Holy Apostle Timothy in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

Saint Timothy was from the city of Lystra. His father was a pagan, and his mother was a Jewess named Eunice. He became a disciple of the Apostle Paul and became his co-worker and a preacher of the divine gospel. He also went with Saint John, the especially beloved disciple of the Lord, and was appointed by the Apostle Paul himself as Bishop of Ephesus.

When Saint John was cast ashore by the sea (as Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, also recounts in his writings) and returned to Ephesus, and later was led by Emperor Domitian into exile on the island of Patmos, the blessed Timothy took his place in the episcopacy of the Ephesians.

Now at one time, when the pagans, during a certain ancestral festival of theirs called the “Katagogion,” in the city of the Ephesians, were holding idols in their hands, placing some of them upon themselves as masks, singing with them, and attacking men and women in a robber-like manner and committing murders, the blessed Timothy could not bear to witness the impropriety of their actions. Instead, he rebuked their vain delusion and exhorted them to abandon their shameful deeds. As a result, they killed him, attacking him with clubs. Afterward, his holy relic was transferred to Constantinople and placed in the Church of the Holy Apostles, where his Synaxis was celebrated.

Reflection on the Saturday Before Theophany (St. Theophan the Recluse)

 

Reflection on the Saturday Before Theophany

(1 Tim. 3:14–4:5; Matt. 3:1–11)

By St. Theophan the Recluse

“The house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).

Therefore, we have no need to cast our eyes here and there, trying to see whether there might be truth somewhere else. It is near. Be in the Church, hold fast to everything that she holds, and you will be in the truth; you will possess the truth and live according to it and in it, and as a result you will be filled with life by the truth.

January: Day 22: Holy Apostle Timothy

 

January: Day 22:
Holy Apostle Timothy
 
(On Obedience to Spiritual Mentors)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. When the Holy Apostle Paul preached in the city of Lystra and performed a miracle there, healing a lame man, many of the inhabitants of that city believed in the Lord, including one Jewish woman. She, having received the Holy Apostle into her home, asked him to take her son as one of his disciples. The youth was called Timothy, whose memory is celebrated today. The Apostle Paul gave Timothy instructions; leaving Lystra, he entrusted him to other Christians and then, seeing that the youth was filled with faith and love for the Lord, he took him with him.

From that time on, Saint Timothy became the faithful companion of the Holy Apostle Paul and his beloved disciple. He labored with him and suffered persecution, visited Ephesus, Corinth, and many other cities and regions of Greece and Asia Minor with him, and zealously helped him spread the word of God. Sometimes, the Apostle Paul, fully trusting his beloved disciple, sent him to newly converted people to strengthen them in the faith. He was sent with such a mission to the Thessalonians and Corinthians. To Timothy himself, the Holy Apostle Paul wrote two epistles, filled with love and wise teachings. “But you, O man of God,” he says among other things, “flee the love of money, and strive to make progress in righteousness, piety, faith, love, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Tim. 6:11, 12).

2003 Pastoral Encyclical for Christmas (Metr. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

Pastoral Encyclical

Sacred Metropolis of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

Christmas 2003

My beloved brethren,

And again, in the winter atmosphere of these days, we celebrate the love and mercy of God who became man, so that we might become sons by the grace of God. All the hymns of the Church, with which the feast of the Nativity of Christ is celebrated and which were written by holy men, who experienced in their personal lives the incarnation of the Son and Word of God, exude this fragrance of God's love, mercy and philanthropy.

In this climate of God’s love and mercy, the words of the Apostle Paul are also heard: “And without controversy great is the mystery of piety: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory” (1 Tim. 3:16).

The Apostle Paul mentions these words in a unity about what the life of the Bishop and more generally of the Clergy should be, what his work is, what his preaching should be and what the Church is. Ultimately, the work of the Clergyman is to continually preach the great mystery of salvation, which is that God was revealed in human flesh, justified by the Holy Spirit, appeared to angels, preached to the nations, believed in by the world, and ascended into glory. And this preaching was the central core of the teaching of the Holy Apostles and of the Church in general.

Saint Timothy the Apostle Resource Page

 

St. Timothy the Apostle (Feast Day - January 22)

Verses

Adorned with a wreath of divine eros Timothy,
You were beaten with clubs that painted the earth with your blood.
On the twenty-second your spirit was raised Timothy.

 

Holy Apostle Timothy of the Seventy 

 

Holy Apostle Timothy as a Model for our Lives

 

Holy Apostle Timothy in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church 

 

Introductory Homily on First Timothy (St. John Chrysostom)

 

Why Did Saint Paul Write a Second Epistle to Timothy? (St. John Chrysostom) 

 

Skull of the Apostle Timothy To Travel To Russia From Italy