By Fr. George Dorbarakis
1. Venerable Kyriakos lived during the reign of Theodosius the Great and was from the city of Corinth, in whose Church his father, John, was a presbyter. His mother was named Eudokia, and he was the nephew of Bishop Peter, while he himself served in the rank of Reader. When he was eighteen years old, he went to Jerusalem and became a monk under Venerable Euthymios the Great. As a monk, he demonstrated great and intense asceticism, rebuked those who held the erroneous doctrines of Origen, performed many miracles through the power of Christ, and reached an extremely advanced old age. He was gentle and sociable as a man, while by divine revelation he foretold many things that were to come to pass. He was large in stature, yet neither wild nor repulsive, but gracious in his manner, without suffering any bodily disability or illness as the years passed. For some years he also guided the Lavra of Saint Chariton.
2. Today, as we seek the intercessions of Venerable Kyriakos, we receive the grace of the intercessions of Venerable Chariton, whose feast we celebrated only yesterday. This is not merely because his feast is so close to today's, but chiefly because Venerable Kyriakos was the successor of Venerable Chariton, the one who, as the Synaxarion relates, guided the flock of the monastery founded by Elder Chariton after his repose. Thus, for those who honor it according to the manner of our Church, the grace of today's feast comes to us with double intensity. The Hymnographer emphasizes this as well:
“Standing in glory before God the Almighty, O God-proclaimer Kyriakos, together with divine Chariton, unceasingly remember those who celebrate your light-bearing memory, O Saint.”
And what we said yesterday about the gift of spiritual guidance that adorned Venerable Chariton, we repeat today concerning Venerable Kyriakos. He too was an Elder, in the way our Church understands the term, under, of course, the same conditions as Venerable Chariton: that he had become filled with the Spirit of God, because he struggled in praxis (practice) to keep the holy commandments of Christ, and because in this way he purified his heart from the mire of the passions. “He made his dwelling within himself the whole grace of the Spirit,” for “he added theoria to praxis.”
The Hymnography of our Church insists particularly on this last point once again. That is, if someone does not struggle in praxis (practice) in the spiritual life, if, by the grace of God, he does not desire to transform the passions of his heart, so that, once purified, it may shine forth the rays of the Holy Spirit, he cannot be considered a Christian, nor can his prayer and his glorification of God be regarded as genuine. In other words, the turning toward God is genuine, and there is true worship of God, when a person is in a state of purification from his passions.
“The sun trembled before your self-restraint and steadfastness, O Venerable One, for it was unable at all to see you become angry for many years, nor partaking of food during the day, while with strength you sang hymns amid unceasing vigils: Glory to Your power, O Lover of mankind.”
The hymns of our Church, however, point out something else of exceptional importance: Venerable Kyriakos, having purified the eye of his soul through self-restraint and therefore being illumined by the Spirit of God — for the Lord, after all, has promised: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” — was able to distinguish error from truth, the genuine teaching of Christ from heresy. Although Venerable Kyriakos was not considered a teacher of the Church, nevertheless, because of his sanctified soul, and certainly also because of his personal study for the benefit of his soul, he guided the faithful in overcoming the error of Origenism.
“You rebuked the deception of those who held the erroneous doctrines of Origen, O Venerable One, through valiant struggles against the disciples of the babbler and myth-maker.”
His case reminds us of Saint Spyridon, Saint Nicholas, and other Saints who, without possessing the ability to confront heretics on a theoretical level, nevertheless clearly perceived their error and rebuked it with the utmost severity. And, as we said, this observation is important because it also shows us today that when we are rightly within the Church, with at least some spiritual life founded upon the commandments of Christ, then the Spirit of God works within us in such a way as to protect us from error.
Unfortunately, however, if various heretics have increased today, if the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Protestants, the followers of the so-called New Age, with its manifestations of neo-paganism, and others are spreading, conquering the souls of people, it is because the connection of the faithful with the Church has become weakened. Thus, with their souls unguarded by the grace of God, they easily become prey to the Evil One and his various instruments.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
