By Protopresbyter Fr. George Papavarnavas
The Holy Hieromartyr Therapon came from the land of the Alemanni (a duchy in the region of Germany), from noble and pious parents. He lived during the 7th or the beginning of the 8th century A.D. From childhood he loved Christ and learned “the sacred writings, which are able to make one wise unto salvation.” For a period of time he lived in Jerusalem and afterwards went to Cyprus, where he lived in asceticism and prayer, and was later ordained a bishop.
According to tradition and Orthodox hagiography, he ended his life as a martyr when Arab pirates slaughtered him before the Holy Altar while he was celebrating the Divine Liturgy. After this tragic event, heavenly melodies were heard in the holy church, and a powerful Light surrounded the area of the Holy Altar, with the result that fear and turmoil fled from the faithful and their souls were filled with peace, joy, and spiritual courage. At the place where the body of the Saint was buried, a holy church was built in his honor.
Several centuries later, before a similar attack by the Hagarenes took place in Cyprus, the Saint appeared in a dream to a certain devout Christian and gave instructions that his holy relic be transferred to Constantinople. It was first placed in the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos at Blachernae and later in a church that was consecrated in his name. Portions of his holy relics are preserved in the Monastery of Zographou on Mount Athos and elsewhere. Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite composed the Service to Saint Therapon, which was corrected in 1785 by the Archdeacon Agapios of Paros.
The Synaxaria recount many miracles of the Saint. One of them is the raising of a dead man. Specifically, Saint Therapon met on the road a Jewish woman who was going to bury her dead son, and she was weeping bitterly. He took pity on her and prayed fervently to Christ, the “Lord of life and death,” and her child was raised from the dead. After this wondrous event, both mother and son were baptized.
His life and conduct give us the occasion to emphasize the following:
In the Church we chant, among other things, the hymn: “Wondrous is God in His saints.” This means that God works miracles through His saints, always and in every age, since “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” The saints love human beings and benefit in countless ways all who seek their help, following the example of Christ Himself, Who during His earthly “presence in the flesh” “went about doing good and healing all.”
The saints carry out a truly wondrous pastoral ministry by healing people from bodily, psychological, and spiritual illnesses, by comforting them, strengthening them in their struggle, and giving meaning to their lives. They also free them from complicated and sinful thoughts and teach them how to cultivate simple and good thoughts, as well as how to be led to the knowledge of God and communion with Him “in the person of Jesus Christ.” And this “how” is the evangelical way of life, through which the heart is purified from the passions and the nous is illumined. According to the teaching of the Church, as expressed by the Holy Fathers and analyzed by His Eminence Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou, the nous is the eye of the soul. It is the noetic energy of the soul, which is an “independent energy” distinct from rational activity. When a person departs from God, Who is “the true Light,” his nous is darkened, enslaved to reason and to creation, and becomes unable to know the will of God and participate in His glory. But through repentance and life in Christ, the nous is illumined by the grace of God and, according to Saint Andrew, Bishop of Crete, becomes “a nous beholding God.”
Communion with God presupposes a journey of man from the “according to the image” to the “according to the likeness,” a journey accomplished through the grace of God and man’s own struggle for the transformation of his passions. This journey is described very fittingly and vividly by Saint John of Sinai in his inspired book called The Ladder, which consists of thirty chapters. The first chapter is titled “On Renunciation,” while the thirtieth chapter is titled “On Love, Hope, and Faith,” with the subtitle “Concerning the union of the virtuous triad of virtues: love, hope, and faith.” In the chapters between these, the Saint speaks, among other things, about obedience, repentance, remembrance of death, and joyful mourning. He also speaks about the passions of resentment, slander, talkativeness, lying, despondency, gluttony, greed, insensibility, vanity, and pride, and points out the way to heal them. Then he addresses blasphemous thoughts and how they are healed; he speaks about meekness, humility, discernment — which is “greater than all the virtues” — stillness, prayer, and dispassion, finally arriving at hope, faith, and love.
Studying The Ladder, one sees this path of man toward the transformation of his passions, so that he may ascend from the unnatural state to the natural state, and by the grace of God to the supernatural state, that is, participation in His glory. It is a blessed journey from a passion-filled life to life in Christ, from selfishness and self-love to love of God and love of mankind. This journey begins with repentance, which is the foundation of spiritual life. And according to Saint Isaac the Syrian, a person who sincerely repents and weeps for his sins is greater than one who raises the dead.
Therefore, spiritual life, as we see in the life and conduct of the saints, is not a static condition but a continual journey for the putting away of the “old man,” “which is corrupted according to deceitful desires,” and the “putting on” of the “new,” the “reborn” man. It is an unceasing struggle until we all reach, as the Apostle Paul writes in his Epistle to the Ephesians, “the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
