Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: November 7

 

The Month of November

The 7th Day

69. Apostates from the Faith Are Strictly Punished by God

(From the Life of Holy Martyr Hieron)

As is well known, it sometimes happens among you, brethren, that some of you, either by listening too long to the ravings of the schismatics, or by being enticed by their wealth and beguiled by their various promises, abandon the Orthodox faith and join the schism. What do you think? Will such apostates escape punishment for their apostasy, or not? Know that they will never escape it, and the Lord will strictly call them to account. For examples show that He deals so severely with apostates from the faith that He even punishes them with death. To convince you all the more of this, we present the following examples.

In the Life of Holy Martyr Hieron, it is written that one of the Christians, for confessing the name of Christ, was first mercilessly beaten at the command of the persecutor Lysias and then thrown into prison. Growing weak there from his wounds and fearing the tortures that still awaited him, this man decided to renounce Christ. He secretly summoned an attendant who was in possession of a list of Christians condemned to torture and earnestly begged him to strike his name from the list, promising him a rich reward in return. Because of this promise, the attendant immediately removed the Christian's name from the list and released him from prison during the night. And how did it end? As soon as the former Christian came out of the prison, he immediately fell down and died. “And thus,” it is said, “he both lost his life and was deprived of the martyr's crown.”

Another example. On one occasion, the same persecutor Lysias ordered forty martyrs to be placed overnight in the Lake of Sebaste, which was near the city of Sebaste. They were guarded by soldiers and a prison guard. At the same time, the persecutor ordered a bathhouse to be heated not far from them, so that anyone wishing to escape death by agreeing to renounce Christ might find refuge there. Lysias hoped that the martyrs would not endure this new, prolonged torment, for the night was extremely cold, and the entire lake was covered with ice. Indeed, one of them did not remain steadfast to the end: he came out of the lake and went to the warm bathhouse, but as soon as he touched its threshold, he fell down dead. In the middle of the night, the prison guard saw that those standing in the lake were illuminated by heavenly light and that thirty-nine crowns were descending upon their heads. From this number, he understood that the one who had come out of the lake and died had been excluded from the company of the martyrs and deprived of his reward from God. (November Menaion, March 9)

Therefore, brethren, you see that apostasy from the faith does not go unpunished. Let our own apostates, then, know that their apostasy, too, will not go unpunished. Indeed, it certainly will not, for the Lord Himself also says concerning this: “...Whoever denies Me before men will be denied before the Angels of God” (Luke 12:9). This means that apostates will not only be punished in this life but also in the life to come. And how will they be punished? At the Judgment, the Lord will turn His face away from them, and they will suffer shame before thousands upon thousands of Angels and men. And what then? Then, as the word of God says, “they will be seized with great fear and will be astonished... and, repenting and groaning in anguish of spirit, they will say within themselves:... ‘We have strayed from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness did not shine for us, and the sun did not rise upon us. We were filled with works of lawlessness and destruction... and we did not know the way of the Lord. What benefit did our arrogance bring us...? We have been consumed by our lawlessness’” (Wisdom 5:6–13). They will speak thus, but it will already be too late, for after death there is no repentance. Thereafter, the wrath and anger of the Lord will await them, as the Apostle also says: “But to those who are stubborn and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—wrath and anger” (Romans 2:8). O Lord, deliver us all from this dreadful state, and turn the hearts of those who have departed from You back to You! Amen.

Questions for Discussion 69:

1. Why did one of the Christians decide to renounce Christ when, at the command of the persecutor Lysias, he had been beaten and thrown into prison?

2. What was the Christian deprived of when he persuaded the attendant to strike his name from the list of those condemned to torture by promising him a rich reward?

3. What did the prison guard see in the Lake of Sebaste in the middle of the night?

4. What was one of the Forty Martyrs in the Lake of Sebaste deprived of when he went to the warm bathhouse?

5. What is no longer possible after death?

 

Source: The Cheti-Minei: Homilies for Every Day of the Year (Book 1: September, October, November) by Archpriest Viktor Guryev. Publication of the Russian Panteleimon Monastery on Mount Athos, 1896. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.