Prologue in Sermons: March 20

Endure to the End

March 20

(The Holy Martyr Photini, the Samaritan Woman with whom Christ spoke at the well, and those who were martyred with her.)*

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Once the Lord appeared to the Holy Martyr Sebastian and the other martyrs who suffered with him and said: “Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). And then, turning to Sebastian, He said further: “Blessed is he who completes his struggle to the end!” And with these words He ascended into heaven.

Let us dwell, brethren, on these last words of the Lord and speak about what they teach us.

The words of the Savior, “Blessed is he who completes his struggle to the end,” undoubtedly teach us endurance to the end. And, of course, it must be so. “Everything is good that ends well,” says human wisdom. Otherwise, it is the opposite — and consider, for example, salvation and good works: what benefit will there be for you from good deeds, if today you perform them, and tomorrow you cast them into the dirt? What benefit will there be if today you begin to fast, to pray, to read the word of God, and tomorrow you abandon all this and go to houses of vice, to corrupt companions, to houses of drunkenness and debauchery?

Homily Two for the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross (St. Sergius Mechev)

Homily Two for the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross 

By Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev

The Holy Church, leading us into the most important part of the Holy Fast —into the days of the Veneration of the Holy Cross — and saying: “Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires,” reveals to us our most important task on earth: to deny ourselves, to renounce what is sinful within us, to take up our cross and follow the Savior.

Saying this and glorifying the Holy Cross, the Church comes to our aid so that we may not fall into despair, thinking that this commandment is beyond our strength, and during the 5th and 6th weeks of Great Lent it gives us two images, two examples — John of the Ladder and Mary of Egypt.

The Church says to us: “Behold, you have been walking in this great school — you have walked, beginning with the awareness of sin within yourselves and mourning it together with the first Adam; you have passed through the Correct Glorification (2nd week), which brings us out of that state and leads us to the doors of paradise through life in the mysteries; you have passed through the illumination of the Taboric light (3rd week), and have come to what is most essential in your present life — to the bearing of the cross, to co-crucifixion with the Lord upon it.” And now the Holy Church gives us a visible example of people who, being just as sinful and bearing the flesh and sin of Adam as we do, have ascended to the height of the first blessedness.

A Sobering Reality: The End of Sinners (Metropolitan Chrysostomos III of Mani)

By Metropolitan Chrysostomos III of Mani

Denial, apostasy from God, and the violation of the divine commandments demonstrably bring about painful ends to the lives of unrepentant sinful people.

Let us mention some cases:

In the first book of Genesis, we have the case of Cain, who killed his brother Abel. The text writes concerning his punishment: “And now you are cursed from the earth… groaning and trembling you shall be” (Gen. 4:11–12). God says: You will be cursed and as a stranger from this land after your criminal behavior toward your brother, and you will be continually in a state of groaning and fear, and as one pursued you will wander upon the earth.

Another case we find in the time of Noah, where people were “inclined toward evil all the days” (Gen. 6:5). They had literally acquired a carnal mindset. The text writes: “And the Lord God said: My Spirit shall not remain in these men forever, because they are flesh” (Gen. 6:3). The phrase “because they are flesh” is terrible and expresses precisely the wholly carnal mindset of those people. And the punishment came with the flood (Gen. 7:10–24).

Holy Martyrs Chrysanthos and Daria in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

 

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

These Saints lived when the emperor was Numerian (around the end of the 3rd century A.D.). Chrysanthos had a father who was a senator from Alexandria, named Polemon, while Daria was from Athens. Because Chrysanthos was initiated into divine things by some Christian, he was baptized and preached Christ with boldness, with the result that his own father imprisoned him. However, since he did not yield but remained firm and unmoved in his faith, his father sent and brought from Athens a beautiful and fair maiden, named Daria, in order to marry her to him, so that through his love for her he might move him away from the faith of the Christians. But Daria, instead of persuading Chrysanthos, was rather persuaded, and abandoning the impiety of idolatry, she accepted baptism. Indeed, they agreed that both of them would preserve their virginity.

When the fact of Daria’s conversion also became known, they were accused before the prefect Cellerinus, who handed them over for examination to the tribune Claudius the prefect. He then punished them with many kinds of tortures, but when he saw them overcoming them and not yielding, he himself changed and believed in Christ, together with his wife Hilaria and their two children, Jason and Maurus, as also happened with the soldiers under their command, who later also received the crown of martyrdom, on the nineteenth day of the month of March. And Claudius himself, after being tied to a stone and thrown into the sea, met his end, while his children and his soldiers were beheaded. Saints Chrysanthos and Daria were thrown into a pit, and after earth was thrown over them, they were buried alive, and thus they received the end of their martyrdom.

Prologue in Sermons: March 19

Against Grudges

March 19

(A Discourse of Anastasios, Abbot of Sinai, "On Not Having Anger")

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Many people, harboring resentment against their neighbor, pay little attention to the fact that resentment greatly harms the salvation of their soul. While bearing ill will against their brothers, they at the same time pray to God, go to church, receive the Holy Mysteries, give alms, and do other good works — and they think that this is as it should be: that resentment is one thing and good works another, and that one does not interfere with the other. But they are mistaken.

The Lord does not accept even the prayers of those who hold evil in their hearts; He rejects their almsgiving and does not forgive them, until they uproot the evil from their heart and are reconciled with their neighbor. Let us hear how Saint Anastasios, Abbot of Sinai, teaches about this in his discourse "On Not Having Anger."

