The Lives of the Saints
1. THE PRIEST-MARTYR BASIL, BISHOP OF AMASEA
Licinius, the son-in-law of Emperor Constantine, whose sister he had married, pretended before the great emperor to be a Christian, but when he received from the emperor the governance of the entire East, he began first secretly and then openly to persecute Christians and to establish idolatry. His wife grieved greatly on account of this, but could not turn her husband away from impiety. Having given himself over to idolatry, Licinius surrendered himself without measure to every passion, and most of all to lust for women. In an attack of this impure passion he sought to defile the virgin Glaphyra, who served in the empress's household. Glaphyra complained to the empress, and the empress secretly sent her from the imperial palace in Nicomedia to the region of Pontus. The maiden reached the city of Amasea, where she was warmly received by Bishop Basil and the other Christians. Glaphyra was exceedingly joyful that God had preserved her virginity, and wrote of this to the empress. The empress too rejoiced and sent her money for the church of Amasea. But one of Glaphyra's letters, addressed to the empress, fell into the hands of a court eunuch, who showed it to Emperor Licinius. Learning where Glaphyra was, the emperor immediately sent orders that both she and the bishop be brought to Nicomedia. In the meantime Glaphyra died, and so the soldiers brought only Basil, bound. After tortures and imprisonment this blessed man was beheaded and cast into the sea, in the year 322. His clergy, by the direction of an angel of God, found his body near the city of Sinope, drew it from the water with the help of fishing nets, and transferred it to Amasea, where they honorably buried him in the church that he himself had built by his own labors. Emperor Constantine raised an army against Licinius, defeated him, captured him, and sent him into exile in Gaul, where he ended his God-hating life.
2. SAINT JOANIKIJE OF DEVIC
A Serb from Zeta. As a young man, seized by the love of Christ, he left his home and his household, and withdrew to the region of the Ibar, into the gorge of the Crna Rijeka, into a narrow cave in which, according to tradition, Saint Peter of Korisa had labored in asceticism before him. But when his fame began to spread among the people, he fled to Drenica and hid himself in the thick forest of Devic. Saint Joanikije spent years there in solitude, in silence, and in prayer. According to tradition, the Serbian prince Djuradj Brankovic brought to him his deranged daughter, whom the saint healed. Out of gratitude, Djuradj built a monastery on that site, known to this day by the name of Devic. There the holy and wonderworking relics of Joanikije repose. In that monastery there labored in asceticism almost up to our own times a renowned and God-pleasing hermitess, the nun Euphemia, better known in the Kosovo region by the name: Blessed Stojna. She reposed in the Lord in 1895.
3. SAINT STEPHEN, BISHOP OF PERM
Russian by origin; from childhood devoted to prayer and meditation upon God; as a young man he went to Rostov, where he was tonsured a monk in the Monastery of Saint Gregory the Theologian. Having learned of the Permian Land, entirely overgrown with the weeds of paganism, Stephen desired to be a missionary in that land; he immediately applied himself to the study of the Permian language, and when he mastered the language, he composed an alphabet and translated the ecclesiastical books into that language. With the blessing of the Metropolitan of Moscow he set out, as a presbyter, on his apostolic work and with apostolic zeal began to preach the Gospel in the thick darkness of Permian paganism. Having baptized a number of souls, he labored to build in Perm the Church of the Holy Annunciation. And when the Church of God in Perm had grown, he was consecrated as bishop. Enduring every toil, suffering, malice, and humiliation, he succeeded in dispersing the darkness among the Permian pagans and illumining them with the light of Christ. In old age he traveled once more to Moscow, but there he ended his earthly life and departed unto the Lord, in the year 1396.
Hymn of Praise
THE PRIEST-MARTYR BASIL
Basil lies in prison
For the Precious Cross and the faith of Christ;
He sings psalms, he gives thanks to God
That He granted him sufferings for righteousness' sake.
The emperor's tribune speaks to Basil:
"Listen, old man, the emperor sends thee word,
Licinius, the protege of the gods,
That thou must offer sacrifice to idols,
And renounce Christ, who was but a man;
If thou dost refuse, a wretched death awaits thee."
Basil shines with joy,
And to the tribune wondrously replies:
"Go, tell thy wicked emperor:
Were thou to give me all thy kingdom,
And take from me the risen Christ,
Thou wouldst take from me more than thou dost give.
O betrayer of Christ the Savior,
Wouldst thou make of me a betrayer too?
O dealer of death, I fear not death,
I am a servant of Christ, the Giver of Life."
“Were thou to give me all thy kingdom, and take from me the risen Christ, thou wouldst take from me more than thou dost give.”
Reflection
The saints are alive, and their God-given power does not weaken with time. Saint Joanikije of Devic works miracles to this day, just as he did during his life on earth five hundred years ago. A certain Milos from Herzegovina was preparing to go to Jerusalem on pilgrimage to the saints. And just when he was thinking of setting out on his journey, Saint Joanikije appeared to him in a dream and told him not to go to Jerusalem. "It is better for thee," the saint explained to him, "to go to Devic and there to clean and put in order my church, than to go to Jerusalem." Milos obeyed and came to the neglected Devic, cleaned it, put it in order, and made it so that the singing again resounded. There Milos was tonsured a monk and remained until the end of his life. During the First World War and the Austrian occupation, a Hungarian officer came to Devic with a detachment of soldiers. He brought the abbot, Damaskin, to the crypt before the reliquary of Saint Joanikije, and asked him what was beneath the slab. "A holy relic," the abbot answered. "What kind of holy relic!" the officer laughed. "Some kind of things are hidden there." And he ordered the soldiers to strike and pry loose the slab with pickaxes. But while this was being done, pain seized the officer in the middle of his body. He lay down in bed, and by evening of that same day he died. The frightened soldiers abandoned both the work they had begun and the monastery, and fled.
“The saints are alive, and their God-given power does not weaken with time.”
Contemplation
To contemplate the risen Lord Jesus, namely:
1. How His resurrection is a great light that dispels the darkness of our doubt, ignorance, and despair concerning life after death;
2. How His resurrection is a great light that illumines the path we must travel in this life in order to reach the next.
Homily
on Christ as the affirmation of all good
**For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, Who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not yea and nay, but in Him was yea (2 Cor. 1:19). **
Christ is not light and darkness but only light. Christ is not truth and falsehood but only truth. Neither is Christ life and death -- He is only life. Neither is He power and weakness -- He is only power. Neither is He love and hatred -- He is only love. He is the "yea" for every good, and in Him there is no wavering between yea and nay. His teaching is wholly pure, wholly true, wholly luminous, wholly philanthropic. His path is precisely hewn, and He permits no leaning to the left or to the right. Not a shadow of sin can come to rest upon His teaching nor find a place upon His path. His person is the incarnation of good; and all that is good is in Him, and all that is sin, falsehood, malice, and injustice is outside Him. Such a teaching, such a path, and such a person did the apostles of God preach -- a teaching that signifies the affirmation of good and the discovery of a boundless treasury of good; a path that leads to the attainment and the eternal delight of that good; a person who contains within Himself all good and all the affirmation of good.
Let us also hold fast, brethren, to that unique Person, that unique path, and that unique teaching.
O Almighty Lord, help us by the power of Thy Holy Spirit, that our small life too on earth may be an affirmation of good and not a denial of good. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“Christ is not light and darkness but only light. Christ is not truth and falsehood but only truth. He is the yea for every good.”