By Fr. George Dorbarakis
Saint Anysia lived during the reign of Maximian. She was from Thessaloniki, and her parents, who were devout and faithful to Christ, possessed considerable wealth. When they departed this life, the Saint lived alone, pleasing God through her way of life and her deeds. Once, as she was going to church according to her custom, she was stopped by a pagan soldier, who forcibly dragged her toward the altars of the idols and urged her to offer sacrifices to demons. But because Anysia confessed her faith in Christ, the soldier became enraged (for the Holy Martyr blew upon him and spat in his face), and with his sword he pierced her side. Thus the Venerable Martyr received her blessed end.
The city of Thessaloniki boasts not only of its patron saint, the Great Martyr and Myrrhgusher Saint Demetrios, not only of its second patron, the great Father and Ecumenical Teacher Saint Gregory Palamas, but also of the Holy Martyr Anysia, whose venerable relic rests in the Church of Saint Demetrios. According to Saint Theophanes the Hymnographer, Thessaloniki boasts of the Saint’s swaddling clothes and her struggles, while the triumphant Church possesses her spirit and rejoices in it — meaning that Saint Anysia is a source of joy for the entire Church, both on earth and in heaven.
“The city of the Thessaloniki, O virgin martyr, boasts in your swaddling clothes and your contests; and the Church of the firstborn rejoices, possessing your divine spirit among the righteous.”
The reason, of course, for this universal joy of the Church is the fact that through her martyrdom the Saint revealed her “heartfelt eros” for Christ — so much so that the inspiration of the Holy Hymnographer places her in the position of the woman who approached Christ shortly before His Passion and expressed her love for Him by pouring myrrh upon His feet and wiping them with the locks of her hair. While the event of the New Testament inspired the Holy Hymnographer Kassiani (with her well-known and inspired hymn of the Matins of Great Wednesday, chanted on the evening of Great Tuesday), it likewise becomes a model for a similar inspiration of Saint Theophanes, but now in relation to Saint Anysia:
“Revealing your heartfelt eros with tears, O glorious one, in compunction you drenched the ground, and with your hair you wiped the feet of Christ.”
The objection here is, of course, obvious. In the first case we have a historical event: the woman who came to Christ and poured out her heart before Him. But what about Saint Anysia? How did she embrace and wipe the feet of Christ? The Hymnographer does not leave us in suspense. Saint Anysia was able to endure her martyrdom and found the courage to confess her faith, even at the cost of her life, because her love for Christ enabled her, in a noetic manner, to have Him present before her and to touch with her mind the traces of His footsteps:
“Understanding Him and beholding Him as present, Him whom you desired, and touching the traces of His feet with your mind, you illumined your soul with most divine visions.”
In other words, at the hour of her martyrdom, by the grace of Christ, the Saint was in a state of divine vision. Christ granted her the strength to see Him and to embrace Him, just as He had granted such grace to other martyrs as well, including Saint Hermione. The vision of Christ at the time of martyrdom or in preparation for it is something frequently attested in the synaxaria of the martyrs of our faith.
And, of course, the Holy Hymnographer “makes use,” as all hymnographers do, of the manner in which she breathed her last: the piercing of her side by the sword. Immediately the mind of Saint Theophanes turns to the pierced side of the Lord, and thus he associates the martyrdom of the Saint with His Passion:
“Following Your life-bearing footsteps, she is wounded in the side by a spear.”
That is to say, the Hymnographer seems to tell us that whoever loves Christ and desires to follow Him closely — “following in His footsteps,” as the Apostle Peter says — receives the grace also to suffer for Christ in the same manner that He suffered. The sufferings of Christ become the sufferings of the faithful, a sign of the overflowing grace of Christ within them. Following Christ and martyrdom for His sake ultimately become synonymous realities.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
