August: Day 12: Holy Martyrs Photios and Aniketos

 

August: Day 12:
Holy Martyrs Photios and Aniketos
 
(On the Saving Nature of the Thought of God's Omnipotence)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Martyrs Photios and Aniketos, celebrated today in church hymns and readings, together with many other Christians, suffered under the Emperor Diocletian in the 4th century in Nicomedia. Diocletian ordered that instruments of execution be placed in the city square in order to frighten Christians. But at that time Aniketos, a nobleman, came to the emperor and boldly confessed himself a Christian, calling the pagan idols creatures, reproaching the idolaters and saying: “O emperor, the executions and tortures you have prepared for Christians do not frighten us. We do not regard them as anything.” The enraged emperor ordered that Aniketos be tortured and then cast forth to be devoured by wild beasts. But the terrible lion released upon him became so meek that it fawned on him. Saint Aniketos thanked God and asked for the strength to overcome the tormentor. His prayer was heard. At that time there was suddenly a strong earthquake, so that the temple of the idol of Hercules and part of the city wall fell, and many pagans perished from this. Then the emperor gave orders to cut off the head of the Saint with a sword, but as soon as the executioner raised his sword, he himself fell unconscious. They began to break Saint Aniketos on the wheel and at the same time burn his body with fire, but the wheel stopped and the fire went out. They threw the Martyr into a cauldron of boiling tin, but the tin cooled, and the Martyr remained unharmed. Then one of Aniketos' relatives, Photios, seeing how the Lord was protecting His servant, approached Aniketos and greeted him; then, turning to the emperor, he said: "Idolater, your gods are nothing!" The emperor gave orders to cut off Photios' head, but when the executioner raised his sword to strike him, the sword struck the executioner himself to death. Finally, Diocletian ordered a large furnace to be made in order to burn all the Christians with their wives and children. The Christians, without waiting for the torturers to throw them into the furnace, went into it themselves, saying: "We are Christians!" The first to enter were Saints Aniketos and Photios, and after them came a multitude of Christians, and they all died with prayer on their lips. The bodies of Saints Aniketos and Photios were found to be completely unharmed.

II. These martyrs are remembered at the Mystery of Unction, and Saint Aniketos, in addition, in the Prayer at the Sanctification of Water.

The Holy Church does this without a doubt with the aim of invoking in its prayers the names of the Holy Martyrs, in whose lives the great omnipotence of God was manifested, thereby encouraging us with faith and hope to ask God for bodily and spiritual blessings.

Yes, one cannot help but receive great benefit for our moral life and especially for the success of prayer from thinking about the omnipotence of God, if a person looks attentively at the works of God , for wherever he turns his attention, God everywhere manifests Himself with omnipotence that is completely limitless, very beneficial and extremely edifying.

a) Look at our earth – what a spectacle of God's wonders! Count the diverse and varied species of trees, grasses, flowers, grains, and fruits! Can all human forces, even when united, produce even a single little tree, a single fruit, a single flower, a single blade of grass in the field, or a single leaf on a tree? Can all human wisdom comprehend how such a small grain of wheat, cast upon cultivated land, dissolves in the earth, grows, forms an ear, and yields countless new grains? Count all the breeds of animals on land, in water, and in the air! Count all the varieties of beasts, birds, fish, and insects! And who has bestowed upon them such diverse properties and such remarkable, intelligent natural impulses?

Look at the boundless seas. Who created them? Who placed a stronghold against the turbulent flood from them, and said: "Be only as far as this shore and no further?" Who pours out rivers and springs. Who makes up the rain clouds, brings them to us and moistens our fields with them? Who irrigates one strip of land with beneficial rain and deprives the plants in another place of this life-giving moisture, where precisely people have forgotten mercy, truth and justice, and where not by mercy, but by the wrath of God it is often necessary to awaken their petrified hearts from dangerous spiritual sleep?

Look at the starry sky. What an amazing thing! Who can count all the multitude of stars and measure their extraordinary size and distance from our earth? Who can understand all the laws of their harmonious movement in the universe and their mutual relations.

b) When we look at all this, and then turn our thoughts to the One Who created all this, preserves all this, controls all this: then none of us can remain without extreme admiration; then the thought of the omnipotence of God penetrates all our spiritual powers and says to each of us:

Fall to the ground before the almighty Creator of the universe and pray to Him, the Incomprehensible One, with the deepest reverence! and say with the Holy Prophet: "Who is so great a God as our God?" worshiping His infinite power and His greatness!

Feel your insignificance, and learn humility! What are you in comparison with the Almighty? How short-sighted and pitiful is your mind! Are you more than a grain of sand in the immeasurable universe! And how can you sometimes be proud of your earthly greatness, the splendor of your home, the beauty of your clothing and the insight of your mind?

In all your insignificance, feel your greatness, your dignity! He who created this sky, this sun, these stars, this earth with all its products, is your Father - a Father who loves you as tenderly as even the most tender mother cannot love her best child, and who cares for your salvation as carefully as if without you He could not be blessed. You are of divine descent, you were created for the highest deeds, for the purest joys! You must constantly and in every way approach God; God is the source of your blessedness! Do not think, say or do anything that can distance you from the Almighty.

Try with all your might to fulfill the will of the Almighty. Let the fulfillment of His will be for you the first, the most important and the most beloved deed! In nature, everything obeys the word of the Almighty; neither heaven nor earth deviates from His laws by a hair. Obey the word of your Creator with childlike humility and always do faithfully with joy everything that He commands you. Otherwise, tremble! Your God is the Almighty Lord, He, as Christ says, “can destroy both your soul and your body in hell” (Matt. 10:28).

O man who loves God! Go the way prescribed to you by the Lord, and fear nothing. The God whom you love is the Almighty God. Are you troubled by your various natural evil inclinations? Is the whole world against you? Have evil people armed themselves against you with all their wickedness, with all their satanic malice, with all their hellish hatred, with their insatiable greed for your blood and your destruction? Is all of hell rising up against you? – Do not be afraid! “If God is for us, who can be against us?” says the Apostle to you (Rom. 8:31).

If in your struggle you feel a lack of clarity of mind, vigor of spirit, or strength of body, then boldly pray to the Almighty, and be assured that you will receive from Him all that you need, for God, "who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also along with Him graciously give us all things," says the Holy Apostle (Romans 8:32). Do not be afraid!

Thus, the thought of God's omnipotence speaks to every person, and if one is attentive, they are filled with hope in God to the very depths of their soul.

III. Thus, the thought of God's omnipotence is extremely instructive and beneficial. Frequently renew this thought within yourselves: often envision that our God is an omnipotent God; that He can accomplish all that you ask for in fervent prayer, provided it is not contrary to your salvation and the glory of God. Understand that this omnipotent God is truly and most tenderly our Father, and therefore, He is never against us, but always for us, unless we place Him against us through our sins. 

 

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.