By Fr. George Dorbarakis
1. These Holy Martyrs of Christ were physicians by profession and lived during the reign of Emperor Decius and under Valerius, proconsul of Asia. Saint Karpos was the Bishop of Thyateira, while Papylos was a deacon ordained by Saint Karpos. They were arrested by the governor because of their faith in Christ. When questioned, they confessed the name of their Master, Christ, before all. Because they refused to sacrifice to the idols, despite being compelled to do so, they were bound tightly to horses and made to walk in front of a chariot, thus being dragged toward Sardis. There they were hung on a wooden frame and scraped. At that time, Saint Agathodoros, who was a servant of the Saints and had been following them, was strengthened by an angel of God and also confessed Christ. As a result, he was hung up and beaten very severely with rods. Thus, through these blows, he surrendered his spirit to the Lord.
Saint Karpos, while hanging there, smiled. The governor then asked him:
“Why did you laugh, Karpos?”
“I saw the glory of my Lord and rejoiced,” he replied.
Papylos, meanwhile, was bound to four stakes and raised aloft, and they began throwing stones at him. Yet he remained unharmed by everything they did. After this, the Saints were led away together and dragged while lying on thorns, as they were beaten from above, with the intention of finally throwing them to the wild beasts as food. At that point, a lion, roaring and speaking with a human voice, prevented the persecutors from carrying out such cruelty. But they stopped up their ears and fastened the Martyrs to iron grates, then threw them into a blazing furnace. There, Agathonike, the sister of Saint Papylos, prayed and entered the furnace with them. However, a heavy rain fell and extinguished the fire, and the Saints remained unburned and unharmed. The persecutors then beheaded them with a sword.
2. Our Church never ceases, as it celebrates holy martyrs almost every day, to emphasize two principal points drawn from their martyrdom. First, their martyrdom is the path that leads to the crowning of the Saints. Christ Himself, who bestows the grace of martyrdom and strengthens the martyrs through every stage of their sufferings, also stands at the end, waiting with a crown in His hand to crown them as victors. Of course, this image is to be understood symbolically. The crown is the Lord Himself, His complete union with His own. Yet the Hymnographer draws this image chiefly from the Apostle Paul, who, toward the end of his life, noted that, after all he had endured and accomplished for the sake of the Gospel of Christ, “there is laid up for him the crown of righteousness, which the Lord God will award to him.”
The Hymnographer therefore presents the martyrdom of the Saints in precisely this way today: “Having completed the course of martyrdom, Karpos and Papylos, you received the crown of incorruption.” At the same time, however, this good Hymnographer reminds us that this path of martyrdom, which is crowned by the Lord, is not to be understood solely as a path of blood, but also as a path of ascetic struggle: “You gave wings to your minds toward the heavenly path, first through ascetic discipline and now through blood.”
This is precisely what the Fathers of our Church point out: ascetic discipline, as the struggle to keep the commandments of Christ, is in reality also a kind of martyrdom, the martyrdom of the conscience. And the person who undergoes this kind of martyrdom readily receives the grace of the other kind as well, martyrdom through the shedding of blood. Thus, no one is crowned by the Lord without passing through the course of martyrdom, whether through an ascetic life or through the shedding of blood. “Through many tribulations you must enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Second, through the martyrdom of the Saints on each occasion, our Church continually emphasizes that their martyrdom is Christian because, amid their torments, they preserved their love even for their enemies. The Hymnographer expresses this directly today: “Having taken up the saying of the Master, wise ones, you earnestly beseech Him on behalf of those who slay you.” You kept the word of the Lord, wise martyrs, that is, “pray for those who mistreat and persecute you,” and for this reason you pray to God on behalf of those who are killing you.
We have written this repeatedly: it is not martyrdom in and of itself that saves a martyr. Many have suffered terribly for many different reasons. Rather, it is martyrdom that possesses the grace of God, so that the martyr does not lose his love even for his enemies. Why? Because where there is love, there is God. When love is lost, even with a thousand justifications, His presence is lost as well.
Our ecclesiastical poet, however, offers many other points from which to contemplate the martyrdom of Saints Karpos and Papylos. For example, he cannot fail to mention Saint Karpos’s vision of God, nor the fact that God wished to give the persecutors an opportunity to repent by causing even the lions to speak with human voices. These are astonishing events, which show us very clearly that, in the face of the Saints’ martyrdoms, we find ourselves confronted with realities beyond the natural order, indeed, with the presence of the mystery of God.
Saint Karpos, then, was a beholder of God. His vision, in which he saw the glory of God at the very hour of his martyrdom, directly recalls Saint Stephen, the Holy Protomartyr and Archdeacon, whom the Hymnographer does not name explicitly. Just as Saint Stephen “saw the heavens opened and Jesus Christ standing at the right hand of the Father,” so too did Saint Karpos. This was a special blessing from God to the Martyr, intended both to strengthen him and to support us, the faithful. Our God is always present in whatever we endure. Even amid our sufferings, He enables us to smile. We saw this in Saint Karpos.
On the other hand, even wild beasts acquire a voice in order to serve God’s plan. Only “human beings” fail to see and understand. This episode also recalls how God instructed His prophet Balaam by causing a donkey to speak. On that occasion, however, the prophet obeyed. Sadly, in the martyrdom of the Saints, the “demonism” was so great that, although the persecutors heard the lions speaking, they simply stopped up their ears.
How exceedingly mild the prophet’s words sound when measured against the human condition: “Man was compared with the senseless beasts and became like them.” Human beings often become far worse than even the fiercest animals. Animals lack reason and will not be called to account for what they do; they act by instinct. But what of the human being?
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