Homily One for the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross (St. Sergius Mechev)

Homily One for the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross 

By Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev

"We venerate Your Cross, O Master, and we glorify Your holy Resurrection."

The Holy Church did not establish the feast of the Honorable and Life-giving Cross in order simply to remind us once again of Christ’s sufferings on the Cross, but, my dear ones, so that on this feast we might have the opportunity to enter more deeply into that greatest sacrifice which the Savior offered for our sins. And if, constantly remembering the Lord’s death on the Cross, today we glorify His Honorable and Life-giving Cross, then perhaps — at least in these holy moments, after we have with such love sung, according to the order of the Church, the Vespers and Matins of this great feast — perhaps, I say, these holy moments will help us, who do not wish to walk His holy path, to penetrate at least somewhat into the mystery of the suffering of Him Who offered the greatest sacrifice, Who was crucified for the sins of people, for their salvation.

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem: Life, Works and Thought (Fr. George Florovsky)

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem

 

By Fr. George Florovsky

 

I. Life.

There is much about Cyril's life which still remains unclear, and even during his lifetime he was regarded with doubt and suspicion. He was born about 315 in Jerusalem or its environs, and it not precisely known when he entered the clergy. By 348 he a deacon and in that year during Lent and on Holy Saturday delivered his famous Catechetical Lectures (divided into the introductory Procatechesis; eighteen Catecheses; and five Mystagogical Catecheses). Sometime between 348 and 351 he be me bishop of Jerusalem. Cyril's elevation was questioned by Jerome and Rufinus, and it has long been the subject of controversy because he was probably consecrated by Acacius of Caesarea and Patrophilus of Scythopolis; that is, by prelates whose orthodoxy was doubtful. In a letter addressed to Pope Damasus Cyril had to prove to the fathers at the council of Constantinople in 382 that his installation was legal and according to canon law (Theodoret, Historia ecclesiastica 5.9).

About 355 Cyril and Acacius quarreled over the precedence and jurisdiction of their respective metropolitanates. They probably disagreed on dogmatic matters as well. Cyril was deposed, and under pressure he withdrew first to Antioch and then to Tarsus. There he became a supporter of the homoiousians and sat with them at the council of Seleucia in 359. The council reinstated him as bishop of Jerusalem, but in the next year he was exiled again and returned only during the reign of Julian in 362. In 367 under Valens he was again forced to leave Jerusalem until 378, and nothing is known of his life during this period. In 381 Cyril participated at the Second Ecumenical Council. He died in 387. These few facts are all that is definitely known about his life.

The difference of opinion regarding Cyril is understandable in of the religious controversies which raged during his life . Cyril supported the anti-Nicene movement, first as a "Eusebian" and then as a "homoiousian," and this would be enough make his orthodoxy questionable. He sided with Meletius in Antioch, which explains why Jerome regarded him with such extreme suspicion. However, the testimony of the fathers at the Council of 382 dispels all doubt: "At various times he greatly struggled against Arianism." Theodoret later refers to him as a "defender of the apostolic faith."

 

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

Saint Cyril was born of pious parents who professed the right faith, with which he himself was also brought up during the reign of Constantine, (the son of Constantine the Great).

When the Bishop of Jerusalem departed from this life, this blessed man was deemed worthy of the episcopal grace of the city, zealously contending for the apostolic dogmas.

At that time, Akakios, the Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine — who had been condemned by the Synod of Sardica because he would not tolerate confessing that the Son of God is consubstantial with the Father, and who had not accepted his deposition by it but still remained like a tyrant upon his throne — deposed the blessed Cyril from his own throne of Jerusalem and expelled him from it, because he was known to the Arian-minded emperor Constantius and from there derived his authority.

Cyril then went to Tarsus and was with the admirable Silouan. And when indeed a Synod was convened at Seleucia precisely for this reason, Akakios rose up, departed, and hastened to Constantinople. By what he said to the emperor, he provoked him against Cyril, whom he even condemned to exile.

When, therefore, Constantius died and Julian succeeded him in the empire, he, wishing to gain the favor of all the bishops who had been exiled by Constantius, ordered that they return to their Churches. Thus, together with all the others, Saint Cyril also regained his throne. And after he had shepherded well and in a God-pleasing manner the flock entrusted to him by the Church, and left to it as a memorial the Catecheses that bears his name, a little time after his return he reposed in blessedness.

In physical form he was of moderate stature, pale, with abundant hair, with a small nose, with a square face, with straight and even eyebrows, with a beard white, thick, and divided into two, resembling in his whole demeanor a rustic and country man.

Prologue in Sermons: March 18

On Not Judging Monks

March 18

(A Word about Daniel the Monk, who was slandered with adultery.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

If the malice of the devil is especially poured out upon anyone, it is upon monks. To be convinced of this, it is enough only to listen to what is said about them. Indeed, in what are they not reproached? What filth is not poured out upon them? What immoral deeds are not attributed to them? Yes, when you listen nowadays to speeches about monks, in most cases you become convinced that here the matter is not of evil men alone, but chiefly of the devil. One man, without the devil, would not invent such blasphemies, such slanders against monks.

What is to be done here?

One of the fathers told about the monk Daniel the Egyptian:

“Once Daniel went out to the marketplace to sell his handiwork. Then a certain young man came up to him and, imploring Daniel, said to him: 'For God’s sake, good monk, come into my house and pray for my wife, that God may loose her barrenness.'