By Fr. George Dorbarakis
These Saints, longing for the ascetic life, abandoned everything of the world and dwelt in the desert. With them was also the blessed Nilus, who had formerly been prefect of Constantinople, the one who, with power of speech and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, composed excellent writings that guide one in ascetic life in Christ, and who described the way of life, as well as the captivity and the murder of these venerable fathers. For they were slain by the barbarians called the ‘Blemmyes,’ who ranged from Arabia to Egypt and along the desert of the Red Sea.
Many years earlier, during the reign of Diocletian and in the time of Peter, Archbishop of Alexandria, other monks were also slain who likewise lived in stillness on Mount Sinai. The Saracens who dwelt on Mount Sinai went out, when the leader of their tribe died, and killed many of the ascetics. The remaining ascetics fled to the fortress. During the night a flame of fire appeared to the Saracens, burning the entire Mountain, and the flame rose up to heaven. The Saracens saw this and were afraid; they threw down their weapons and fled.
Those who were slain first were thirty-eight, bearing various wounds on their bodies. Of these, two were found alive, Savvas and Isaiah. Of those who were killed, some had their heads completely severed, others had their skin hanging from one side, and others were cut in two. These were buried by the two monks, who also recounted to us what had happened to them.
The Holy Abbas whom we celebrate today are doubly crowned by God: both for their ascetic labors as monks and for their athletic contests as martyrs.
“From ascetic labors you passed into athletic contests; and adorned with double crowns, you fervently beseech the Savior that we may be saved.”
Our hymnography indeed always emphasizes, in such cases of venerable martyrs, that the relationship between ascetic conduct and martyrdom is one of cause and effect. The martyrdom of blood often constitutes the consistent culmination of the martyrdom of conscience, which a monk above all experiences through his ascetic struggle. This is also what Saint Joseph, the Hymnographer of the Canon of the Holy Abbas, points out:
“Venerable Fathers, meditating day and night on the law of the Lord, you were deemed worthy to become one with the Lord, the Tree of Life; and your fruit blossomed into crowns of contest.”
The correlation made by the Holy Hymnographer between the ascetic tears of the Holy Abbas and the outpouring of their martyric blood continues. He sees the holy ascetics as an extension of the Israelites, who, under the guidance of Moses, were able to escape the tyranny of Pharaoh in Egypt and drown his armies in the Red Sea. For them, the sea in this instance was their tears, in which they drowned the noetic Pharaoh, the devil; and then, through the shedding of their blood in martyrdom, they finally destroyed him and consigned him to oblivion:
“In the sea of tears you first drowned the noetic Pharaoh, O wise ones; and afterwards, in the channels of your blood, you destroyed him and sent him to utter disappearance.”
And it is a fact that Saint Joseph emphasizes a reality of broader significance: it is not possible for the devil, the enemy of the salvation of the human race, to be defeated by the believer unless that person — whether monk or living in the world — walks in repentance, that is, with awareness of his sins and with tears that wash them away. When the Lord Himself, among other things, blessed those who mourn for their sins and for the sins of the world, there is no possibility of anyone diminishing this truth: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,” He said in His Sermon on the Mount.
The blessing of those who mourn is in reality, according to Saint Joseph, a blessing of those who by the grace of God have seen the depth of reality: that absolute priority belongs to the eternal and abiding things, and not to the trivial things of the earthly, unstable, and fluid matters of this world. Only the one, in other words, who has oriented his existence toward the eternal God can transcend whatever constitutes the deceptive allure of the present world and weep for his sins. The Apostle Paul expressed this clearly: “We do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” The Holy Hymnographer moves along the same lines, referring to today’s Saints:
“Looking toward the eternity of the abiding things, O wise ones, you rejected the base and lowly character of the unstable and fluid earthly things; therefore you are blessed, O venerable martyrs.”
This godly mourning, due to the transfer of their existence to the eternal realities, made the Venerable Martyr Abbas live as monks with a contrite mind. And this contrition revealed their humility and consequently their true worship of God: “A broken and contrite heart God will not despise.” Saint Joseph the Hymnographer employs this contrition in order to describe in a single stroke the entire life of the Saints:
“Having worshiped God with a contrite mind, you shattered the pride of the enemy, O blessed ones, and were yourselves broken in body and slain by his sword.”
Thus the Holy Abbas were revealed quite literally as Paradise, giving a practical answer to all those who irrationally seek earthly paradises. And what do they proclaim? Paradise is the relationship with Christ. He is the true Paradise, and whoever is united with Him likewise becomes Paradise.
“You were shown to be a Paradise of delight, having in your midst the Tree of Life, the Lord, who accepted your blood as a sacrifice.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.