By Fr. George Dorbarakis
The great Father and Teacher of the Church, Photios (9th c.), the Confessor of the Faith and Equal to the Apostles, lived during the reigns of the emperors Michael, son of Theophilos, Basil the Macedonian, and Leo his son. His earthly homeland was the imperial city of Constantinople, being of origin from a pious and distinguished family, while his heavenly homeland was the Jerusalem above. Before entering the priesthood he distinguished himself in high offices, serving as a professor at the University of the Magnaura; and always living a virtuous and God-loving life, he was later entrusted, as Patriarch, with the guidance of the Church of Constantinople.
This took place as follows: when Saint Ignatios was violently deposed from the archiepiscopal throne by the emperor, the vacant throne had to be filled, and so the emperor turned to Photios and compelled him to succeed Saint Ignatios canonically. Thus he was first tonsured a monk and then passed “in rapid succession” through all the ranks of the priesthood.
As Patriarch he struggled greatly on behalf of the Orthodox faith against the Manichaeans, the Iconoclasts, and other heretics, but above all against the papal heresy which appeared for the first time in his era, whose leader was Pope Nicholas, the father of the Latin schism. After reproving Nicholas for his heretical views with proofs from Holy Scripture and the Fathers, and after judging him synodically, he considered him outside the Church and consigned him to anathema. For these actions, he naturally suffered many persecutions and dangers from the supporters of papism, many attacks and acts of violence against him, all of which he endured in a Christ-like manner, he who was distinguished for his long-suffering, patience, and adamantine character — facts well known to anyone who studies Church history.
What must especially be recalled, however, is that the blessed Photios, who ministered the gospel like another Apostle Paul, converted to the faith of Christ the entire nation of the Bulgarians together with their king, after catechizing and baptizing them. Likewise, by his words full of grace, wisdom, and truth, he regenerated and returned to the Catholic Church of Christ many different heretics — Armenians, Iconoclasts, and other heterodox believers. Indeed, when by the firmness of his conviction he astonished the murderous and ungrateful Emperor Basil and uprooted the weeds of every false teaching with his fervent zeal, he appeared more than anyone else as a genuine successor of the Apostles, filled with their Spirit-bearing teaching.
Thus, after shepherding the Church of Christ in a holy and evangelical manner, after ascending twice to the archiepiscopal throne against his will and being twice exiled from it by tyrannical force, and after leaving to the Church and the people of God many and varied writings — excellent and most wise, such as every age can truly admire — and after suffering greatly, as we have said, for his struggles on behalf of truth and justice, the much-contending one finally departed to the Lord, dying in exile at the Monastery of the Armenians, like the divine Chrysostom at Comana. His sacred and most honorable body was laid to rest in the monastery called Eremia or Hiremia. In former times his most holy synaxis was celebrated in the Church of the Honorable Forerunner located in that monastery, but now it is celebrated at the sacred and Patriarchal Monastery of the Holy Trinity on the island of Halki, where the Theological School of the Great Church of Christ is also located.
Even the mere fact that Saint Photios had saintly parents who were martyred for the faith, that he possessed immense secular learning especially in Greek literature, rhetoric, and medicine, and that he was characterized by both the Church and history as Great, Confessor, and Equal to the Apostles because of his holy life and immense missionary work, reveals the spiritual height and stature of his person — such that he is compared with the Three Holy Hierarchs: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and the sacred Chrysostom. Indeed, rarely in history, whether ecclesiastical or so-called secular, does one find such personalities who remain admirable to this day and so spiritually radiant; for this reason it is only natural that the hymnography of our Church makes use of every image and rhetorical figure in order artistically to fashion his “statue” and the abundance of his virtues.
We will content ourselves, however, with a single hymn from his service, which we believe gives us — even if only in outline — a small image of his luminous life, as his very name signifies.
“Come, all you faithful, let us devoutly praise Photios the most wondrous, the Hierarch and friend of the Lord; for having become filled with apostolic teaching and a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, and having been revealed through a virtuous way of life, he drove the wolves away from the Catholic Church by his dogmas. And having clearly proclaimed the Orthodox Faith, he was revealed as a pillar and champion of piety. Therefore, even after death, standing nearer to Christ, he unceasingly intercedes for our souls.” (Doxastikon at Vespers)
And what does the Hymnographer chiefly tell us? First, that Saint Photios was and is a friend of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is, he lived in such a way as to be shown a friend of Christ, just as the Lord Himself said: “You are My friends, if you do whatever I command you.” Thus Saint Photios, like the Holy Apostles, demonstrated his love for Him in practice, for love of the Lord is proven as true only through keeping His commandments; and Photios guarded the commandments of the Lord — faith and love, the “virtuous life” — as the apple of his eye.
Second, he became a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, for this is the Lord’s promise: “Whoever keeps My commandments and shows that he loves Me will be loved by My Father, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him.” Is this not every saint — a monastery of the Holy Trinity? You approach the saint and enjoy the hospitality of God Himself. God acts through him.
Third, this charismatic and supra-natural reality can be achieved only in communion with the Holy Apostles. No one is sanctified alone. Without incorporation into the Church and immersion in the river of Tradition — which necessarily flows through the Holy Apostles, the foundations of the faith — no one can be a Christian, much less a saint. Saint John the Theologian states this with utmost clarity at the very beginning of his First Catholic Epistle: “Your communion with us, the Apostles, is communion with Jesus Christ.” This is because the Lord so willed to “organize” matters: we are with Him when we are with His friends and His own — first and foremost, uniquely and supremely, His Holy Disciples and Apostles. Is this not precisely what the hymn proclaims? Saint Photios became “filled with apostolic teaching.” Thus he was filled with the Holy Spirit; thus he became and remains a friend of Christ.
Fourth, such a Spirit-filled life made Photios both a pillar and a leader of the Orthodox faith. For one who follows the Light of Christ cannot but become a secondary light, according to the Lord’s own words: “Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life,” and again, “You are the light of the world; a city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” This is all the more so when such an enlightened person possesses a mind so expanded that he can also express in words the experience of God he lives, and thus help the faithful safeguard the truth when it is darkened by its deniers; and, armed with truth — which is the Light of Christ — to rebuke the people of darkness, the heretics who fall upon the flock like wolves to devour it. Thus Saint Photios was chosen by Christ from childhood to be and to act as an instrument of the Lord, for the expression of truth and the condemnation of every heresy — especially the newly arisen one of his time, the papal deviation, both in its irrational claims to primacy in the Church and in its unacceptable interventions in the Symbol of Nicaea-Constantinople, a Symbol (Creed) that truly constitutes the criterion of our faith from the beginning until the end of the ages.
Fifth, Saint Photios stands not only in his own era but also in ours — and in every era — as a sleepless guardian of the faith, living himself within the Light of the three-sunned Godhead and unceasingly praying for the salvation of our souls. Of this we are certain, and it is our consolation, for this is the experience of the Church and of all the saints: the boldness of Saint Photios before the Lord is very great, which means that he “influences” Him positively, so that He may always be merciful toward every weakness and deviation of ours from His holy will.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
