By Fr. George Dorbarakis
It is rare to find a Christian who does not know the phrase “the winter is harsh, but Paradise is sweet,” even if he does not know that it is connected with the Holy Forty Martyrs. Indeed, this well-known phrase may be said to be the seal of the martyrdom of these Saints, since they themselves, by saying it, acted as anointers of their own souls — that is, as trainers and guides of themselves — encouraging and strengthening one another so that they might remain steadfast in the martyrdom they were undergoing. And what they said was the most timely and decisive thing they could think of, since they urged themselves to endure their terrible suffering by transferring their thoughts beyond it, toward what is higher and better, toward Paradise itself. This means that the Saints functioned as true and genuine healers of themselves, striving to maintain those thoughts that moved within the grace-filled dimension of the revelation of Christ. Did not the Lord reveal that martyrdom and afflictions constitute the path that leads into the Kingdom of God — “through many tribulations you must enter into the Kingdom of God” — and that what the believer suffers in the world as persecution constitutes participation in His own Passion? “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.” The Apostle also notes: “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Thus the orientation of the Saints and the firm establishment of their thoughts not on the outward appearance — the martyrdom and the torments — but on the result as the depth and meaning of the martyrdom — the Kingdom of God — was on the one hand the confirmation of the genuineness of their faith: they saw things in Christ; and on the other hand it was their liberation, for in this way the grace of the Lord became active in their existence. From this perspective they show all Christians how we may face any difficulty and sorrow of life, whether it is called an economic crisis or a “misfortune” or the loss of what we once possessed: not to remain fixed on the problem itself, but on the solution of the problem, its transcendence. In this way our whole being is set in motion, acquiring a dynamism that leads, by the grace of God, to the place where the sun of joy and gladness shines.
The Hymnographer of the Saints, John the Monk, insists strongly on the above truth. Already in the stichera of Vespers he notes: “Enduring present sufferings with courage, rejoicing in the things hoped for, the holy martyrs said to one another: Are we not perhaps taking off a garment? Rather we are putting off the old man of sin. The winter is harsh, but Paradise is sweet. The freezing of the water is painful, but the enjoyment is delightful. Let us therefore not turn aside, O fellow soldiers. Let us endure for a little while, that we may receive the crowns of victory from Christ our God and the Savior of our souls.” And further on: “Casting off all their garments and entering fearlessly into the lake, the holy martyrs said to one another: For the sake of the Paradise that we lost, let us not keep today a corruptible garment. Once we were clothed because of the corrupting serpent, the devil; let us now unclothe ourselves for the sake of the resurrection of all.” Thus for our Saints their sufferings were equivalent to the truly painful stripping away of their old sinful disposition and at the same time the joyful clothing of themselves with the grace of God that enabled them to gain Paradise. “You who in Christ hated the flesh and the sinful world stripped off the old man together with the temporary garment and clothed yourselves with the robe of incorruption” (Ode 1).
The above emphasis on the transfer of the Saints’ thoughts from temporary things to eternal ones, from suffering to the enjoyment of Paradise, clearly refers also to what the Holy Apostle Paul points out: “I consider all things to be refuse, that I may gain Christ,” as well as: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Danger or sword or tribulation or distress? Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of Christ.” In other words, the driving force of the Saints was their love for Christ, their attachment to Him. The Hymnographer notes this: “You were joined to the Master in heaven, O forty victorious athletes of the Lord” (Kontakion); “they chose Christ instead of all things” (Ode 3). But he goes even further in his theology of the martyrdom of the Saints. Interpreting the breaking of their legs, by which the executioners hastened their death, he says that this refers back to the Passion of the Lord Himself: in this way they filled up what was lacking in His suffering, something that the Apostle Paul especially emphasizes: “The sufferings we undergo fill up what is lacking in the body of Christ” (cf. Col. 1:24). “We forty fulfill what is lacking in Your Passion, O Savior, as our legs were broken” (Verses of the Synaxarion). It is therefore not surprising that the Saints say, as the Hymnographer John the Monk puts it in their mouths, that the godless men by what they did against them simply proved their madness, because although they were doing something harmful to themselves, these men nevertheless chose it willingly. “You are raving mad, the athletes said, offering freely what causes your own ruin, O most godless ones” (Ode 4).
