March: Day 17: Teaching 2: Venerable Alexios the Man of God

March: Day 17: Teaching 2:
Venerable Alexios the Man of God
 
(Lessons From His Life: 
a. Contempt for Earthly Goods, and 
b. Love For Reading the Gospel)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. You, without doubt, listeners, know how the Venerable Alexios the Man of God lived and was saved. Being the son of rich and noble parents, in the flower of his youth he renounced all worldly joys and pleasures, even the most innocent and sinless; he voluntarily made himself poor, drank, ate, clothed himself as a beggar, lived and associated with beggars, and thus lived for more than 30 years, enduring from all people every kind of insult and offense, mockery and derision, and finding consolation only in the reading of the Holy Gospel.

II. To few people is granted by God the grace of such a life as his; and such people as he, one may say, appear only once in centuries, for our instruction. What can we learn from Alexios the Man of God?

Prologue in Sermons: March 17

 

True Friendship

March 17

(From a Discourse of the Elders)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Toward certain people we sometimes feel a special love and enter into a bond of friendship with them. Friendship does not violate the commandment of love toward all without exception. The Lord Jesus Himself loved John, Peter, James, and Lazarus with a special love; and Saint Peter likewise especially loved Saint Mark; while the Apostle Paul loved Saints Timothy and Thekla. Gregory of Nazianzus was a friend of Saint Basil the Great. We need only to be careful in choosing friends and to know how to distinguish true friendship from harmful friendship. The bond of true friendship must consist in mutual encouragement toward progress in faith, piety, love for God, and for one’s neighbor. Christian friends in this case should be like travelers who, walking together along a difficult and slippery road, usually hold on to one another for mutual help and greater safety. A true friend in such a case is an irreplaceable treasure, which all the treasures of the world are not worth.

The Hermitage of Saint Christodoulos in Evia

Limni is a town and a community in the northwestern part of the island of Evia (Euboea), Greece. At the end of the beach of Limni is the Hermitage of Saint Christodoulos. It is the location where Saint Christodoulos lived the last years of his ascetic life at the end of the 11th century.

Saint Christodoulos was the founder of the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on Patmos. After pirate raids on Patmos, he fled to Limni in the year 1092, together with Patmos monks and residents. He resided in this cave of Limni until the end of his life in 1093. After his death, monks from Patmos took his relics and transferred them to the island of the Apocalypse.

 

The stay of Saint Christodoulos in Evia was, according to scholarly research, of short duration. There is information that a pious and wealthy resident of Euripos offered his luxurious residence to the Saint, who transformed it into a monastery, although the concerns of the Saint—due to the large property of the monastery on Patmos—required his presence not in the desert but near the world. Moreover, in Evia there has always existed a tradition according to which Saint Christodoulos remained practicing asceticism in a cave at the western edge of the town of Limni (Elymnion).

 

During his stay in Euripos, the Saint composed his “Testament” and his “Codicil” (March 1093). In order for this Testament to have legal force, it was signed by seven officials of the episcopal authority and of the city of Euripos (Halkidos), namely: Leon, presbyter and sakellarios of the city of Euripos; John, presbyter and notary of the see of Euripos; Michael … of the see of Euripos; Basil, the humble deacon … and notary of Euripos; and others.

 

More specifically, Metropolitan John of Rhodes, in his work “Life and Conduct of Our Venerable Father Christodoulos,” recounts the stay and repose of Saint Christodoulos in Euripos, which occurred in the year 1093 A.D., as well as the translation of his holy relic and its transfer to Patmos, writing the following:

 

“And the Venerable One arrives there together with the brotherhood, to that place where the water of the sea flows outward and then recedes again, forming a certain narrow strait of the sea, which the ancients called the Euripos strait.

There, having become the object of admiration for all and having been deemed worthy of the proper honor—as though he were an Angel in a mortal body—he exhorted his flock not to grow weary at the frequent relocations, nor to resist foolishly the will of God, who orders all things in wisdom.

But one of the monks, because he could not endure the hardships nor the harshness and toil of virtue, like Judas among the Twelve he departed from the company of the brethren and replaced that spiritual gathering with a garden, which he rented. And just as the devil entered into Judas and drove him to betrayal, in the same way an evil demon tormented the monk who had separated himself from the brotherhood, and the illness of the faint-hearted brother was reported to the Father.

