The Lives of the Saints
1. SAINT NICEPHORUS THE CONFESSOR, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE
A nobleman of Constantinople. His father Theodore was a high official at the imperial court, wealthy and pious. Nicephorus served for several years at the court in the same capacity as his father. But seeing all the vanity of the world, he withdrew from the shores of the Bosporus and there built a monastery. The monastery quickly filled with monks, and he governed the monastery while not wishing himself to receive the monastic tonsure, on the grounds that he was unworthy, although in everything he served as a model for all. Before that he had participated in the Seventh Ecumenical Council as a layman, at the will of the emperor and the patriarch, and he benefited the Council greatly by his excellent knowledge of Holy Scripture. When Patriarch Tarasius died, Nicephorus was elected patriarch against his will. Immediately after his election he received the monastic rank and all the other ranks in order, and in the year 806 he was enthroned in Hagia Sophia as patriarch. This was in the time of Emperor Nicephorus, who soon afterward went to war against the Bulgarians and perished. His son Stauracius reigned only two months and then died. After this the good Emperor Michael, called Rangabe, came to the throne, but he reigned only two years before Leo the Armenian overthrew and banished him. When this Leo became emperor, the patriarch sent him a book on the Orthodox Confession of Faith to sign (according to the custom of all Byzantine emperors, which was considered an oath that he would uphold and defend the true faith). The emperor did not sign but postponed it until after his coronation. And when the patriarch crowned him, he refused to sign the book and soon declared himself an iconoclast heretic. The patriarch tried to counsel him and return him to the true faith, but in vain. The emperor forcibly banished Nicephorus into exile on the island of Proconnesus, where in poverty and deprivation of every kind he spent thirteen years and then departed to eternity in the year 827. As patriarch he had governed the Church of Christ for nine years.
2. THE HOLY NEW MARTYR CONSTANTINE
Born a Muslim on the island of Mytilene. Having been healed of a severe illness by means of holy water in a church and seeing other miracles of the Christian faith, he was baptized on the Holy Mountain in the skete of Kapsokalyvia. Later he fell into the hands of the Turks, who after terrible torments lasting forty days hanged him in Constantinople on June 2, 1819.
3. THE HOLY MARTYR JOHN THE NEW OF SUCEAVA
A nobleman from Trebizond. Accused by a certain envious Latin, he suffered for Christ in the year 1492 in the city of Akkerman. After tortures because he would not adopt the Persian faith (for the city governor was an adherent of that faith), Saint John was bound by the feet to a horse and dragged through the city. A certain malicious Jew, seeing him, rushed up and slew him. That night many saw a pillar of fire over his body and three light-bearing men around it. Later the Moldavian voivode Ioalexander transferred his honorable body with great honors to the city of Suceava and buried it in the metropolitan cathedral, where it rests to this day and miraculously saves people from various afflictions and diseases. He honorably suffered and was glorified on June 2, 1492.
4. THE HIEROMARTYR ERASMUS OF OHRID
This saint was from Antioch by birth and lived in the time of Emperors Diocletian and Maximian. He struggled mightily on Mount Lebanon and was endowed by God with a great gift of wonderworking. As a hierarch he set out to preach the Gospel. Arriving in the city of Ohrid, Erasmus by his prayer raised from the dead the son of a man named Anastas, and baptized him. On that occasion Erasmus also baptized many other pagans and destroyed the idol altars in Ohrid. For this he was accused before Emperor Maximian, who at that time was in Illyricum. The emperor brought him before a bronze statue of Zeus and ordered him to offer sacrifice and bow before the idol. Saint Erasmus exerted power, and from the idol there came forth a terrible serpent, which frightened the people. Again the saint exerted power, and the serpent perished. Then the saint preached Christ and baptized twenty thousand souls. The embittered emperor ordered all these twenty thousand to be slain, and subjected Erasmus to grievous tortures and then cast him into prison. But an angel of God appeared, as once to the Apostle Peter, and led Erasmus out of prison. Then this servant of God went to Campania, where he preached the Gospel to the people, and then returned again to the city of Hermelia and withdrew into a cave, to struggle there until death. Before his death he bowed three times toward the east and with raised hands prayed to God, that God would forgive the sins and grant eternal life to all those who with faith would invoke his name. At the end of his prayer a voice was heard from heaven: "So let it be as thou hast prayed, My healer Erasmus!" All joyful, the saint looked once more toward heaven and saw the crown of glory descending upon him, and he saw the choirs of angels, prophets, apostles, and martyrs approaching to receive his holy soul. At last he cried out: "Lord, receive my spirit!" and breathed his last around the year 303. The cave with the small church of Saint Erasmus stands to this day not far from Ohrid, and from it to this day the great power of the pleaser of God, the Hieromartyr Erasmus, is manifested.
