By Fr. George Dorbarakis
The Holy Martyrs Hermylos and Stratonikos lived in the time of the emperor Licinius. Saint Hermylos held the ecclesiastical rank of Deacon. When he was brought before the emperor and confessed the name of Christ, he was first struck on the jaws with bronze instruments, then torn apart creating many wounds, while he also urged his friend Stratonikos to confess the faith. When Stratonikos turned and saw Saint Hermylos being struck on the jaws and having his belly and heart laid open by rods and swords, he wept. Since it immediately became evident that he shared in Saint Hermylos’ suffering by his own free choice, he confessed that he too was a Christian. Whereupon he was also beaten and cast together with Saint Hermylos into the river Istros, where both received a blessed end.
Saint Joseph the Hymnographer dwells on the manner of the Saints’ martyrdom — their drowning in the river Istros, the Danube. He considers this very drowning to have been their strongest weapon, by which, through the grace of God, they themselves drowned the devil and thus entered triumphantly into the Kingdom of Heaven.
“In the waters you both together, O wise ones, received a blessed end, and in them you submerged Belial by the grace of our God, O Martyrs; wherefore, having received the crown as victors, you rejoice together with the choirs of angels.”
This victory over the devil through their immersion in the waters, according to the Hymnographer, points to the Lord Himself: He too, in the streams of the Jordan River, submerged our human sin and impiety. In a corresponding way, the Saints by their martyrdom dried up the rivers of atheism:
“Washed by the streams of Christ, who in the riverbeds submerged our impiety, you, O martyrs, dried up the rivers of atheism.”
Their immersion in the waters of the river leads the Holy Hymnographer to see them “apophatically,” with the eyes of faith. Before the Saints were cast into the river, they themselves had already been “immersed” — filled with the life-giving streams of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Thus, immersed in the waters of God’s grace, they were cast into the riverbeds. The result was twofold: on the one hand, as we have said, they drowned the devil, the patron of wickedness; on the other hand, they themselves became a new river, offering as a fountain the healings of God’s grace.
“Filled with life-giving streams, you were cast into river currents; and receiving your end in them, you drowned the patron of wickedness, O all-praised ones; and now you cause fountains of healings to gush forth for us.”
Saint Joseph also recalls from the Old Testament the Prophet who was thrown into the sea and swallowed by the sea monster — the Prophet Jonah. The Prophet was in the waters; so too are today’s Saints. And what is the connection here? Just as God, through the sea monster, saved the Prophet, so now He saved the Saints with respect to their sanctified relics. One marvels at the ease with which the Hymnographer of our Church moves within the broader realm of God’s revelation. The Spirit of God inspires him to make connections that most of us are unable to make.
“He who in a wondrous manner preserved the Prophet, beset by danger, from the belly of the sea monster, likewise preserves your victorious relics from the river waters after your end, O prize-bearing ones.”
It is as though the Holy Hymnographer is telling us: just as the Prophet — who was a type of the Lord’s Resurrection — after his deliverance preached repentance to the Ninevites, so the Saints also preach repentance to us, but through their sanctified relics. For what are the relics of the Saints, bearing within them the grace of God, if not a continual reminder both of the transcendence of death and of repentance unto the salvation of mankind?
Beyond other edifying dimensions that the Holy Hymnographer draws from the lives of the Saints, he also reminds us of this: the Holy Christ-martyrs Hermylos and Stratonikos, through their entire life in Christ, demolished the idols of delusion — idolatry. Yet this demolition was accomplished in a positive way, that is, by revealing through their very existence the truth of God, the knowledge of the true God, and thus by themselves becoming temples of the living God. And this is the most important thing the Saints reveal to us: when we live in the way God desires, when we become a manifestation of His holy will, then every darkness of delusion disappears, and the true temples are built in the world — the very beings of Christians themselves.
“You demolished the idols of delusion, O unerring Christ-martyrs; and you raised yourselves up as revered temples and pillars of the knowledge of God.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
