1. This angelic-named Michael, having purified himself through a perfect life and having been dedicated to God from his mother’s embrace, became a priest of the Most High God. By His power he extinguished all the madness of the God-fighters, silencing the godless mouths of the heretics who dared to speak against the depiction of Christ in icons. And because the accursed beast could not endure the divine speech of his tongue (for he neither feared nor trembled before his threats, but cried aloud with a free voice: ‘I honor and venerate the immaculate and divine image of our Savior Jesus Christ and of His holy Mother, while I spit upon your doctrine and regard it as nothing at all’), because the tyrant was thus put to shame and overflowed with rage, he condemned him to distant exile. But Michael, preserving pure and undefiled the image according to which he had been made, and being driven from place to place, reached the spacious breadth of Paradise. Thus he completed the good course and was adorned with double crowns: he was added to the hierarchs as a hierarch, and to the martyrs as a martyr.
2. Saint Theophanes the Hymnographer focuses especially on two points from the life of Saint Michael: his struggle against the iconoclasts and his ascetic life, through which he purified the image of God within himself and tasted the radiance of the Holy Spirit. From the very beginning of the service composed for him, he emphasizes:
“You always reverently venerated the sacred icon of God and of the Mother of God, O all-holy Michael, and you destroyed the blasphemous madness of the heretics, overthrowing them by your words and your sufferings” (Ode 1).
And again:
“You became, O blessed one, a dwelling place of divine gifts, and clearly imparted them faithfully to all, O greatly praised Michael, having acquired a God-like manner of life and clothed yourself in righteousness as with a garment” (Ode 1).
The Hymnographer develops these themes more fully. Saint Michael became a teacher of the divine dogmas (cf. Ode 1), and especially of the Incarnation of God, which is the very foundation for the possibility of depicting Him in icons. If God can be depicted, it is because He truly became man, and it is His human nature that the icon portrays.
“Your tongue was revealed as a pen of the Holy Spirit, O all-glorious Michael, for you studied in the Scriptures the incarnate dispensation of the almighty Word” (Ode 4).
Indeed, in the divinely inspired Scriptures he saw that honor shown to the icon is not directed to the icon itself as matter and color, but to the person depicted. As Saint Basil the Great had already taught long before: “The honor shown to the image passes to the prototype.”
“You understood that the honor of the image passes to the prototype, O God-bearing Father Michael, and following the divinely inspired Scriptures you taught all men to venerate the image of Christ and of the Saints” (Ode 8).
Saint Michael’s faith in this teaching of the Church concerning icons — which in reality is a teaching about the truth of Christ Himself as both God and man — was so absolute and firm that he endured persecutions and exiles to the point of sacrificing even his own life.
“You endured bitter exiles, O wise one, and finally reached the exceedingly spacious breadth of Paradise, dwelling among the choir of martyrs, O divinely minded and all-blessed one” (Ode 6).
The Hymnographer also insists upon the second point. Saint Michael possessed such illumination and became such a powerful preacher of the truth because he had purified his soul through the lawful struggle against his passions. With a pure heart he was illumined by the Spirit of God, and thus became a guide for the faithful — all the more because he held the lofty and weighty office of bishop (Ode 3). And he had begun this inward struggle already from his mother’s embrace (Ode 5).
In this respect, Saint Michael did nothing other than follow faithfully in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Because he believed in Christ, he became His disciple, and confirmed this discipleship through the sufferings of his life.
“You became a disciple of Christ God and emulated His sufferings, O blessed one, indeed greatly endangering yourself for His Church, O divinely inspired one” (Ode 6).
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
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