Venerable Chariton the Confessor in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

1. The Venerable Chariton lived during the reign of Aurelian and was from Iconium in Lycaonia. Because of his faith in Christ, he was brought before the ruler Hypatikos, and because he boldly confessed Christ as God, they beat him and burned him with fiery torches. After the fall of Aurelian, he was set free and went to a deserted place, where he fell into the hands of robbers who took him captive. He was freed once again, however, in the following manner: A viper entered the pitcher in which the robbers kept their wine and poured its venom into it, and when the robbers drank from it, they all died. Seeing that the cave was suitable as a place for his ascetic struggle, the Venerable One turned it into a church, and because many people began coming to practice asceticism near him, he eventually transformed it into a monastery. Because of the distractions, he withdrew elsewhere, but there too the same “fate” awaited him, until he found the edge of a rock where he could devote himself undisturbed to prayer and to God. He overcame the lack of water through the grace of God. He entreated the Lord, and crystal-clear water sprang forth from the rock. There, upon that rock, he lived to a very advanced old age, performing multitudes of miracles.

2. The Hymnographer of our Church, well versed in the Old and New Testaments and in the Patristic and Neptic writings, “paints” the spiritual portrait of the Venerable Chariton, using images from the works mentioned above. The first thing upon which the ecclesiastical poet dwells is the Venerable One’s gift of guiding others toward finding the Kingdom of God, the gift, that is, of an Elder. Basing himself on the fact that the Venerable One had founded three monasteries, despite his inclination to live as a hermit, he sees him as a new Moses, who, like the ancient Moses who guided the Israelites to the Promised Land, even passing them miraculously, that is, by the grace of God, through the Red Sea, likewise guided his monks, opening with the weapon of the Cross the sea of ascetic struggle, and thus drowning the spiritual Pharaoh, the devil.

“Having swum across the sea of ascetic struggle with the life-bearing weapon of the Cross, you drowned the accursed spiritual Pharaoh, O Blessed One, by divine power.”

And it is a great blessing in our lives to have found the right spiritual guide, the right Elder, so that, like the monks of the Venerable Chariton, we too may be guided toward finding Christ. For, of course, this is the entire purpose of the spiritual life and of spiritual guidance: to be united with Christ, that is, to live in such a way that the grace of Holy Baptism and Holy Chrismation becomes active within us.

It is not possible, however, for God to have endowed someone with the gift of spiritual guidance if that person has not escaped the sea of the passions, if he has not overcome egoism and its offshoots, and this by the grace of God. The Venerable Chariton was a true Elder, and not a “faux bijou” Elder, as a contemporary hierarch has very aptly characterized such a person, because, strengthened precisely by the Spirit of God, he conquered the spiritual Goliath, the evil powers. The Hymnographer, in other words, wishing to emphasize the Venerable One’s great ascetic struggles, compares him to David. And just as David, at a young age, but with tremendous courage and by the power of God, defeated the giant Goliath, so also the Venerable Chariton: despite the devil’s seemingly immense power, he defeated him, because, on the one hand, he had the determination to do so, and on the other, he was strengthened by the almighty and all-ruling Lord.

“You cast down, after the manner of David, O Venerable One, the spiritual power of the foreign Goliath, through the full armor of the Spirit.”

Such a man, then, like the Venerable Chariton, a genuine servant of God, with an ascetic disposition and true love for his fellow man, is indeed graced by God: “the graces of the Kingdom of Christ crowned you, Chariton, with an athlete’s crown,” and he functions for people of good will quite literally as a “magnet,” drawing them toward himself. It is not his human qualifications, his knowledge, his possible refinement, or his good manners. It is the grace of God that attracts people. And this means that people approach such a person with the certainty that, in approaching him, they are approaching God.

If this certainty does not exist, if people approach the Elder only to remain with him, without passing through him to the Savior Christ, then, on the one hand, these people are spiritually afflicted, for their “Elder” becomes their god, and, on the other hand, if this Elder does not reject the “halo” that people place around him, he is not a genuine Elder. He belongs to the “false elders,” who constitute one of the scourges of the Church.

The Venerable Chariton becomes our guide. Christ lived within him, and therefore, having become transparent, he revealed Him alone.

“You, O Venerable One, were clearly revealed, O all-blessed Chariton, as a spotless mirror of light, shining forth from the heavenly beacon.”
 

Let us pray that God will always raise up such Elders, transparent before God and man, such as our own age has also known, for example, Elder Porphyrios, Elder Paisios, Elder Iakovos, Elder Ephraim, Elder Sophrony, and others.

But the most important thing is that all of us should strive, in the manner of the Venerable Chariton, to become little Elders. That is, we should live God in such a way that God may be revealed through us. Otherwise, we will all be deceived by the machinations of the Evil One.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.