By Fr. George Dorbarakis
Venerable Stylianos was sanctified from his mother’s womb and became a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. He even gave all his property to the poor and followed a monastic life, surpassing everyone in arduous asceticism and austerity. Then he went to the desert, and after finding a cave as a place of residence, he received food from a divine angel and became a healer of various incurable diseases. When once the corruption of death, attacking newborns, made those who had given birth childless, the mothers invoked the name of the Saint and by making his honoroable icon they became capable of childbearing again. When he died, his body was deposited in the country of the Paphlagonians, performing many healings and miracles.
Venerable Stylianos is known primarily as the protector of children: infants, babies, newborns. “You were shown to be a fervent protector, especially of newborns and infants and babies.” This special gift of his towards children, as his synaxarion notes, was not given to him arbitrarily. God Himself revealed His will that children be healed through him: the invocation of his name became a healing for them and their mothers. “Christ has magnified you, with abundant grace, and with divine miracles, as a healer of newborns and infants, Father, He revealed you to the world.” What is the reason we should understand for this gift? Why is he considered the benefactor of children par excellence? The answer is probably related to what the Hymnographer of his Service, in this case the blessed elder Father Gerasimos Mikragiannanitis, frequently touches upon: that he was sanctified already from his mother's womb. "Dedicated to God from childhood;" "God sanctified you, Father, from the womb;" "You were sanctified from the womb of a mother of sorrows." And this is because God foresaw, within the framework of His omniscience, his positive attitude towards Him, so He graced him with rich gifts and signs. "God received you from the very beginnings, having foreseen the goodness of your life." His early calling by God even makes the Hymnographer compare him to giants of the past, who had also been called in a similar way: the Prophet Samuel, the Prophet Jeremiah, the Prophet and Forerunner of the Lord, John the Baptist (“as the godly Samue,” “as the renowned Jeremiah,” “as the great Baptist”).
However, limiting the gifts of the great Stylianos only to the world of children would be an untrue reduction of his miraculous presence in the Church. And this is because our Church projects him, beyond the protector of children, and more broadly as one of its pillars, as one of its supports: “an unshakeable pillar of the Church, Stylianos, you have been shown, blessed one,” according to his well-known Apolytikion. We need to explain this. Our Church certainly rests on the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is its foundation stone, which is why as the divine founder “the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it,” but Christ Himself wanted to be witnessed to in the world and for people to be strengthened through His believers. He was the one who said that His disciples would be His witnesses throughout the whole world, as well as that His name would be blasphemed or not because of them. From this point of view, the believer who consistently follows the Lord, like Saint Stylianos – “you have followed Christ with a perfect phronema” – also becomes a pillar of the Church, according to the will of Christ Himself: people can rest on him, seeing His presence as if in transparency.
What is the main characteristic of his sanctified life, according to the hymns of our Church? Saint Stylianos “worthily excelled in moral purity and in holy struggles to acquire the perfection of virtues like an angel." And this means that what characterized his life, so that he could live the love of God, was temperance. His followers repeatedly mention that he was “a living pillar of temperance,” “the true epitome of temperance.” It is no coincidence that he is portrayed “as a man without flesh,” “having completely abhorred the sensation of corruptible things,” living in a cave and being fed by an angel of God. However, when speaking of temperance, we should not understand it in a heretical sense: as abstinence from the senses out of hatred for them or as a denial of life in general. Temperance, according to our faith, is the removal from the charm that the world exerts on man through his senses, because it has oriented his mind and heart towards God in love and divine eros. Temperance is a general virtue that characterizes the entire life of man. “The believer always restrains himself.”
Which means: it is not possible for someone to turn to God if at the same time he does not make an effort to free himself from the magnet of the passions. “No one can serve two masters.” It is not possible, for example, for someone to be with God, to follow in the footsteps of Christ, without wanting to fast. Fasting, as an element of temperance, indicates where the believer has placed the center of gravity of his soul. Inability to fast – of course, without any medical reason – means that the soul is “tied” to the things of this world and not to Christ. Thus, temperance is understood primarily in a positive dimension. To use an image: it is like that spring which, when compressed, may seem to shrink, but in fact it stores enormous energy. And this energy can provide a great thrust for flight. Thus, temperance, when properly practiced in the Church, imparts that tremendous energy, enabling one to "take flight," that is, to follow in the footsteps of Christ. In reality, it is the “I deny myself” that the Lord said, in order for someone to become His follower and disciple. “Those who saw you, wise man, living a fleshless life in the flesh, governed by eros for the holy, were astonished by your ascetic conduct,” the Hymnographer will note about Saint Stylianos on the subject. Through the intercessions of the great Saint Stylianos, may the grace of God grant that we too may live with a little restraint, in a world that is indeed tormented by all kinds of crises, but is mostly immersed in various impassioned pleasures.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