Hymn of Praise
Great was Nicephorus, great among the saints,
Great was Nicephorus, like a giant among men.
But the emperor was too small, though bearing the name of a lion,
In stubbornness and malice was all his glory.
An emperor is meant to conduct the affairs of state,
Not to judge the dogmas of the Orthodox faith.
The patriarch Nicephorus explained the dogmas to him,
But the proud little emperor pretended to be wise:
Though he became emperor, he remained a simple fool,
He would not hear the counsels of the wise saint.
The emperor banished the patriarch to a distant wilderness
And himself began to interpret divine truth.
Great was Nicephorus, great in exile
As on the throne in his dignity.
His greatness was all within
And not false, accidental, from today to tomorrow.
Nicephorus was sanctified by faith and purity,
By strong faith and fasting and humble simplicity.
And Emperor Leo was slain, slain terribly —
Perhaps he would have repented, but it was too late.
Reflection
The veneration of icons is an integral part of Orthodoxy, from which it cannot be separated. That some people think icon veneration is the same as idolatry is no proof whatsoever against icons. The Jews also thought that Christ worked miracles by the power of Satan and not of God; and the Romans thought that the Christian martyrs were ordinary sorcerers and magicians. "An icon is a divine thing but not a deified thing," said Saint Nicephorus to the iconoclast Emperor Leo the Armenian. Then he explained to him how God had commanded Moses to make a serpent of bronze and raise it up in the wilderness, although before that He had commanded: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. The one He commanded in order to save the chosen people from the Egyptian idol-worship, and the other He commanded so that He, the one and most high God, might show His power through a visible thing. Thus He also shows His power through icons. This is His holy will and our benefit toward salvation. If icons were a thing of no importance, or even idolatrous, would so many of the holiest and most spiritual men and women in the history of the Church have suffered for icons unto death?
“An icon is a divine thing but not a deified thing.”
Contemplation
Contemplate the miraculous healing of a leper (Matt. 8:2), namely:
1. How the leper besought the Lord to heal him, and how the Lord touched him with His hand, and he was made whole,
2. How I too am leprous from sin, and how the Lord can touch my soul and heal it, if I pray to Him.
Homily
On How Wisdom Proclaims Herself Everywhere
Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets; she crieth in the chief place of concourse, at the gates, in the city she uttereth her words (Prov. 1:20-21)
The Wisdom of God is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, through Whom all that was created was created. And all that is created proclaims its most wise Creator — both that which is in the field and that which is in the city. In the field is pure and bright nature, and in the city is man with his crafts and skills. The Wisdom of God cries out, and does not whisper, through all of nature and through all the useful crafts and skills of man. She has covered every field, she has filled every city, she is above the earth and beneath the earth, in the heights of the stars and in the depths of the seas. He who wishes to hear her can hear her in every place; he who wishes to learn from her and delight in her can learn and delight in every place; he who wishes to be corrected and built up by her can be corrected and built up in every place.
Thus the Wisdom of God has been clear and manifest in the world since the beginning of the world in all created things. But She is even clearer and more manifest in the prophets and other men of God, who were deemed worthy of access to Her beyond created nature. Through their mouths the Wisdom of God rang out in fields and cities, on the streets of the city and at the gates of man.
But the Wisdom of God is loudest and clearest in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. In the person of the Lord Jesus Christ the Wisdom of God appeared in the flesh and showed Herself to men in wondrous power and beauty. Here the Wisdom of God does not speak through creatures or through men, but speaks of Herself and from Herself, personally and directly. With His wisdom the Lord has filled the whole world through His Holy Church, so that it may be said that, just as nineteen centuries ago in Palestine, so today through the servants of the Word He cries in the field, in the streets, in the greatest tumult of the world, in all cities and before all gates.
O my brethren, let us open the gates of our souls to the Wisdom of God, incarnate in the Lord Jesus Christ!
O Lord Jesus, Wisdom of God and Power of God, open our souls and take up Thy dwelling within them. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“The Wisdom of God cries out, and does not whisper, through all of nature and through all the useful crafts and skills of man.”