Homily Two on Andrew, the Apostle of Christ
By Archimandrite George Kapsanis,
By Archimandrite George Kapsanis,
Abbot of Gregoriou Monastery
On today's feast of the Apostle Andrew, we feel spiritual joy, because the Holy Apostle Andrew is the illuminator of the Greek Nation. For each Saint we celebrate, we feel spiritual joy, but we feel much more joy for those Saints who walked the soil of our homeland and enlightened our people and dyed this land porphyry with the fountains of their blood.
We are struck by the fact that the Holy Apostle Andrew from the beginning had followed the Lord with great desire, leaving his first teacher, Saint John the Forerunner. He obeyed and humbled himself before Christ and served Him together with the other Holy Apostles until the end and even shed his blood in a horrible death for the love of the Lord Christ.
Both the Holy Apostle Andrew and the Holy Apostle Philip, we heard this morning in the Gospel, wanted to lead their friends and relatives to Christ. Saint Andrew his brother Peter and Saint Philip his friend Nathanael. They wanted Christ to be the center and not themselves. That is why we who are monks should, with our prayer and our monastic asceticism, direct the people there who approach us. Christ should be the center and not put ourselves at the center.
Let us ask the Holy Apostle Andrew to help us to love Christ, as he loved Him, and if necessary, to shed our blood for His love, as he shed it.
May he also help our Nation and grant our people repentance, because, as we see, great apostasy and unbelief prevail in our days. Our Orthodox people have abandoned the faith of their Fathers and fallen into idolatry and walk after foreign gods and worship various Baals instead of the Triune God. And we know from history, perhaps we read somewhere in the Patristic writings, that God punishes an apostate people pedagogically and for the purpose of reconciliation, and while the Saints intervene and intercede to nullify the punishment, they receive an answer from God that sin and unbelief have become too much. May God grant repentance, before the pedagogical scourge of God comes.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
