By Fr. George Dorbarakis
1. The Holy Apostle Thomas, who was from Judea and by profession a fisherman, known as one of the twelve disciples of the Lord and having the reputation of being the doubting disciple, since after His Resurrection he asked to touch the Lord in order to be convinced, after receiving the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, went and preached the word of God to the Medes and Parthians, the Persians and the Indians. While he was in the eastern parts of India, he was arrested by King Smidaeus, because Azanes, the king’s son, his wife Tertia, and his daughters Mygdonia and Narka had believed in Christ through his preaching and had been baptized by the Apostle. For this reason, he was handed over to five soldiers, who took him up a mountain, where they pierced him through with their lances. Thus he departed to the Lord.
2. The first thing upon which the Service of our Church dwells today, on the feast of the Holy Apostle Thomas, is his “faithful faithlessness.” The Hymnographer recalls the fact that the Apostle, because he was absent from the gathering of the disciples after the Lord’s Crucifixion, evidently disappointed by all that had happened and shut away in his house, did not believe the words of the disciples that they had seen the risen Lord. He had to come to this gathering, that is, come to the Church, so that there, eight days after the day of the Resurrection, the Lord would appear to him as well. The Lord called him to touch His wounds, with the result that he confessed: “My Lord and my God.” Thus it was demonstrated that the Apostle Thomas was not an unbeliever in the modern sense of the term, that is, one who has erased God from his life because he has directed himself solely toward this world and the attractions it offers. He was “unbelieving,” as were the other disciples of the Lord, yet he struggled with his unbelief and overcame it, because he had the humility to emerge from his self-enclosure and open himself toward others, to rejoin the body of the rest of the disciples. And this opening of himself brought the surprise and the miracle: the presence of the risen Jesus. From that time onward, his “faithful faithlessness” became a support for all the faithful, and this is what our Church, among other things, hymns: “By your faithful faithlessness, you confirmed the faithful, that He is God and Lord of all creation...”
The touching of the risen Lord by Thomas, however, becomes an occasion for the Hymnographer not only to emphasize the transformation of his unbelief into faith and the support he would thereafter provide to all the faithful, but also to understand the theological depth of his thought from that time onward. We mean that, just as Saint John the Theologian was initiated into the things of theology, as the hymnography of the feast of Saint John notes, when he reclined upon the breast of the Lord at the Secret Supper, in the same way the Apostle Thomas was initiated into the mystery of Christ’s presence when he touched the Lord. And this initiation took place in the manner in which a sponge “soaks up” water. “Touching the side of the Master, O thrice-blessed one, you apprehended the highest of good things; for, like a sponge the waters, from there you drew the fountain of good things and eternal life.” The Apostle Thomas, then, as well as the other Apostles, were taught by God: their unique personal relationship with Christ made them knowers of God and His Apostles in the world.
We also do not want to leave unmentioned something that is considered especially timely in our age, prompted by the Apostle Thomas. The Saint became a missionary in various countries, and especially in the land of the Indians, where he was martyred. “You illumined the whole land of the Indians, O most sacred and God-seeing Apostle.” The poet, moreover, sees him as a radiant ray, sent forth by the great Sun, Christ, in order, with the light of Christ, to drive away the dark delusion of the inhabitants of India. “Christ, the great Sun, sends you forth as a radiant ray filled with light into India, O initiate, vigorously driving away the gloomy delusion... and enlightening the peoples.” We do not know what followed, since faith in Christ in that land diminished or even disappeared completely. What matters is that these people, for the most part, are ignorant of Christ and therefore live in the darkness of “other spirits.” Yet, as Eldress Gabrielia (Papagiannis), who lived among them for a considerable time, used to say, “there are people who, with a joyful disposition, await the message of Christ.” Thus, the spark of the risen Christ is at work within them, and perhaps there will come a time when this spark becomes an enormous flame that will bring forth many saints.
But this is not our main point. What we consider tragic in our time is the fact that it has become, as we say, “fashionable” for people who come from the faith of that country, entirely foreign to the Lord Jesus, to come and teach in Greece and in other European and non-European countries their own teachings, as though they were missionaries of salvation and redemption. Even more tragic is this—for one might say that they are simply doing their job—that there are “Christians” who, having had no taste whatsoever of the grace of Christ, turn to these people, even considering them to be new Messiahs. The utter depths to which we have fallen! Failure and darkness returning as “hope” and “light.” What would the Apostle Thomas have to say—and what will he say! How many tears must he shed over our wretched condition! May God have mercy on us all.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
