By Fr. George Dorbarakis
1. Saint Charitina lived during the reign of Diocletian, when Dometius was Count, while she herself was the slave of a certain Claudius. The Count, having heard that she was a Christian, wrote to her master, ordering him to send her to him for examination. Her master, who was also a Christian, was deeply grieved, to such an extent that he put on sackcloth and mourned for her. But the Saint consoled him and said to him: ‘My lord, do not grieve, but rejoice, because I shall be regarded as an acceptable sacrifice to God, both for my own shortcomings and for yours.’ Then Claudius, having said to her, ‘Remember me before the heavenly King,’ sent her to the Count. When she was brought there and confessed her faith in Christ, they shaved her head and poured burning coals upon it. Then they bound her to a heavy stone and threw her into the sea. But she, by the grace of God, came forth and appeared before the Count. And after she had been subjected to many other punishments as well, they pulled out the nails of her hands and feet, and thus she gave up her spirit to God.
2. We have noted on another occasion that, according to the hymnography of our Church, every martyrdom suffered by a martyr of Christ corresponds to something analogous on the spiritual level. That is, through the sufferings the martyr endures, by which he participates in the Cross of Christ in deed, he strikes the devil and his instruments, while he himself is filled with the graces of heaven, receives the crowns that the Lord gives to His faithful servants, and experiences, in other words, the other side of the Cross - the Resurrection. We see this spiritual reality in Saint Charitina as well: whatever she suffered had a corresponding spiritual result. “You crushed the jaws of the lions, O much-suffering one, bearing the crushing of your own jaws; you bravely endured the tearing out of your nails, uprooting the terrible boasts of deception; and you were cast into the depths of the sea, making the wickedness of the evil adversary sink beneath the waters.” Thus, if the devil and his wicked followers were able to see the positive outcome of a martyr’s sufferings, they would immediately stop his martyrdom, because they could not bear to see those sufferings become a “boomerang” against them. And the most striking proof of this truth was certainly the Cross of our Lord: through His Passion we were freed and redeemed. But it is well known: the Evil One and all his wicked collaborators are not distinguished by their intelligence. Wicked they are, and so are all the schemes they employ, yes. But they are not intelligent in the true sense of the term: they are unable to see things in their depth and discern what is truly in their own interest as well.
The Hymnographer, of course, beyond the above, does not miss the opportunity to make use of the Saint’s very name in order to highlight two points which he considers very important. First, that Saint Charitina was filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, which graced her with the grace of martyrdom, so that she might then have the power to grace us also through her intercessions before the Lord. “The grace of the All-Holy Spirit having graced you,” “By your graces, O Charitina, grace my mind, you who were graced by holy struggles.” Indeed, the martyrdom of a Saint is considered a grace of God, by which he acquires tremendous boldness before God in order to help us also, we Christians who still remain in the world. This means that just anyone cannot endure such sufferings, not, as we have explained on another occasion, in the sense that other people who are strangers to faith in Christ do not also endure them, but in the sense that a martyr of Christ endures them without losing his love for his enemy. As the Apostle Paul also says: “To us it has been granted not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer on His behalf.”
Second, that the Saint was filled with the joy given by the Spirit of God. “As one named for joy, you entered joyfully into the heavenly bridal chamber, O all-revered one.” “The grace of the All-Holy Spirit… brightened you with joy-producing locks and strengthened you to inherit eternal joy.” The Saint, named for joy, entered joyfully into the heavenly bridal chamber. The Holy Spirit, through her martyrdoms, caused her to rejoice in various ways and strengthened her to inherit eternal joy as well. As we said, the Hymnographer makes use of her name to remind us that joy is characteristic of the Christian. Not, however, joy as it is understood by the world fallen into sin: as amusement through the pleasures of the world, as the draining away of the delights of this present life alone, which most often nevertheless leave in the human heart the bitterness of death. Rather, it is the joy that comes as the result of a person’s perseverance and faithfulness to the will of God. This is the experience of our Church and of all the Saints: do you wish to rejoice with the deep and unshakable joy that fills the human heart, even through afflictions? You have only to keep the will of God, and especially the commandment of love. It is a challenge which, unless someone experiences it for himself, he will never taste. “For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy…”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
