By Fr. George Dorbarakis
Saint Plato was from the country of the Galatians, from the city of Ancyra, brother of the Holy Martyr Antiochus. Because he confessed his faith in Christ, while still a young man, he was led before the ruler Agrippino. He was beaten by twelve soldiers and stretched out on a fiery bronze bed, while they were whipping him from above. He was then burned in the armpits and on the sides with fiery balls, while a strip of skin was removed from his back. Afterwards they scraped his flesh and sides so much that his appearance was altered. And then he met his end with the sword.
The Holy Hymnographer cannot fail to point out for Saint Plato what constitutes the treasure of every martyr: his living faith in Christ ("through your intimate active faith"), his upliftment with His love ("you are completely uplifted by the love of the Creator"), the constant contemplation and vision of His beauty and graces with the eyes of the soul ("contemplating with the eye of the soul, always gazing upon the comeliness of the Creator, and reflecting upon the ineffable beauty"), things that made him, on the one hand, clothed with the garment of prudence and the saving grace of God, transcending even the pains of martyrdom itself, and on the other hand, to be joyfully in the vastness of Paradise (“O glorious one, you measure the purest expanse of the eternal kingdom”). The poet even presents the Saint as a priest who offered himself as a sacrifice to Christ (“you have been shown as a divine priest, O Martyr, offering yourself as an unblemished sacrificial burnt offering”), and in a way as a spectator who observes himself, as if someone else were suffering (“as in another's body, most illustrious one, you endured suffering as if competing in the contest of another, becoming a spectator of the struggle in which you contended").
However, a troparion from the third ode of the Saint’s Canon has particular significance for today’s context. The Hymnographer notes: “Upon the wood, your most patiently enduring body was terribly tormented by tortures; yet the strength of the soul resisted, empowered by love for the Master and the eros for the Kingdom.” That is: Your most steadfast body, stretched out on the wood, suffered terrible and deep cuts and abrasions from the blows; but the strength of your soul, which was strengthened by the love of the Lord and the desire of the Kingdom of God, endured. What does the ecclesiastical poet point out? Saint Plato may have suffered terrible tortures in his body, but his soul, strengthened by the grace and love of God, remained upright. In the Saint, we see the Lord’s exhortation being applied, which says “not to fear him who can kill the body, but has no power over the soul.” In other words, man is not defeated as long as his soul remains strong. He is defeated when the soul is bent and therefore stops looking to God who strengthens it.
We have the impression that this word of the Hymnographer about Saint Plato should be particularly heeded, as we have said, in our time. Because we too, to a great extent, undergo many sufferings. The physical tortures and martyrdoms of the era of persecution may not yet exist, but the pressures of foreign powers against our homeland, the loss of our national sovereignty, which constantly haunt us, the degradation to the point of disappearance of social conquests, unemployment, poverty, the politics of terrorism, do not cease to constitute scratches and abrasions on the very flesh of our soul. But our mind must not be bent. We must not bow our heads. Our soul must be kept upright. What happened to Saint Plato: despite everything he suffered, he ultimately won. For he had the omnipotence of God with him. And for him the saying applies: “If God is with us, who can be against us?" But the Hymnographer reveals: Plato's soul was kept upright because he believed in Christ. Because his faith and his love for God were alive. And that is why he saw God's omnipotence activated in him, as we said. As long as our gaze is fixed on our Christ, we will ultimately have the "upper hand." The soul, we say again, is the one that either conquers or is conquered.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
