1. Saint Eutychios, or Eutyches, shone forth as a true laborer of Christ and servant of the Church, both through his constant and fruitful teaching and through his blameless and edifying works. He was a vigilant and most skillful fisher of souls, and also their loving father, ready even to give his life for their safety and salvation. He was arrested and remained steadfast in our holy faith, and he received a martyr’s end: the tyrants cast him into the waters, and he was drowned in them.
2. The Holy Hymnographer dedicates many hymns to emphasize the Saint’s particular martyrdom — his drowning in the waters — while at the same time giving the spiritual interpretation of the tragic event: before his own drowning, he himself had “drowned” the senseless atheists through the power of his words, while by his death through drowning he also drowned the wicked devil, the “bodiless dragon.”
“O God-minded Eutychios, having choked the senseless ones with the cords of your all-wise words, you accepted a blessed end through the drowning of the waters, drowning therein the bodiless dragon” (Vespers Sticheron).
“You entered the arena of martyrdom rejoicing, and you desired the death that became the cause of life, and while drowning in the sea, O blessed Eutychios, you drowned the myriads of enemies” (Ode 1).
His martyrdom therefore was for him — as of course for all martyrs in Christ — on the one hand the seal of his sanctified life and work, which like golden wings carried him into the Kingdom of God; and on the other hand the outburst, by the permission of Christ certainly, of the Evil One and his instruments, who could not endure their defeat by the servant of Christ.
“You were lifted up to the Lord, O all-blessed one, upon the golden wings of your most sacred martyrdom” (Ode 5).
Eutychios belongs among those saints who were deemed worthy truly to sit at the feet of the Holy Apostles and themselves enter into the labor of evangelizing mankind. Joseph the Hymnographer does not leave these crucial dimensions of the Saint’s life without comment.
The Saint was a genuine disciple of the Apostles, proving the authenticity of his discipleship both through his venerable manner of life and through his glorious martyrdom. And this means that it is not enough merely to hear the teaching of the Apostles. What truly makes someone a knower and genuine disciple is the activation of their teaching within his personal life, as a sign of his love for God, a love reaching even unto the sacrifice of life itself. “Not the hearers of the Law, but the doers of the Law shall be justified” (Apostle Paul).
“You lived venerably, having been taught with utmost exactness by the Apostles of Christ, O all-blessed Eutychios; and you attained perfect maturity, contending most gloriously, O admirable one” (Ode 1).
“Having been joined in soul and heart to the holy ministers of the Word, you lived your life in holiness” (Ode 3).
But we also said that Saint Eutychios entered into the labors of evangelizing mankind as a follower of the Apostles. He too preached the saving word with power, enlightening men and delivering them from the deepest darkness of ignorance.
“Having become full of God-inspired faith and grace, O glorious one, you preached the saving word together with the Apostles, dissolving the deepest darkness of impiety” (Ode 6).
“Preaching venerably the beginningless Word” (Ode 6).
“Displaying your resistance steadfastly, O martyr Eutychios, you bravely shamed the wise men of the Greeks” (Ode 7).
Many faithful people may not know Saint Eutychios, but for our Church he remains an apostolic Father, a “great martyr” (Ode 4), “truly an earthly angel and a heavenly man” (Ode 9), whose memory constitutes a “radiant feast,” while his very existence is shown to be for the faithful “a support and a boast” (Ode 9).
“By your prayers, O greatest martyr Eutychios, deliver us from every affliction and from the capture of godless barbarians” (Ode 9).
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
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