By Fr. George Dorbarakis
It has often been said that the study of the lives of the saints is among the most important readings for the spiritual growth of Christians. And this is because their life is the embodiment of the Gospel, the practical confirmation of what the word of God bears witness to. What we see in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself — within Whom His word was the expression of His life and His life was the commentary on His word — in the same way, to a certain degree, we also see in our saints. And especially in those moments when they offer even their very life as a sacrifice for the love of God. From this point of view, the heroic struggles of the saints, the martyrdoms they endured, and the manner in which they faced them become for the faithful a means by which they receive the grace of God. That is, the very grace which strengthened the saints in their martyrdoms, the grace that enabled them to endure and transcend their sufferings, this same grace is poured also into the faithful when with faith and love they come into contact with what the martyrs suffered for the sake of the Lord. And this means that a Christian who does not study the lives of our saints deprives himself of a special grace that the Lord offers to the world. This truth is already pointed out by the Holy Hymnographer in the very first sticheron of Vespers: “Come, let us honor the struggles of Christopher, through whom there gushes forth to us the everlasting grace of Christ the Giver of life.” Therefore his statement is not an exaggeration when he says that “Your memorial, O martyr, gives forth fragrance mightily, like spring roses, through the much-enduring sufferings of your struggles” (Sticheron of Vespers).
Saint Theophanes, the poet of the Canon for Saint Christopher, emphasizes the above truth, noting however that participation in the grace of God through the martyrdom of a saint happens only among the faithful, that is, only among those who are themselves Christ-bearers like Saint Christopher, who besides grace also possessed the name. In other words, someone unrelated to the Christian faith — an unbaptized person, let us say, or even a baptized person who has not activated his baptism and lives as an atheist in the world — not only cannot perceive the grace of martyrdom, but may even mock the martyrdom and blaspheme the saint, falling into the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, through inability to see the presence of God in the life of a saint. How does Saint Theophanes reveal this truth? More than once he calls Christ-bearing people to glorify the Martyr. Because, as we said, only a Christ-bearer — that is, one who is a member of Christ and therefore bears Christ within his being — can also see Christ in the struggles of the Saint. “Come today, all Christ-bearers, let us piously hymn the memory of Christopher, the martyr of the truth, O you who are minded toward God” (Ode 1). And in the verses of the Saint’s synaxarion he notes: “Being myself a Christ-bearer, I know you, Christopher, who were sacrificed by the sword for Christ God.”
The ecclesiastical poet in his Canon says nothing at all either about the ugliness of Saint Christopher’s face or about the incident of his carrying the Christ Child upon his shoulders. What interests him is the beauty of the Saint’s soul, which overflowed with love for Christ and with continual meditation upon the enjoyment of His kingdom, a meditation that even became the nourishment of Saint Christopher. “Your God-loving soul was nourished through love, meditating, O Christopher, upon the delight of the kingdom” (Ode 3). The focus on the beauty of the Saint’s soul is obviously also the answer to the above two “omissions”: the ugliness of the Saint’s face disappears through his inner beauty, according to the Scripture: “A joyful heart makes the face blossom;” the face of a person comes alive and becomes beautiful when the heart rejoices. The carrying of the Christ Child upon the Saint’s shoulders is interpreted either as the Hymnographer’s rejection of the literal reality of the incident or as a symbolic acceptance of it, in the sense that Saint Christopher, as his name itself declares, always bore Christ in his heart, being truly Christopher both in deed and in name.
The steadfast fixing of the Saint’s mind always upon Christ, as a manifestation of his love for Him, was what gave him the strength to endure not only the pains of martyrdom, but also the temptations of another great martyrdom: that of the flesh. The Holy Hymnographer leaves neither of these without comment: “Having fittingly loved the highest peak of all desirable things, O victorious one, you did not feel the pains while being tortured, fixing your mind always upon your Master” (Ode 6). “The serpent once offered you, O martyr, the temptation of women, as he did to Adam our forefather. But having been defeated, he was put to shame, weaving snares against himself” (Ode 4).
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
