February: Day 19: Holy Apostle Philemon

February: Day 19:
Holy Apostle Philemon*
 
(On the Attitude of Servants to Masters)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Apostle Paul in his epistle to Philemon, a rich and dignified man who lived in Asia Minor, in the region of Phrygia, whose memory is celebrated today, asks him to accept his slave Onesimus, who had fled from him, as a beloved brother (Phil. 1:16). Without any hesitation, Philemon fulfilled the request of the Apostle Paul. Philemon not only forgave his slave for his unauthorized flight, but even granted him freedom. Philemon did such a magnanimous deed without a doubt because he was a true Christian. It is known about him that he himself preached the Christian doctrine and was numbered among the Seventy Apostles.

February: Day 15: Holy Apostle Onesimus

February: Day 15:
Holy Apostle Onesimus
 
(On the Attitude of Masters to Servants)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. In Asia Minor, in the region of Phrygia, there lived a rich and dignified man named Philemon. Having heard the preaching of the apostles, he converted to Christianity, and then he himself was numbered among the seventy apostles. He had a slave Onesimus, later the Holy Apostle Onesimus, one of the seventy, whose memory is celebrated today. Having committed some offense against his master and fearing punishment, he fled to Rome, where at that time the Apostle Paul was preaching the gospel. Onesimus followed him; he received baptism from him and did not abandon the Apostle even in his imprisonment. The Apostle Paul came to love his new follower very much, “our faithful and beloved brother,” as he calls him in his epistle to the Colossians. At the same time he wrote an epistle to Philemon, Onesimus’s master, and asked him to forgive the latter. “I beseech you,” he wrote to Philemon, “for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains... I am sending him back. You therefore receive him, that is, my own heart." This is how the Apostle spoke about Onesimus. Philemon not only forgave Onesimus, but also set him free. Then Onesimus began to serve the Apostle Paul with even greater zeal and after his death he himself began to preach the gospel in Spain, Greece, Asia Minor and, already in his old age, was appointed Bishop of Ephesus after Timothy and John the Theologian.