The Lives of the Saints
1. VENERABLE MARTYR EUSTRATIOS OF THE CAVES
He was very wealthy, but moved by the love of Christ he distributed all his possessions for the sake of Christ, entered the Monastery of the Caves, and was tonsured a monk. When the Polovtsians invaded Kiev in 1097, they plundered the monastery, slew many Christians and monks, and sold Eustratios along with certain other faithful into slavery to a Jew in the city of Cherson. That Jew mocked the faith of Christ and forced the Christians to convert to the Jewish faith. Seeing that there was no other way out, they all resolved to starve themselves to death rather than renounce the true faith. Eustratios encouraged the Christians in this resolve. And they all died of hunger — some after three days, some after four, others after seven. Trained in fasting, Eustratios alone survived and endured fourteen days without food. The enraged Jew, wrathful that the money with which he had bought the slaves was lost, took vengeance on Eustratios by nailing him to a cross. But Eustratios from the cross gave thanks to God and prophesied to the Jew a bitter and speedy death. In his fury the Jew pierced him with a spear. And so the man of God gave up his soul to his Savior. His body was cast into the sea, but it floated up, and great miracles occurred over that martyric body. Soon afterward the Byzantine emperor ordered that the Jews in Cherson be punished for their wickedness toward the Christians. And that tormentor was hanged on a tree and received the reward of Judas.
2. VENERABLE HILARION THE NEW, CONFESSOR
He was the abbot of the Monastery of Pelekite near the Hellespont. He shone like the sun with the spirit of God, and healed the sick and drove out evil spirits. In the time of Leo the Armenian, the iconoclast persecution arose, in which this man of God also suffered. Together with forty of his monks he was sent into captivity near Ephesus, and there he died in prison in the year 754, and was translated to the Kingdom of Christ.
3. VENERABLE HESYCHIUS OF JERUSALEM
A presbyter and profound theologian. A disciple of Saint Gregory the Theologian. His celebrated work On Sobriety and Prayer ought to be read. He was a contemporary also of Saint Euthymios the Great. He fell asleep in the Lord peacefully around the year 434.
4. HOLY MARTYR BOYAN, PRINCE OF BULGARIA
He was the son of Krutogon and grandson of Grubosh. He confessed the faith of Christ while his brother Milomir was a pagan. By his brother's command he was beheaded for the true faith in the year 827.
5. THE WONDROUS EVENT OF TAXIOT, A SOLDIER FROM CARTHAGE
He had spent his whole life in grievous sins, but at last repented, left military service, and lived a life pleasing to God. Going out one time with his wife to his estate near the city, he committed adultery with the wife of his farmhand, and immediately afterward a serpent bit him and he died. He was dead for six hours, then rose up, and only on the fourth day did he speak, and recounted how he had passed through various toll-houses until he came to the toll-house of fornication. There he fell into the dark dwelling of demons, from which he was brought out through the intercession of an angel and sent back into his body to repent of his last sin. And he repented for forty days, going from church to church and beating his head against doors and thresholds. He wept continually, recounting the terrible torments in which sinners live in that world, and besought people not to sin and to repent of sins already committed. On the fortieth day he joyfully departed to the Kingdom of the merciful God.
Hymn of Praise
TAXIOT
Through all of Carthage Taxiot wept aloud,
And told to every man the horrors he had seen:
— O brethren, what terrors my soul beheld!
O the fetid abyss into which my soul descended!
O hideous monsters, and filth, and shrieking!
O tears shed without weeping, and wailing, and howling!
Not six hours, I thought, but a hundred years
Had I been an inhabitant of that infernal world!
Until a bright angel stood surety for me,
Lifted me up and set me near Carthage,
Saying, I must once again put on my body
And repent of my last transgression.
When I looked upon the body, the stinking corpse,
My strength left me, and my joy was extinguished:
— O how shall I enter that fetid carcass?
How shall I clothe myself in that repellent carrion?
