By Fr. George Dorbarakis
In the years of Emperor Arcadius, when the most holy Thomas was patriarch upon the throne of Constantinople, the holy relics of the martyrs were found beneath the earth, and immediately the high priest took them with great reverence. Great help was then also granted by the saints, for even incurable diseases were healed. After the passage of many years, through a divine revelation, it was disclosed to a certain cleric and calligrapher named Nicholas that some of the many relics were those of Andronikos and Junia, of whom the divine Apostle Paul makes mention in the Epistle to the Romans.
Our Church never ceases to proclaim unceasingly her faith concerning the power of the relics of her saints, given that they bear the grace of God which the saint possessed while living. For, as we have often said, humans stands as a unified being — both soul and body — before God. This means that the glory of God dwelling in the sanctified soul of the saint is also transmitted to his holy body. For this reason we faithful consider the holy relics to be among the greatest treasures of our faith, making the saint living and present among us, even if he has departed from this life.
This truth is emphasized today as well by the hymnography of our Church, with the finding of the honorable relics of the Martyrs commemorated today. In one of the stichera of Vespers, for example, we read: “The martyrs victorious in noble struggles, who for many years had been hidden, have now been revealed, like a precious treasure, greatly enriching the Queen of all cities.”
In the third ode of the Canon we see the entire theological reasoning of our Church concerning relics: The saints, with longing for Christ, followed His voluntary Passion, living crucified together with Him. Thus they drew grace from His very source; and this grace, being present also in their relics, shines forth and offers the light of healings to everyone who approaches them with faith. “The radiant relics of the martyrs shine forth, giving the light of healings to those who hasten to them in faith; for they drew grace from the fountains of the Savior, emulating His voluntary Passion.”
The miracles performed through the holy relics are thus the confirmation of God’s activity within them. Even their touch, or a little of their dust, releases springs of miracles for the faithful. “Even a small amount of dust from the bodies of the prize-bearing martyrs gushes forth, by the grace of God, fountains of miracles” (sticheron of Vespers).
In the Oikos of the Kontakion the Holy Hymnographer goes even further and offers us an image of the honorable relics of the saints that recalls the magnificent image conceived by our national poet Dionysios Solomos and recorded in the Hymn to Liberty, part of which became our national anthem: “From the sacred bones of the Greeks arisen (is freedom).” Dionysios Solomos may also have been influenced in forming this beautiful image by the well-known prophecy concerning the revivification of the bones of the Prophet Ezekiel (chapter 37) — which we read in our Church on the evening of Great Friday after the return of the Epitaphios, as a proclamation of faith in the resurrection from the dead of Christ and of human bodies. But today the Hymnographer moves in the same spirit: he sees Orthodoxy emerging like a rosy fragrance from these relics of the Saints.
In other words, just as freedom for our national poet is the fruit of the sacrifice of the Greeks — the Greeks fell in battle and only their bones remained — in the same way the Orthodox faith is not a matter of words and studies, of intellectual theories, but the fruit of whole-burnt offerings, that is, where the saints give their lives for the sake of faith in Christ. “Like roses blossoming among thorns, your relics, glorious and venerable martyrs, pour forth into the world the fragrance of Orthodoxy.”
Rarely does an image possess such power as to reveal at once what Orthodoxy is. It is as if the Hymnographer tells us again: Orthodoxy — meaning the Orthodox Church — is watered first by the blood of her leader, the Lord Jesus, and then by the blood of His follower saints and martyrs, whether by their physical blood or by the blood of conscience. “Adorned with the brightness and purity of the beauties of your virtues, you clothed yourselves in a garment reddened by your martyric blood” (Ode 4).
For this reason she always remains unconquered, according to the unerring word of our Lord: “The gates of Hades shall not prevail against her.” Among many other hymns, the service also points out the power of the Church through the Holy Martyrs with the following hymn: “By the streams of their blood, the athletes of Christ’s glory dried up the rivers of idolatrous frenzy and reduced to ashes the fire of the godless decree; and they richly watered every heart that cries out in faith: O priests, bless; O people, exalt Christ unto the ages" (Ode 8).
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