The Hymnographer has many things to touch upon concerning the Holy Forty. His “lens” focuses, apart from the greatness of the Saints themselves, also on the brave and wondrous mother of the youngest martyr who endured and did not die immediately, on the guard who took the place of the faint-hearted soldier, but also on the tragic and pitiable coward who lost courage at the last moment.
Let us begin in reverse. The verses he dedicates to the tragic figure who fell away from the forty are majestic in their mournful character: he regards him as a trophy of the primeval wicked devil and compares him with the traitor Judas and with the first man, Adam, in the garden of Eden. And the dramatic force of his verses reaches its height when he bitterly says that the almost-martyr finally lost both lives, both the eternal and the temporal. His love for life, cut off from the source of Life, caused him to lose every life. “The arch-evil one rejoiced greatly, seizing the fallen one from the forty just as he seized from the twelve the cowardly Judas and the man from Eden” (Ode 6). “Vain-minded and entirely worthy of lamentation is the one who missed both lives; for he was dissolved by fire and departed to the unquenchable fire” (Ode 6). “The one who loved this life ran quickly to the soul-destroying bath and died” (Ode 8).
John the Hymnographer also focuses on the guard whom the grace of God called at the last moment. He cannot help being moved by what happened and recalling similar moments of grace: the thief on the cross who first entered Paradise with the words “Remember me, Lord, in Your kingdom,” and the Apostle Matthias, who took the place of the traitor disciple Judas. Just as they did, so the guard is called to fill what was lacking, to the simultaneous anguish of the tyrant devil. “Because the tyrant devil is shameless, he justly rages; for just as formerly he fumed with anger over the Thief and Matthias, so now he is torn apart by the calling of the guard” (Ode 6). For John the guard-martyr proved to be a Christ-loving excellent robber of the crowns he saw, whom the grace of God caused by a divine sign to overcome even the natural love for his life. “The guard of the forty was amazed when he saw their crowns; and casting aside his love for life he was uplifted by the love of Your manifested glory” (Ode 7). “The Christ-loving guard became an excellent robber of the crowns he beheld” (Ode 7).
But the Hymnographer’s lyrical inspiration reaches its summit when he focuses his attention on the truly epic, heroic, and tragically magnificent personality of the mother of the young martyr. What person would not weep with her and be inspired by this literally powerful spirit of hers? The Hymnographer’s explanation is simple: this mother loved God above all things, and therefore she did not hesitate to “sacrifice” her son, becoming a second Abraham. We do not know whose martyrdom was greater: that of the Holy Forty or ultimately that of the mother who rises as an eternal model of woman and mother. “The God-loving mother, with strength of mind, taking upon her shoulders the one she had borne, brings him as a martyr together with the martyrs, offering the fruit of her piety, imitating the sacrifice of Abraham” (Ode 8). “My son, go straight on the road toward the unending life, cried the Christ-loving mother to her Christ-loving child. I cannot bear that you should appear second before God the Judge of the contest” (Ode 8).
The Hymnographer concludes his wonderful Canon to the Holy Forty, by way of an epilogue, by connecting them with the season through which we are passing, Great Lent. Forty they were, and forty are the days of the fast. Why does he say this? Because their memory makes the fast brighter and more joyful from a spiritual point of view. For by their martyrdom they manifest the saving Passion of the Lord which they imitated; consequently they intensify the sanctification of this period through their contest. “Athletes of Christ, you have made the all-venerable fast brighter by the memory of your glorious struggle; for being forty you sanctify the forty-day fast, having imitated by your contest for Christ His saving Passion. Therefore, having boldness, intercede that we too may reach in peace the three-day Resurrection of God and the Savior of our souls” (Doxastikon of the Praises at Matins).
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.