The Lives of the Saints
1. VENERABLE JOSEPH THE HYMNOGRAPHER
He was born in Sicily to pious and virtuous parents, Plotinos and Agathia. After the death of his parents he moved to Thessalonica, where he was tonsured a monk. As a monk he was an example to all in fasting, extreme abstinence, unceasing prayer, psalmody, vigil, and labor. The Bishop of Thessalonica ordained him a hieromonk. The renowned Gregory the Decapolite, visiting Thessalonica, came to love Joseph with his whole soul and heart on account of his rare character, and took him with him to his monastery in Constantinople. When the flame of the iconoclast heresy flared up again under Leo the Armenian, this Joseph was dispatched to Rome, to summon the Pope and the Roman Church to struggle for the true Faith. But along the way pirates seized him and brought him to Crete, where the heretics kept him in prison for six years. Joseph rejoiced that he had been accounted worthy to suffer for Christ, and gave thanks to God for it unceasingly, regarding the iron chains upon himself as ornaments of gold. In the sixth year, on the Nativity of Christ, in the morning, the wicked Emperor Leo was slain at Matins in the church. At that very moment Saint Nicholas appeared to Joseph in prison and said to him: "Arise and follow me!" Joseph felt himself lifted into the air, and suddenly found himself before Constantinople. At his arrival all the Orthodox rejoiced. He composed canons and stichera for many saints. He possessed the gift of clairvoyance, on account of which Patriarch Photius appointed him as spiritual father and confessor to the clergy, commending him as "a man of God, an angel in the flesh, a father of fathers." In deep old age he gave up his spirit to the Lord, Whom he had faithfully served both in deed and in song. He reposed peacefully on the eve of Great Thursday in the year 883.
2. HOLY MARTYR FERVUTA, HER WIDOWED SISTER, AND THEIR HANDMAID
In the time of the Persian Emperor Shapur, the holy Bishop Symeon was slain. Fervuta, the bishop's sister, was taken into the royal court at the empress's wish. But Fervuta was of extraordinary beauty, and many suitors pressed their suit, among them pagan priests and soothsayers. Fervuta refused them all, thereby arousing great wrath against herself. And when the empress fell ill at that time, all the priests explained to the emperor that the empress had been poisoned by Fervuta, and as a remedy for the ailing empress they prescribed the following: that Fervuta, her sister, and their handmaid, as Christians, should be sawn asunder with a saw, that the three halves of their bodies should be placed on one side and three on the other, and that the empress should be carried between them. The emperor agreed with this bloodthirsty soothsaying proposal. And so Fervuta together with her sister and their handmaid suffered thus for Christ in the year 343, thereby earning an unfading crown in the immortal Kingdom of their Lord.
3. VENERABLE ZOSIMAS
A monk of the Jordanian monastery in the time of the younger Emperor Theodosius. He found, gave Communion to, and buried Saint Mary of Egypt. In his hundredth year he fell asleep in the Lord, in the sixth century.
4. VENERABLE MARTYR NIKITA
A Slav from Albania. As a monk of the Holy Mountain he went to Serres, where he disputed with mullahs about the Faith. Unable to overcome him by argument, the Turks subjected him to torture, in which the holy Nikita expired and gave up his soul to God in the year 1808.
Hymn of Praise
THE HANDMAID OF THE LORD, THE VIRGIN FERVUTA
The handmaid of the Lord, the virgin Fervuta,
Like an innocent lamb at slaughter was silent.
She cried neither: Alas! nor uttered: Woe is me!
But with joy received and endured the suffering.
She scorned the phantom and the earthly lies,
For the Lord was dearer to her than all the world.
In the royal court — sickness and emptiness
Without wondrous faith in the Son of God;
Among the priests — accursed darkness
Without knowledge of the Creator and the heavenly world.
Bodily beauty — a stone of stumbling,
Without the love of God, faith, and hope.
Fervuta therefore gave herself wholly to Christ,
Surrendering all to the world save her pure soul.
Her bodily cage the torturer broke asunder
Yet could not take captive her living soul;
The cage was cloven and the soul departed to Paradise,
Into true freedom from false freedom.
Her blood gushed upon the earth and her body became earth,
Yet Fervuta lives on in eternity.
“Her bodily cage the torturer broke asunder, yet could not take captive her living soul.”
Reflection
He who glorifies God, God glorifies in return. This was shown clearly and abundantly in the life of the saints. Venerable Joseph the Hymnographer truly glorified God in deed, in suffering, and in song. And God glorified him both in life and after death. In his lifetime, the holy father Nicholas appeared to him in prison and freed him from imprisonment. And when Saint Joseph was pondering whether to compose a canon for the holy Apostle Bartholomew, the Apostle appeared to him clothed in white vestments and told Joseph that it was pleasing to God that he compose that canon. When Joseph reposed, a certain citizen of Constantinople learned of the glory with which God had glorified His servant. That man had come to the church of Saint Theodore the Revealer to pray to this saint, that he might reveal where a runaway servant of his had hidden. For Saint Theodore was known among the people as the saint who reveals where something lost or stolen may be found, on account of which he was also called the Revealer. Three days and three nights the man prayed, and when he received no answer from the saint, he was about to leave. At that moment Saint Theodore appeared to him in a vision and said: "Why are you angry, man? Joseph the Hymnographer was departing with his soul from his body, and we were all with him; and when he reposed this night, all of us whom he had glorified in song escorted his soul to the heavens and set it before the face of God. That is why I was delayed in appearing to you."
“He who glorifies God, God glorifies in return.”
Contemplation
Let us contemplate the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and namely:
1. How His soul returns from Hades back into His body.
2. How He by His own divine power, by which He raised other dead men, raises His own body as well.
Homily
On the temple of the Lord's body
Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up (John 2:19).
Thus the Lord spoke to the malicious Jews concerning the temple of His body. But as the malicious are given nothing to understand, so the Jews neither understood and mocked Him. The Lord did not rebuke them for this, but what He said came to pass. The Jews destroyed His body, and He restored it and raised it up in glory and power. The malicious punished God with destruction, and God rebuked the malicious with building. The delight of the malicious is to display their power through killing, while God's joy is to display His power through giving life. Nothing is more fleeting than the triumph of malice, nor anything more enduring than the triumph of Truth. Destroy this temple. The Lord calls His own body a temple. That temple, destroyed, was confined within a dark tomb, with a heavy stone barring its access to the light. Yet that temple had no need of light from the sun; it had its own light, its own Sun of Righteousness, which shone from within. A tender heavenly hand removed the stone from the tomb, and the Lord arose in glory and power. What occurred once with the most pure body of Christ has occurred since that time many times with the Church of the Saints on earth. The adversaries of the Church mercilessly persecuted and tormented the Church, demolished it and buried it in darkness. Yet the Church, after such battering and confinement, arose with greater glory and power. As the temple of His body was raised, so at the last, in fullness and perfection, the Church of His Saints shall also be raised.
O Risen Lord, deliver us not unto corruption and eternal death, but raise us up unto immortal life. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“Nothing is more fleeting than the triumph of malice, nor anything more enduring than the triumph of Truth.”