By Fr. George Dorbarakis
Saint James followed the ascetic life from a young age and purified his heart through fasting and other forms of hardship. For this reason, the Church elected him as a bishop. As a bishop, he endured many persecutions, because he fought against the error of the iconoclasts. Enduring persecutions and struggling with hunger and thirst in exile, he committed his spirit to God.
The Holy Hymnographer Ignatius stands in awe before the ascetic of the Lord, Saint James. For although he was a bishop of the Church with a strong militant spirit against the heresy of iconoclasm — which denied the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ — and indeed gave up his spirit as a result of the sufferings of the persecutions he endured from the iconoclasts, nevertheless the center of gravity of his life lay in his ascetic conduct. His asceticism, as a fulfillment of the commandments of the Lord — that is, living himself as one crucified with regard to his passions — was his constant priority, whether at the beginning of his life, in its development, or even in his episcopal ministry. “An Ascetic Bishop” would be the title that characterizes his life.
“Taking up the Cross upon your shoulders, venerable father, you followed precisely the Crucified Lord, and living in monastic solitude with all wisdom, you diminished your passions through self-control” (Ode 1).
That is to say, Saint James had deeply understood that this was precisely the purpose of the Christian faith: to follow Christ, because only through Him can one become a partaker of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and have a living relationship with God.
“You became a vessel that contained the gifts of the Spirit from your youth,” the Hymnographer again notes, “and thus you became a citizen and heir of the Kingdom of God, blessed James” (Ode 1).
It is characteristic, moreover, that the poet Ignatius considers his ascetic and sacrificial conduct not only as a prerequisite for his struggles on behalf of the truth, but also for his very ministry at the altar of the Church. That is, he offered the bloodless sacrifice of the Divine Liturgy in the manner willed by God and prescribed by the Church, because he himself was inwardly in the intensity of the spiritual struggle in which the believer offers himself as a sacrifice to the Lord by putting sin to death.
This means: Divine worship becomes pleasing to God when it is ministered by people — especially the clergy, but also the faithful — who “bleed” in the struggle against sin. It is not by chance that ecclesiastical tradition records cases in which the Spirit of God “delayed” descending to effect the change of the Holy Gifts when those present at the altar were immersed unrepentantly in their sins — the word “unrepentantly” carries the weight of the statement, for we are all sinners in any case.
“As a pure sacrifice you offered yourself to the Lord through the mortification of sin,” explains the Holy Hymnographer, “and thus, as a hierarch living according to the law of God, you also offered the bloodless sacrifices to Him” (Ode 3).
The spiritual inner struggle of Saint James was expressed, the Holy Poet tells us, through his vigilant supplications and prayers to the Lord, through his self-restraint and fasting, but above all through his godly sorrow, his ever-flowing tears, and his unceasing pursuit of the spirit of humility.
These are precisely the elements that truly demonstrate how illumined by God the Saint was, and how much light he radiated both in his own time and across all ages to the faithful of the Church. Is not humility the very thing that Christ Himself emphasizes as that which “draws” the grace of God? Is not mourning due to the knowledge of one’s sin that which brings forth tears that cleanse every impurity of the human soul?
“God gives grace to the humble,” and “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,” affirms the word of God.
Ignatius reveals to us: “Being continually washed, O most blessed one, by streams of tears, you appeared as a pure vessel of the Spirit” (Ode 5).
“With great self-restraint, with extended vigilance, O venerable one, with prayer and hardship, you sought God, Who translated you to the heavenly dwellings” (Ode 5).
And in a word: “O venerable hierarch, you were humble and modest and compassionate toward people, pure in soul and self-controlled” (Ode 4).
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
