By Fr. George Dorbarakis
Saint Melania lived during the reign of Honorius and came from a noble and illustrious family. Because she loved the Lord with all her soul, she desired to live a virginal life. Her parents, however, pressured her and, against her will, led her into marriage, from which she had two children. Later, her parents and her children departed from this life, and the Saint left the Rome and went to live in a suburb. There she devoted herself to hospitality toward strangers who came, and to visiting prisoners and exiles.
After this, having sold her great property and gathered twelve myriads of gold, she distributed money to monasteries and churches, while she herself ate every two days, then every five days, so that in the end she ate only on Saturday and Sunday. She also had the gift of writing skillfully and intelligently. She lived in Africa for seven years, and after scattering her great wealth, she reached Alexandria. From there she went to Jerusalem, where she enclosed herself in a cell. She gathered around herself ninety virgins, for whom she continually provided all that was necessary for their life.
At a certain time she was suddenly seized by pain in her side and became gravely ill. She then summoned the Bishop of Eleutheropolis and received Holy Communion from him. And after she had gathered all the sisters, she uttered this saying as her final word: "As it seemed good to the Lord, so it came to pass." And immediately she surrendered her spirit to the Lord.
Within His inscrutable counsels, God willed finally to fulfill the original desire of Saint Melania: to be wholly dedicated to the Lord. And not only this: the Saint became an attractive center drawing to herself many young women who likewise desired complete dedication through a virginal life, so that they might ceaselessly glorify, like angels, His holy name. Saint Theophanes the Hymnographer points out this dimension of her work, but he also notes the prerequisite: the Saint was able to build a sacred monastery for virgins because she herself had first made herself a temple of the Most-High Trinity, a dwelling place of God.
“Having made your heart and body a temple of the Most-High Trinity, O admirable one, you built divine houses; in them you gathered ranks of virgins and choirs of monastics who with one accord hymn and glorify Christ unto the ages.”
And this is evident: no one can draw people to himself, and still more, keep young men or women with them, especially for the purpose of unceasing self-denial in the glorification of God, unless they themselves are filled with the grace of God, which above all acts as a magnet for people. (This truth also sheds light, among other things, on what is happening in our own days with Elder Ephraim of the Monastery of Vatopaidi. How could one man have gathered around himself 120 young people if he were not acting with authenticity and with the grace of God? As a human being he may certainly have shortcomings, but what is false is easily exposed by people’s turning away from it.)
Saint Theophanes especially insists on the spiritual struggle of Saint Melania. If the Saint attained such great spiritual height, if she made herself a worthy dwelling place of God Himself, it was because, first, she practiced the basic virtues of every person dedicated to God — prudence, courage, temperance, and divine justice — by which the passions of sin are transformed into virtuous dispositions:
“Shining with prudence, courage, temperance, and divine justice, you possessed the humility that lifts one up, raising you to the heavenly height; by this humility, O saint, you overthrew the proud serpent.”
And second, beyond the ascetic virtues, she shone above all in that which is the goal of these virtues: love for one’s neighbor. The Saint was a heart of mercy, so much so that she devoted her entire great fortune to her poor and needy fellow human beings. Perhaps for this reason God willed that she should possess earthly wealth: so that she might become an instrument of His generosity toward others.
“By mercy you obtained mercy; you scattered, you gave to the poor; therefore your righteousness endures forever, and the gain that comes from it does not grow old, O God-bearing Saint Melania.”
Indeed, there is no other path that leads more easily and smoothly into the Kingdom of God than these two: an ascetic life of self-control and love for one’s neighbor. The Hymnographer notes both, because the one is the prerequisite of the other: no one can live love rightly, or possess true mercy toward his neighbor, and thus become a dwelling place of God, who is love, unless through a life of temperance and ascetic struggle he removes its chief obstacle, egoism. The ascetic life of self-control levels the proud and sinful mindset and opens a person to the freedom of love for God and neighbor. And this already constitutes Paradise in this life. As Saint Theophanes says:
“Having completely scraped from your soul the shapeless images of the passions, O venerable one, you painted upon it with the colors of temperance dispassion and unfeigned love.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
