By Fr. George Dorbarakis
Saint Tryphon was from the village of Lampsacus in the province of Phrygia, during the reign of Gordian, in the two hundred and ninety-fifth year since the reign of Augustus. While he was still very young and engaged in work suitable to his age (for he tended geese, as they say), he was filled with the Holy Spirit and healed every disease and also cast out demons. He even healed the daughter of the emperor, who was possessed by a demon. In this case it is said that the Saint pointed out the demon to those present in the form of a black dog, proclaiming its evil deeds, and that by this miracle he led many to faith in Christ.
In the time of the emperor Decius, who succeeded Philip, the ruler after Gordian, he was accused before Aquilinus, the prefect of the East, of telling people not to worship demons. He was brought before him to Nicaea, and because he confessed the name of Christ, he was first beaten with swords. Then they bound him to horses and dragged him, in the winter season, through rough and inaccessible places. After this, they dragged him naked over iron spikes. Moreover, they flogged him and burned his sides with flaming torches; and finally they decided to kill him with the sword, which they did not manage to do, for he had already surrendered his spirit to God.
Saint Tryphon is not known for his studies, his education, or his theological training; nor is he presented by our Church as a hierarch who helped it overcome some crisis caused by heresy, or for any remarkable social work that he accomplished. He is honored by the Church because, in the complete simplicity of his life, he understood one thing, which he tried to preserve until the end, even at the sacrifice of his life: namely, that his purpose in this world into which he was placed was to become a Saint — to resemble Christ by living with chastity and self-control. That is, whatever he had heard from the word of God, whatever God Himself revealed to him as a way of life, he made into his lived experience. And this is what Saint Theophanes, the Hymnographer of his Canon, also notes: “Having been resounded within by the divine words, you fulfilled them in practice, O all-lauded one, loving holiness and embracing self-control.”
Love for holiness constitutes the purpose of every human life, especially of the one who has the strength for it — the Christian. God’s commandment is clear: “Be holy, for I am holy,” that we should become holy, because God Himself is holy. And this means that holiness as the goal of life is not an eccentricity of some strange person, perhaps a “quirk.” It is the vision toward which every Christian daily and unceasingly tends — indeed, must tend. The theological foundation for this is the creation of man “according to the image and likeness of God.” We were created by God to image Him, with the aim of becoming as much like Him as possible within the limits of our human nature. Thus, the very “physiology” of the human being is to become — that is, to struggle continually to become — holy.
Saint Tryphon, even as a simple gooseherder — he is regarded as a protector of farmers and of animals as well — without formal education, without studies or exposure to sermons, but with only the purity of his intentions, understood this and heard it in the depths of his heart. And because he took seriously what he understood, he activated it in his life. The phrase “embracing self-control,” as the Hymnographer says, reveals precisely this.
His faithfulness and love for this vision of his life made him, on the one hand, receptive to the rays of God’s grace, becoming a second light after the first Light, God Himself (“You became a second light, approaching the first Light, being kindled by His radiance and shaped by His glory”); and, on the other hand, precisely for this reason, a wondrous instrument of God for the healing of the sick and the demon-possessed, thus urging people to find their way to God. This means that wherever God finds a person of good intention and with a loving inclination toward Him, He makes that person His dwelling place and His path for people to find Him. In other words, the holy person, even without speaking, acts as a missionary by example alone. People, seeing such a one, are guided toward God.
This truth Saint Theophanes offers us with an exquisitely inspired hymn already in the first ode of the Canon: “You were truly pastoral, shepherding in wisdom the thoughts of your soul, turning back wandering souls and bringing them to God, O glorious one.” This is a truth of remarkable inspiration: Saint Tryphon — and indeed every believer, whether cleric or layperson — is a shepherd, because he first shepherds himself. How? By controlling the thoughts of his soul, guiding them as a shepherd guides his sheep into the fold, where the place of rest is — God Himself. Therefore, when a person’s thoughts move away from God, they are in danger of being “devoured” by the wolf, the devil, or by the lion, the devil, according to the image of the Apostle Peter: “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about seeking whom he may devour.” And in this way, he becomes a shepherd of others as well, returning wandering souls to God. As we understand from this perspective, no one — especially a cleric — can become a true shepherd unless he first is and becomes a shepherd of himself. The one who has learned to shepherd his own thoughts is the one who is granted grace by God also for the guidance of others.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