O how could I have dwelt in it until now?
To have destroyed my soul for the pleasure of that refuse?
O bright angel, spare me this torment,
Drive me no more back into that shameful filth!
The angel was angered at my cry:
— He who sins in the body repents in the body!
Thus he said sharply and added this:
— Either back to the body, or back to hell!
When he spoke of hell, I fell into silent anguish.
Forty days I have for repentance,
And for instruction and warning to all.
Repent, brethren, repent quickly,
Rush not with your sins into hell.
Repent quickly, repent now,
For repentance will not be given to you there.
Taxiot tells you what he saw with his own eyes —
O the fetid abyss into which my soul descended!
“He who sins in the body repents in the body! Either back to the body, or back to hell!”
Reflection
Speaking of a certain handsome youth of twenty years named George, who in spite of his beauty and youth, living in the midst of a vain world, had come to know the path of salvation and had been illumined with spiritual wisdom, Saint Simeon the New Theologian concludes with these words: "Do you understand how youth is no hindrance, nor old age of any benefit, if a man lacks reason and the fear of God?" What did youth hinder in the Apostle John, that he should believe in Christ the Lord? And what did old age profit the elders of the Jews when they were blind of mind and in their blindness condemned the Son of God to death? Nothing. Youth is no hindrance to young men in our own day, that they should give their faith and love to Christ, Who created them out of love. And old age profits the old men of our day nothing if their souls are poisoned with malice toward Christ. A young body and an old body are nothing other than a new garment and an old garment of the soul. And each garment alike can conceal a healthy or a sick soul. And our goal is: a healthy and pure soul.
“A young body and an old body are nothing other than a new garment and an old garment of the soul.”
Contemplation
Contemplate the Lord Jesus in death, namely:
1. How all creation was shaken when He breathed His last, as if in protest against the criminal race of men;
2. How the earth quaked, the sun was darkened, the stones were rent, the veil of the Temple was torn, the graves were opened.
Homily
on the horror of nature at the death of the Lord
And the earth did quake, and the rocks rent (Matt. 27:51)
What a dreadful rebuke to men! Dead nature recognized Him Whom men could not recognize. All the voiceless creation stirred itself and began in its own way and in its own tongue to protest. The voiceless earth quaked — that is its tongue. The stones were rent — that is their tongue. The sun withheld its light — that is its tongue. Every creature protests in its own way. For every creature is obedient, as once to Adam in Paradise. And every creature recognizes Him, as Adam in Paradise. How it is that the voiceless creatures recognized Him and were obedient to Him, we do not know. It is some inner sense of creation, which came to them from the word of God by which they were made. And that sense of voiceless creatures is worth more than the human reason darkened by sin. Of all that exists, nothing is more blind than human reason darkened by sin. For it not only does not see that for which it was created to see, but sees what is contrary to being, contrary to God, contrary to truth. These are degrees of blindness below blindness — numbers below zero. This is man fallen below the level of the created world. For while the priests of God in Jerusalem did not recognize their God, the storms and winds recognized Him; the plants and animals recognized Him; the seas and rivers recognized Him, and the earth, and the stones, and the stars, and the sun — and even the demons themselves. What shame for men!
The earth quaked, the stones were rent, and the sun was darkened — as much from wrath as from grief. All nature was grieved over the sufferings of the Son of God, over Whose sufferings the priests of Jerusalem rejoiced. And protest, and grief, and — fear. All creation was terrified at the death of Him Who had called it forth from nothing to rejoice in being. It was as if it desired to say: with whom are we now left, and who will sustain us when the Sustainer of All has breathed His last?
O brethren, let us be ashamed before this protest, this grief, and this fear of voiceless creation! And with repentance let us cry out to the Lord the Conqueror: forgive, O merciful Lord, forgive, for truly whenever we sin and offend Thee, we know not what we do. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“Dead nature recognized Him Whom men could not recognize. The dead saints proved themselves more sensitive than the living sinners.”