By Fr. George Dorbarakis
Saint Amphilochios, having passed through every ecclesiastical rank from a young age, and shining with asceticism and divine knowledge, by the vote of the people he was appointed Bishop of the city of Iconium, in the times of the emperors Valentinian and Valens, while his life was prolonged until the reign of Theodosius the Great and his sons. He, because he became a teacher of the Orthodox faith and strongly opposed the heretical error of Arius, endured many persecutions and sorrows from the impious, becoming a co-struggler with the blessed Fathers against the blasphemy of Eunomius. Amphilochios was one of the one hundred and fifty Fathers of the Second Ecumenical Synod (381 AD) and fought hard against the pneumatomachos Macedonius and the disciples of Arius. After the reign of Theodosius the Great had prevailed and he had handed over all the power of the West to Valentinian the Younger, and after Theodosius had returned victorious after having destroyed the tyrant Maximus, the great Amphilochios came to him and urged him to drive out the Arians and give the churches back to the Orthodox. But since the emperor did nothing, the wonderful man devised the following scheme: He went to the palace and greeted Emperor Theodosius, but did not greet his son Arcadius, disdaining him. The Emperor, resentful of this incident, considered the dishonor that Amphilochios had shown to his son to be an insult directed at himself. He then very wisely revealed the purpose of his action and said: "Do you see, O Emperor, how you do not suffer the dishonor of your child, but are resentful? Believe, then, that in a similar way God also abhors and hates those who blaspheme the Son of God." Then the Emperor understood and wrote laws that forbade the associations of heretics. This fearless man, after shepherding the flock of Christ for many years and composing Orthodox discourses, reached a deep old age and rested in peace.
The overwhelming majority of hymns for Saint Amphilochios, written by the Hymnographer of the Church, Saint Theophanes, have as their main content the height of Amphilochios' theology, a theology with which, on the one hand, he extolled the Orthodox faith, especially regarding the Holy Trinity (e.g. "You have proclaimed the Trinity through most pure teachings;" "Your theological and divinely-advocating tongue declared to all the single-reigned dominion of the primordial Trinity and taught them to worship one Divinity in three Hypostases."), on the other hand, he defeated the impious heretics, especially the Arians and the Pneumatomachoi (e.g. "the divine and luminous lamps of your dogmas have extinguished the impious phalanx of heretics, Amphilochios"), thus becoming “the axe of heresies.” For this reason, the Holy Hymnographer considers this ecclesiastical Father as “the groomsman of the Church of Christ, which he adorned with the beauty of his words and the splendor of his orthodoxy,” in whose words anyone who indulges acquires strength and spiritual energy (“those who are energized by his teaching and theologies”). The poet Theophanes even goes so far as to characterize the Holy Father, without naming him by his specific name, as a new Solomon, given that “the incarnate Wisdom, Christ, gave him great wealth and glory, precisely because he theologized in an orthodox manner and subdued the arrogance of heresies.”
The emphasis on Saint Amphilochios as a “sacred instrument of theology” by the ecclesiastical poet is not arbitrary. We should note that, as eminent Patrologists observe, the Second Ecumenical Synod itself (381 AD) recognized his authority and his broader role in the Church, while on the other hand, with the theology he practiced, we find ourselves in the climate and atmosphere of the theology of the great Cappadocian Fathers, namely Basil the Great, Saint Gregory the Theologian, Saint Gregory of Nyssa. It is extremely important and moving to learn that Saint Amphilochios was the spiritual child of Basil the Great, first cousin of Gregory the Theologian, friend of Gregory of Nyssa. And although he was not the same wave of theology as those three greatest Fathers, he nevertheless acted as a gentle whisper, as a calm force, which came to establish, where he found himself as a shepherd, the Orthodox faith and life. One could say that precisely because of his good will, God gave him the grace of the complete assimilation of Orthodox theology, and even of its charismatic transformation into poetic verses. For example, Saint Amphilochios wrote an extensive advisory poem, “Iambics to Seleucus”, which he addressed to the young Seleucus for his catechesis and guidance, in which he incorporated many elements from the work of his spiritual father Basil the Great “Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature”.
However, our ecclesiastical poet Theophanes, as a good connoisseur of the whole spiritual life and theology, does not stop at a simple description of the theological prowess of Saint Amphilochios and its impact on the world. He also attempts a “penetration” into the sanctuaries of his soul, in order to reveal how he came to become a “tongue of theology” and an “instrument of theology”. And what he uncovers is indeed very constructive. So what does Theophanes tell us about this? The prerequisite of Amphilochios’ theology was the experience of spiritual life. He built himself, he notes, with the fear of God, thus cleansing his soul from the defilements of sin, and being illumined by God. In other words, a process that no one who wants to be a theologian can bypass. Those who attempted to theologize without these prerequisites of purification of the soul simply “technologized,” to recall once again the expression of the Cappadocian Fathers. “Haunted by fear of the divine, O God-possessed, and having kept your soul pure from defilements, you have been revealed as the most sacred instrument of theology, O Venerable." And elsewhere: “You consecrated yourself entirely to God and became a loud-voiced preacher of the gospel, Father, all-blessed Amphilochios.”
May the abundant grace offered by Saint Amphilochios – a Father with great sensitivity to the edification of the faithful – come to us as well, bringing us the solution to our sins. “Grant me abundant grace… seeking the remission of sins, as a most faithful priest, Venerable Father Amphilochios.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
