January: Day 23: Teaching 2: Holy Hieromartyr Clement of Ancyra

January: Day 23: Teaching 2:
Holy Hieromartyr Clement of Ancyra
 
(Edifying Lessons From the Life of the Holy Martyr Clement: 
a. Mothers Should Take Care of the Upbringing of Children; 
b. Children Should Obey Their Parents; 
c. We All Should Be Faithful to Jesus Christ)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. On this day the Holy Church celebrates the memory of one of the great and holy men of the ancient Church of Christ — Clement, Bishop of Ancyra. He was one of those great martyrs with whom the first centuries of Christianity are so richly adorned. For our age of weak faith and moral laxity, it is extremely beneficial to recall the feats of the true followers of Christ, who sealed their faith with the crown of martyrdom. Let us therefore, brethren, honor the memory of the martyr Clement with reverent remembrance of him.

Saint Clement was the son of a pious Christian woman and was himself raised in the rules of the Christian faith. The upbringing of her son in the faith of Christ was the sole task of the mother of Saint Clement. Saint Dimitri of Rostov thus describes the deathbed speech of this Christian mother of the third century to her twelve-year-old son:

“My child, my child, orphaned from the cradle, having learned of orphanhood before knowing a father — yet even in orphanhood you are not an orphan, for you have a Father: Christ, who has enriched you with gifts! From me you were born according to the flesh, but spiritual life you received from the Heavenly Father. Oh, I beg you, my son, be His son; serve Him alone; place all your hope in Him alone, for truly in Him is all our salvation… He descended from heaven in order to raise us with Himself to heaven.”

Thus the God-loving Christian mother, feeling that death would soon impose silence upon her lips, hastened in her final moments to pour out before her beloved son all her love for him, all her care for his soul, all her instructions for his future earthly life, and all the hopes that were to transform their temporary separation into eternal blessed union.

After the death of his mother, the widow Euphrosyne, Clement was left a lonely orphan and was taken under the care of his mother’s friend, a wealthy and noble woman named Sophia, who had no children of her own. Sophia was very compassionate. During a famine in Galatia, in the city of Ancyra where she lived, some pagans, having no means to feed their children, abandoned them to fate. Clement, even after his mother’s death remaining under good influence and thus showing Christian compassion, brought these abandoned children into Sophia’s house. She fed and clothed them, and Clement helped her in everything. Later he taught these children and prepared them for baptism, so that Sophia’s house became, as it were, a refuge for the poor and an educational home.

Such activity, and in general Clement’s pure life, aroused universal respect for him. Barely having reached the age of twenty and having passed through the lower ranks of the priesthood, he was elected bishop. Now he became not only a teacher of children, but of an entire flock, and he labored successfully, spreading Christianity and strengthening all in Christian virtues.

But then came the cruel persecution of Diocletian. Clement, as a zealous shepherd of the Church, was among the first to be persecuted. The tortures inflicted upon him were relentless and cruel, but his patience overcame all. The tormentors grew weary of torturing him and were replaced one by another. Clement could no longer be recognized because of his wounds: his entire body, lacerated by iron to the point of exposing his inner organs, was one continuous wound. Yet when he was thrown into prison in such a condition, he received miraculous healing from the Lord.

After some time it was decided to send Clement to Rome, where he was again subjected to tortures and imprisonment. But the Lord did not abandon him there either, granting him miraculous healings. Meanwhile the people, struck by the feats of the martyr and by the glory of God’s miracles wrought upon him, turned in great numbers to the Christian God. Many of those who were converted accepted a martyr’s death for Christ.

From Rome Clement was sent to Nicomedia, where he was tortured together with his newly baptized disciple Agathangelos. Then he was again subjected to tortures in his native city of Ancyra; in Tarsus he languished for many years in prison.

Upon the accession of Emperor Maximian, the prison guards reminded the city authorities of the long-imprisoned Clement and Agathangelos: “What are we to do with these prisoners?” they asked. “For many years they have been tortured by various rulers, yet they are still alive and well. We think — are they perhaps immortal?”

By order of Maximian, Saint Clement was sent back to his homeland, the city of Ancyra. The local governor Lucius ordered that he be taken to prison and there tortured daily until death. For two months he was beaten every day on the face and head with a knotted club, receiving one hundred and fifty blows each day. The entire floor of the prison was flooded with blood. The tormentors themselves marveled at his unshakable endurance.

Saint Clement suffered at the hands of eleven tormentors during twenty-eight years of forced wanderings from city to city, from country to country. Finally, on January 23 (A.D. 312), Clement was beheaded.

II. Christian brethren! Not without reason have we lingered over the life of the martyr Clement commemorated today. However exalted his life may be (and his end incomparable), in it — as in the lives of the saints of God in general — great lessons are given also for our own time. It is instructive for contemporary Christian mothers, and likewise fathers; for our Christian children; and finally, for all Christians.

a) Christian mothers - and fathers as well! Learn from the mother of Saint Clement to make the Christian upbringing of your children the chief goal of your life. Remember that no earthly blessings can replace for them the blessings bestowed by Christianity. All pleasures and joys of this life are changeable, short-lived, and not free from a mixture of sorrow: “What earthly sweetness is not partaker of sorrow?” the Church sings. Therefore, from the very beginning of your children’s conscious life, strive to instill in them Christian concepts of God, lifting their gaze from the earthly to the heavenly, and to establish them in the rules of Christian life, by which they will more calmly and safely make their journey across the stormy waves of life’s sea. Unfortunately, for this very lesson the memory of modern parents proves too weak and feeble: concern for the earthly prosperity of their children absorbs all their attention.

b) Christian children! The Holy Martyr Clement teaches you by his own example to have perfect obedience to your parents and to sacredly fulfill their commands and counsels. Do you wish to be long-lived and happy, both in this life and in the life to come? Then be respectful, submissive, and obedient to all the good instructions and demands of your parents. To deep sorrow, this virtue too does not flourish in our time, often through the fault of the parents themselves, who by bad examples, or sometimes by excessive weakness and indulgence, undermine their children’s respect for them.

c) Finally, for all of us, Christian brethren, a great lesson is taught today in the life of the Holy Martyr Clement: the lesson of remaining firmly and unwaveringly in our Christian Orthodox faith — not merely in outward appearance, but in spirit. There are no bloody persecutions of Christians today, but there are other kinds of persecutions or trials for faith, no less dangerous and painful. The sinful inclinations of our corrupted flesh, the bad and seductive examples of those around us — are these not tortures of their own kind, which must be endured in order to preserve our faith and piety? And what of the primordial, ever-watchful enemy of our salvation — the devil? Sending into us his invisible fiery darts, he also acts visibly for our destruction, raising up, for example, false teachers with their corrupt yet seductive teachings, in order to shake our faith and lead us astray from the true path of salvation.

III. Therefore, “watch,” brethren; all of you “stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strengthened” by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom belong honor and glory together with His beginningless Father and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.