By Fr. George Dorbarakis
The Holy Hymnographer Theophanes, wishing to present the mark of the great Saint Sophronios of today — that is, that he struggled to keep exactly the will of God in his life, what we say “down to the smallest stroke” — and therefore is now naturally glorified in the heavens, notes in the verse of his Synaxarion:
“Sophronios hastened to keep even a small stroke of the law, whose glory is in the heavens.”*
Indeed, repeatedly his Hymnographer emphasizes that his turning toward God was not occasional nor partial, as unfortunately often happens with us the lukewarm in faith Christians of today, the double-souled and therefore unstable according to Saint James the Brother of the Lord, who want to be on good terms with God but without abandoning our passionate attachment to the things of this world; his turning toward God was total, because God was his only love, and therefore within His light he lived the theoria (divine vision) of Him.
“You wholly desired the only Good One, having been kindled by the noetic light, and you loved the fountain of incorruption, O all-wise one, being lifted up in divine visions toward it” (Ode 5).
And this means that if we want to feel the beauties that God gives already from this life, we must decide definitively that God constitutes the center of our life. The word of God already from the Old Testament reveals that our natural condition as human beings lies in our total love toward God, consequently also toward man who is His image, because for Him we were created and only with Him therefore do we find the balance of our life. In this way indeed we become what was given to us through holy baptism — that is, to be members of Christ and His dwelling places — something that Saint Theophanes again points out to us with his graceful pen:
“You became a living and animate temple of God, having been made dead to all earthly things.”
Saint Theophanes of course, as an inspired hymnographer, cannot fail to make use, in order to present the virtue and work of Saint Sophronios, of the opportunity that his very name gives him. He considers that he was named Sophronios by God in order to confirm temperance (sōphrosynē) by his life, to be led through it also to the related virtues — that is, prudence, justice, and courage (general virtues which indeed are borrowed from Platonic philosophy but now with Christian content) — and through it to teach the correct theology of the Church, especially at a time when the heretical Monothelites were questioning the true image of Christ as perfect God and perfect man, since they did not accept His two wills, thus showing their fall into the Monophysitism condemned by our Church.
In other words, Saint Sophronios proved temperate in all the dimensions of his life and therefore was moved by the Spirit of God; for this reason his speech on the one hand was like the current of a river that carries away various impurities, and on the other like honey that sweetens the hearts of the faithful.
“Richly was poured out the grace of the all-holy Spirit, O divinely-minded one, upon your lips. Therefore the sound of your words imitates the streams of a river” (Ode 4).
And elsewhere:
“Like a palm tree in the house of the Lord you blossomed with the fruitfulness of your words, and with your pure life you sweeten the hearts of those who honor you with faith, O hierarch” (Ode 6).
Let it be permitted to cite some examples of this use that our Hymnographer makes with regard to the Saint’s name.
“You who bear the name of temperance were called Sophronios beforehand by divine foreknowledge, and in deeds you became temperate, just, courageous and prudent, being crowned in general by these general virtues." (Sticheron of Vespers)
And elsewhere (Ode 1):
“You sailed with temperance across the sea of temperance, being steered by the breezes of the Spirit, and you gathered great wealth by the gift of wisdom, Father Sophronios.”
(You sailed across the sea of temperance with temperance, guided by the breezes of the Holy Spirit, and thus you gathered great wealth through the gift of wisdom, Father Sophronios.)
Again (Ode 4):
“Having a temperate mind and an even more temperate intellect, Father, you did not think of mixture nor change nor confusion of the two natures united without alteration in the one Christ.”
Among the many occasions provided by the Service of the Saint, we would not wish to fail to mention a beautiful inspiration of Saint Theophanes that arises from the fact that the Saint was Archbishop of the holy city of Jerusalem. According to the Hymnographer, Saint Sophronios always had before him the tomb of Christ the Savior; thus, standing before a continual provocation of longing and love for Him and of sacred reflection upon His resurrection, he notes that from this contemplation he drew his theology and transmitted it as illumination also to the faithful. This observation recalls what the Holy Hymnographer also notes concerning Saint John the Theologian, namely that the source of his theology was the breast of Jesus when he leaned upon it at the Secret Supper.
“Contemplating with constant longing the revered resurrection of the Lord and His tomb which is life, you drew the secret and hidden divine visions of illumination and transmitted them, O hierarch, to the faithful." (Ode 5)
Together with the Hymnographer we also cry out: truly, “the temperance that is in you shone in the world, Father.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
* In Greek there is a play on words between a small horn and a fully developed horn: Ἔσπευδε τηρεῖν καὶ κεραίαν τοῦ νόμου, Ὁ Σωφρόνιος, οὗ παρ᾽ οὐρανοῖς κέρας.
κεραία — literally “a small horn,” used in the sense of the smallest stroke or mark of a letter (cf. Matthew 5:18).
κέρας — “horn,” often used metaphorically for glory, exaltation, or trophy of victory.
So the sense is that because Sophronios carefully kept even the smallest commandment of God’s law, his glory/exaltation/trophy is now in heaven.