He, being gentle and without malice, giving way to anger, took the holy Gospel and came in the evening to the one who was raging and beside himself. He read the words of the Holy Spirit for the sick, and immediately the condition of the sufferer improved. The sick man no longer desired to occupy himself with planting trees and watering gardens, but became eager instead for cultivating the soil of virtue, thus returning once again to the flock from which he had wrongly been cut off.

After a short time had passed, he prophesied to those who followed him that he would depart to the Lord; that the Hagarenes would not dwell to the end on the islands; and that his close friend would not neglect them, but that as soon as the turbulence of the sea ceased, they would return again to the spiritual fold.

He therefore asked them to take his dead body with them from that foreign land and to place it in the church for which he had labored greatly.

Having foretold these things to those with whom he associated, and having sanctified them all with farewell words, he delivered his spirit to God on the 16th of March.

At the same time, with the fulfillment of the prophecy and the disappearance of the pirates from the sea by the power of the ruler, his good disciples remembered the prophecy of the virtuous shepherd and prepared to set sail.

But when those who inhabited that land heard that they would be deprived of that precious body, they gathered from the surrounding areas and openly declared that under no circumstances would they allow it. For they thought it foolish and utterly senseless to permit others to carry it away wherever they wished, since he had been for them a savior, a physician, and a healer of every illness. For this reason, they guarded the body strictly.

But the prophecy of the blessed one was not to be proven false. Therefore, when night had advanced, escaping the attention of the guards, they lifted the body onto their shoulders, placed it on a ship, and, having obtained calm seas, arrived at the island. There they disembarked the sacred relic with a solemn procession, praising God and filling the air with fragrance.

And now, whole and incorrupt, the relic lies in the church of the Apostle, and it pours forth streams of miracles; and those who touch it with faith perceive a fragrance of myrrh, and by the touch alone are sanctified and delivered from every bodily affliction.”

 

 

Venerable Christodoulos of Patmos in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

“Great indeed is Anthony, the beginning of the Fathers, and divine Christodoulos is their divinely-inspired end.” (Verses of the Synaxarion)

The wise Hymnographer of the Service of Venerable Christodoulos, the teacher Iakovos Anastasios of Patmos, is distinguished for his deep knowledge of the spiritual life of the Church. This means that he is able with ease to discern the signs of the saintliness of Venerable Christodoulos and to present them to us in the best possible way. The saying of the Apostle Paul applies to him, which states that “the spiritual man who has the Spirit of God can examine all things, yet he himself cannot be judged by anyone who does not have that Spirit.”

Nevertheless, feeling his own smallness, from the very beginning he invokes — as is usually done by hymnographers — the illumination and grace of God in order to hymn the Venerable one correctly and not distort his image (Ode 1).

Prologue in Sermons: March 16

 

One Should Not Be Troubled When We See That Sinners Sometimes Prosper In This Life While The Righteous Suffer

March 16

(From the Words of Saint John Chrysostom: “For whom the Lord loves, He chastens.”)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

The sorrowful life of the righteous on earth, and the apparently happy life of sinners, often lead us to reflection: why do the former suffer, and why do the latter prosper? Does the Lord really not see the sufferings and virtues of the former? Does He not know of the sins of the latter, and does He have no punishment prepared for them? How, after this, are we to understand the justice of God?

Here is how Saint Chrysostom answers this:

“If,” he says, “you see a sinner healthy and rich, do not be astonished at this; for he has done some small good deed, and therefore he receives his reward for it here. But there, like the rich man in the Gospel, he will hear that voice: ‘Child, remember that you received your good things in your lifetime.’

And when you see a righteous man enduring misfortunes and sorrows, rejoice for him; for through these he is being purified here from sins, and there he will go to great joy.

Homily for the Third Sunday of the Holy and Great Fast - The Sunday of the Veneration of the Holy Cross (St. Cleopa of Sihastria)

 

Homily for the Third Sunday of the Holy and Great Fast 

The Sunday of the Veneration of the Holy Cross 

On the Value of the Soul

By St. Cleopa of Sihastria

“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet lose his own soul?
Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36-37)

Beloved faithful,

In today’s sermon on the Holy Gospel, we will speak, as much as the Most Good God enlightens us, about the honor of man and the value of the human soul. Behold what the Savior says: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36). Then He says: “Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:37). Hear, my brothers, how great and immeasurable the value of our soul is, and to what honor and esteem our Savior Jesus Christ Himself has raised it. And if this is so, who could ever resist this truth?

