PhD Candidate in Theology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Larissa, both as a city and as a Metropolis, possesses a significant hagiographical history and experience. A multitude of Saints attained holiness in Larissa and the surrounding region. Among them, the patron Saint of Larissa, Saint Achillios the Myrrhstreaming Wonderworker, holds a central place.[1] He was born in Cappadocia around 270 A.D. and lived during the time of Saint Constantine the Great.[2] Often the people of God leave their homeland and depart for new places of witness. Divine Providence chose the land of Thessaly as the missionary field of Saint Achillios.
Orthodox spiritual life is a synthesis of Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy. According to Saint Cyril of Jerusalem: “For the way of godliness consists of these two things: pious dogmas and good works.”[3] Saint Achillios, in both his life and pastoral ministry, preserved both dogma and ethos.
The Dogmatic Struggle
At that time widespread confusion prevailed because of the heresy of Arius. Heresy is not an alternative understanding of the faith, but a “second form of atheism,”[4] constituting a persecution against the Church and a denial of Christ. The conflict between Orthodoxy and the heresies was not a simple clash of ideas, but a struggle between Light and darkness, Truth and delusion. Heresies lead to destruction, while Orthodoxy leads to salvation in Christ. Orthodoxy is not an ideology, but the Truth of the Triune God revealed in Christ.
Emperor Constantine the Great convened the First Ecumenical Synod in 325 A.D. in Nicaea of Bithynia, exactly 1,700 years ago. The Synod confessed the dogmatic truth that the Son is of one essence with the Father, true God, begotten and not created, Light from Light, and through Him the world was created.
The Synod also composed the first seven articles of the Creed — the remaining five were added at the Second Ecumenical Synod in Constantinople in 381 A.D. — dealt with the determination of the celebration of Pascha, and issued twenty sacred canons. According to Saint Nektarios:
“The First Ecumenical Synod in Nicaea, by rejecting the teaching of Arius, saved Christianity from an obvious distortion… Therefore the convening of the First Ecumenical Synod took place by the will of Divine Providence, in order to preserve the work of salvation intact and hand it down safely to future generations.”[5]
Synodality is a mark of healthy ecclesiology, and the consciousness of the Church is synodal. According to Saint John Chrysostom: “Church is a name for system and synod.”[6] The Ecumenical Synods were the work and miracle of Divine Providence for the unharmed preservation of the teaching of Jesus Christ.
It is important to clarify the criteria of true theology, because, according to Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos:
“Arius and all the heretics speak about these matters using philosophy, imagination, and speculation, whereas the God-seeing Prophets, Apostles, and Fathers express their experience and confess that Christ is Light, born before all ages from Light, and true God.”[7]
Among the 318 Fathers present at the Synod — together with Saint Athanasios the Great, Saint Nicholas, and Saint Spyridon — was Saint Achillios. It is a great honor and important theological inheritance for Larissa that, during a period of heresy, it sent to the Synod a bishop who rightly divided the Truth of the Triune God. Saint Achillios, as an empirical theologian and participant in the uncreated Divine Grace, confessed that the Son is consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father, Light from Light, true God.
The truth of theology is also confirmed through miracles. At the holy Synod of Nicaea, along with the miracles of Saint Spyridon and Saint Nicholas, the following miracle of Saint Achillios also took place:
“Taking a stone, Saint Achillios cried out to the Arians: ‘If Christ is a creature of God, as you say, then command oil to flow from this stone.’ The heretics remained silent and were astonished by such a request from Saint Achillios. Then the Saint again said: ‘If the Son of God is equal to the Father, as we believe, let oil flow from this stone.’ And indeed, oil flowed forth to the amazement of all.”[8]
Social Ministry
Saint Achillios offered support and solidarity to the poor, strangers, the sick, the homeless, and especially to widows and orphans. He reveals the kenotic dimension of the priesthood and pastoral ministry,[9] the ethos of sharing and love. Social philanthropy is a characteristic of Christian morality.
