trinity, great Maximus, for he taught us clearly the divinely-inspired faith, so that we might glorify Christ with two natures and two energies and wills.”
Finally, as something self-evident — but again emphasized by the Holy Hymnographer — we should note that Saint Maximus did not teach the “divine doctrine handed down from the Fathers” relying on his intellectual abilities or perhaps on learned studies. Without excluding these, what primarily constituted his support and strength was his heart, purified from the passions. He struggled to keep away from his soul whatever was impassioned and defiling; thus, like a pure mirror, his soul reflected the rays of the Godhead, which he expressed as light when the crisis arose in the Church through the demon-driven heretics. Only one whose heart is pure can truly see God, according to the word of the Lord: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” This is what happened with Saint Maximus as well. “Having estranged yourself from every deadly pleasure, O blessed one, you made yourself wholly an undefiled divine mirror.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
