By Fr. George Dorbarakis
We encountered the Holy Great Martyr Euphemia again on July 11. Today, too, the Church places her before us as an example, both because of her great contest and because of her Orthodox phronema, to such an extent that God willed, in her church and through her blessings, especially through her venerable relic, to give an answer to the question that had arisen at the Fourth Ecumenical Synod, as her sacred Synaxarion also relates. Her contest was such that it revealed that beneath the “weakness of the female sex,” as the Hymnographer notes, there was a courageous and valiant heart before which — to borrow a phrase from the historian Ioannis Philemon, which he wrote about the heroine of 1821, Laskarina Bouboulina — “the cowardly were put to shame, while the brave withdrew.” Indeed, even the great ascetic, Elder Paisios, when the Saint appeared to him in a vision on Mount Athos in 1987, as we had the opportunity to note on July 11, marveled at how a young girl endured such great tortures and, moreover, encouraged the other martyrs, as their leader, to endure them as well.
The Hymnographer goes even further and reminds us that the Saint’s contest was ultimately her “dowry” before the Lord Jesus Christ: “You hastened to the noetic bridal chambers, bringing your contest as a dowry to your Bridegroom, O Virgin.” And this is a reminder that should especially convict us, because in this world we devote ourselves, whether we succeed in doing so or not, to accumulating material possessions, acquiring money, and having things with which to get by, both in our youth and in our old age. In other words, we prepare our dowry as though it were our only treasure, whether great or small, which in the end will remain in this world, with nothing of it accompanying us into what follows. What will truly accompany us, what will actually constitute our true dowry, will be the struggles we made to acquire the virtues, in other words, to acquire the Spirit of God, whose fruit is the virtues. Without this Spirit and the result of His presence in our life, we will stand naked and ashamed before our God, especially at the hour of judgment. The Saint, then, reminds us of what the Lord Himself said: “Do not lay up treasures for yourselves on earth… Lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where thieves do not break in and steal.”
This priority in the life of the Christian, as we see it in Saint Euphemia, not only ultimately enables a person to gain Paradise, but also makes him, even in this world, a blessing to all people. After all, the one is the natural consequence of the other: if you are not a blessing to others, you will not see Paradise. The ecclesiastical poet points out this dimension as well with a very beautiful image: “adorned with virtues, and having her understanding enlightened, she pours forth myrrh into the hearts of the faithful,” he writes. There is nothing more beautiful than for a Christian to be, for every fellow human being, the fragrance of Christ. That others might see us and “take in” from us, so to speak, a blessing in their lives. For this, ultimately, is what a Christian is: the aroma, the fragrance of Christ, as the Apostle Paul also says. Yet without an understanding enlightened by faith in Christ and a virtuous life through keeping His commandments, this cannot be achieved. Saint Euphemia, a young girl but one with a great heart, achieved it.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