For his responsible theological stance at the Synod of Nicaea, Achillios received from Emperor Constantine the Great a very large sum of money as a reward, which the Bishop of Larissa gave entirely for the care of the poor and orphans of his region, further organizing his philanthropic work through the establishment of orphanages, hospitals, and the construction of churches. He repeated what he had done after the death of his parents, distributing his great inheritance to the poor and departing for the Holy Land, following the Lord’s command:
“Go, sell your possessions and give to the poor… and come, follow Me.”[10]
Missionary Work
Missionary work is a fundamental commandment of the Lord, given before His Ascension in Jerusalem:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”[11]
After practicing asceticism in Palestine and the deserts of the Middle East, living the divine school of sacred stillness and prayer, Saint Achillios then went to Rome. There, venerating the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul, he decided that he should undertake missionary work. After preaching in regions of Europe,[12] he arrived in Thessaly, where the Triune God had appointed his pastoral and missionary field, and through his ministry he drew many pagans to the Christian faith.
Saint Achillios was both a monk and a missionary. Monasticism and missionary work, deeply marked by glorification, possess a Christological foundation and an eschatological orientation, constituting pillars of ecclesiastical life. God appoints some monks to remain hidden in the desert and others to preach in the world. Throughout Church history, many charismatic figures across the world united monasticism with missionary work. After a preparatory period of purification, filled with the Grace of God and acting by divine command, they undertook to spread the gospel to those near and far away.
Related Bishops of Saint Achillios
Holiness inspires. The nephew of Saint Achillios was Saint Reginos. Achillios sent him to Skopelos, where he later became Bishop of Skopelos. There is a possibility that Reginos attended the First Ecumenical Synod. It is certain, however, that he participated in the Synod of Sardica (Sofia) in 343 A.D., where he defended Orthodoxy. After the Synod he returned to Skopelos. He suffered martyrdom by beheading on February 25, 363 A.D. According to tradition, Saint Oikoumenios, Bishop of Trikke, was also a nephew of Saint Achillios.
Repose of the Saint – History of His Wonderworking Relics and Holy Church
After shepherding the Church of Larissa for thirty-five years, Saint Achillios reposed peacefully in 355 A.D., even foretelling his death beforehand. In 985 A.D. Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria seized the Saint’s holy relics from Larissa and transferred them to Prespa. It seems to have been the will of God that nearly one thousand years later, in 1981 A.D., the holy, myrrhstreaming, wonderworking relics of Saint Achillios finally returned to Larissa.[13]
Repeated destructions of the church of Saint Achillios followed,[14] by the Franks, the Ottomans, Nazi bombings, and earthquakes. Even recently, anti-scientific Turkish claims attempted to distort the historical past of the Church of Saint Achillios,[15] as Metropolitan Hieronymos of Larissa pointed out. Today the church built in 1965 stands prominently on the hill of the fortress, protecting all Thessaly. Beneath the hill, on the Peneios River, stands a bridge dedicated in 2017 to the worldwide Hierarch and father of missionary work, the late Saint Archbishop Anastasios of Albania.
The Meeting of Saint Achillios and Saint Demetrios
If the Saints protect cities, why do disasters still occur? In an ancient tradition preserved by Symeon Metaphrastes, a meeting is described between the patron Saints of Larissa and Thessaloniki, Saint Achillios and Saint Demetrios, near the Tempi region shortly before the final collapse of the Byzantine Empire. God had commanded the two patron Saints to abandon their cities because of the multitude of the sins of their inhabitants. The Saints departed sorrowfully. The conquest of Larissa and Thessaloniki by the Ottomans followed.[16]
The Saints had the power to protect the cities, but God allowed them to be handed over to the enemy. The trials permitted by God are not legal punishments, but therapeutic pedagogy aimed at repentance and the transformation of people.
Saint Achillios Today
In the life of Saint Achillios one sees the authenticity of Christian life and the consistent application of the Gospel. There is revealed a unity of institution and charisma, monasticism and mission, Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy, pastoral ministry and spiritual vigilance, combined with discernment and administrative ability.
Saint Achillios is not merely a figure of the past. The Saints are living presences; they protect and work miracles, inspire and strengthen Christians in spiritual life.
The ecclesiological importance of Saint Achillios, his decisive contribution to the Church’s dogmatic struggle, and his wonderworking grace have made him deeply beloved within the Church. Saint Achillios is also the patron saint of Grevena. Because of its hagiographical history, Larissa could also become a destination for religious tourism.
The message of Saint Achillios remains ever relevant.
His dogmatic struggles inspire an Orthodox phronema, emphasizing the saving necessity of faith in the Triune God and in the Theanthropic nature of Jesus Christ. The Holy Trinity is consubstantial and indivisible, and Jesus Christ is perfect God and perfect man — the God-man.