Holy Scripture often calls man a “soul.” Behold what it says in Genesis: “The souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, that came out of his loins, were sixty-six souls, besides the women of his sons” (Genesis 46:26). See, Holy Scripture calls man a “soul.” And why does Scripture call man a “soul”? The answer is this: because of the great value the soul has in comparison with the body. But can one call the soul “man”? No. A human can be called a soul, but the soul alone cannot be called man. For the soul has an invisible nature, and the body has a visible and tangible nature, and only when these unite in a single hypostasis is it called man. But the soul is not called man without the body, nor is the body called man without the soul. For man is a hypostasis united from two natures, soul and body.

Homily for the Third Sunday Evening of Great Lent (St. Sergius Mechev)

Homily for the Third Sunday Evening of Great Lent 

By Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev

(Delivered in 1929)

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!

For one who repents, my dear ones, it is not fitting to judge or to engage in idle talk. One who repents should, as much as possible, be silent, in order to work out his salvation in repentance. But we are constantly speaking idly, constantly judging and re-judging others, constantly doing evil with our tongue. By this we bring harm both to ourselves, who speak evil, and to those who listen to our evil speaking. And the Holy Fathers point out that our tongue is a small member, yet it does great evil, setting on fire the course of life (cf. Jas. 3:6). How easily it arms one person against another. And our carelessness about our speech becomes an instrument of murder. Saint Anthony the Great says plainly: “He who receives a slanderer or a backbiter becomes a partner with a murderer.” You see, according to the words of the Holy Father, a slanderer and a murderer are one and the same. “Flee from the slanderer, whoever he may be, and do not be ashamed to flee from him.” “It is safer to live with a snake than with a slanderer,” say the Holy Fathers. And John of the Ladder forbids us to show respect to such people. “Never show respect to the one who speaks maliciously to you about his neighbor. By this you will heal both yourself and your neighbor.”

Homily on the Third Sunday of Great Lent (Righteous Alexei Mechev)

Homily on the Third Sunday of Great Lent*

By Righteous Alexei Mechev

Today the sufferings of the Savior on the Cross are remembered, and the Gospel read today points to the Cross as the instrument of our salvation. Look, dear ones, what a sorrowful and difficult path Christ our Savior had to pass while He, leaving the judgment hall of Pilate, went to the hill of Golgotha. Long is this path: first He goes through the valley, and then He ascends over rocky ground up the mountain, and along this sorrowful road Christ must carry upon Himself His enormous Cross. What pain this Cross caused to the body of Jesus, covered with blood and wounds as a result of His scourging in the courtyard of Pilate!

But look with what joy He carries His Cross, with what patience. They strike Him, they laugh, they mock Him, but He is silent and opens His mouth only for the consolation of others: He consoles His grieving Mother, He consoles the women of Jerusalem who accompany Him with weeping to Golgotha.

Holy Martyr Agapios and His Seven Companions in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

These Saints lived during the time of Diocletian. And Agapios was from the city of Gaza, Timolaos from Pontus, the two Dionysioses from Tripolis of Phoenicia, Romulus was a subdeacon of the Church in Diospolis, and Plesios and the two Alexanders were from Egypt. All of them, after first binding their souls with longing for Christ, then put their hands into chains and came before Urbanus, the governor of Caesarea, confessing that they were Christians. Then he, since he could neither bend them by threats nor by flatteries, nor indeed remove them from the faith of Christ, ordered their heads to be cut off with the sword.

It is logical: Saint Joseph the Hymnographer takes as the basis of his divine inspiration for the seven martyrs — the first of whom is Saint Agapios — precisely the name of Agapios. In almost every troparion of the Service which he composed for them, he emphasizes that the motive of their martyrdom and of their struggle in general was their fervent love for the Lord. For example:

“You have been wounded by love, of the Master of all, O most admirable Martyr Agapios, and you desired beforehand to die for Him” (Ode 1).

“Having greatly desired Christ, O Agapios, you courageously imitated His sufferings” (Ode 4).