His social ministry, in the face of unequal economic conditions, proposes solidarity. His life, against the widespread degradation of our age, proposes an ascetic ethos.
His missionary journey emphasizes the responsibility of Christians toward the whole world. Mission expresses the identity and perspective of the Church and constitutes one of her essential ministries. Until the end of history, the Church throughout the whole world, “to the ends of the earth,”[17] will continue to struggle in witness to the Incarnate, Crucified, and Risen Lord. In Uganda, in the village of Okwang, a church dedicated to Saint Achillios is being built,[18] demonstrating the Saint’s contribution to contemporary missionary witness.
We pray that, through the Grace of the Most Holy Theotokos and Saint Achillios, we may be led to salvation in Christ and to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Notes:
[1] Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite, Synaxaristes of the Twelve Months of the Year, Vol. 3, Domos Publications, 2005. See also Archimandrite Ignatios Mourtzanos, Protosyngelos of the Holy Metropolis of Larissa and Tyrnavos, “Rejoice, Unshakable Staff of the Faithful,” lecture at the festal Vespers of Saint Achillios, Sunday, May 17, 2017, Achilliou Polis, Semiannual Scientific Journal of the Holy Metropolis of Larissa and Tyrnavos, issue 5, May 2021, pp. 349–353.
[2] Michael Galanos, The Lives of the Saints of the Menologion of the Orthodox Greek Church, 3rd edition, vol. 5, Month of May, Athens, 1988, p. 73. See also Lambros Skontzos, “Saint Achillios, Archbishop of Larissa the Wonderworker,” Pemptousia.
[3] Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis IV, PG 33, 456B.
[4] Saint Gregory Palamas, To Dionysios, EPE 4, 404–412, Nea Skete, Mount Athos, 2008, pp. 95–97.
[5] Saint Nektarios, Metropolitan of Pentapolis, The Ecumenical Councils of the Church of Christ, Rigopoulos Publications, 1972, p. 93.
[6] Saint John Chrysostom, On Psalm 149, PG 55, 493.
[7] Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos of Nafpaktos, “The First Ecumenical Synod,” Ecclesiastical Intervention, issue 251, June 2017.
[8] Saint Nikolai Velimirovich, The Prologue of Ochrid: Spiritual Calendar, May, “Saint Achillios, Bishop of Larissa,” Athos Publications, 2014, p. 129.
[9] Protopresbyter Vasilios Kalliakmanis, “The Kenotic Character of the Priesthood and Saint Photios,” Theologia, vol. 90, issue 2, April–June 2019, pp. 7–20.
[10] Matthew 19:16–26.
[11] Matthew 28:19.
[12] “Beginning from Palestine… and from there to Rome, and indeed, so to speak, to all Europe, and from there to Thessaly,” Demetrios Sophianos, Saint Achillios of Larissa: The Original Unpublished Life (9th c.) and its Later Revision (13th c.), Medieval and Modern Greek Texts, vol. 3, 1990, p. 154, lines 188ff., 265–268.
[13] Archimandrite Ignatios Mourtzanos, The Ecclesiastical Events of 1974: The Case of the Metropolis of Larissa and Tyrnavos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Faculty of Theology, 2019, pp. 224–226. See also Metropolitan Seraphim Orfanos of Larissa, The Discovery of the Holy Relics of the Myrrhstreaming Saint Achillios, Larissa, 1981, pp. 29–32; and Stavros Gougoulis, “The Relic of Saint Achillios: Exhibition–Seizure–Return,” Achilliou Polis, issue 1, May 2019, pp. 89–102.
[14] Stavros Gougoulis, “The Hagiological and Hymnographical Texts of Saint Achillios and the Formation of the Cathedral-Pilgrimage Church in Larissa,” Achilliou Polis, Semiannual Publication of the Holy Metropolis of Larissa and Tyrnavos, issue 10, December 2023.
[15] Metropolitan Hieronymos of Larissa, “No, Not Saint Achillios Too…,” June 2, 2024.
[16] Symeon Metaphrastes, Life of Saint Demetrios, PG 116, 1389A–1392A.
[17] Acts 1:8.
[18] Orthodox Missionary Journey of Love, issue 41, Larissa, January–April 2021, pp. 10–11.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
