Lives of the Saints
1. HOLY MARTYR EUPLUS
Euplus was a deacon in Catania in Sicily. Emperor Diocletian sent to Sicily a certain commander Pentagurus to destroy Christians, should he find any there. Pentagurus found not a single Christian, for the few that there were hid themselves from the persecutor and did not make themselves known. Then someone accused holy Euplus of going about with a certain book to secret Christians and reading that book to them. That book was the Holy Gospel. When he was brought before the court for a brief time, they hung that book around his neck and led him to prison. After seven days of imprisonment and starvation, he was handed over for torture. When they were beating him with iron rods, Euplus mocked the judge and torturer and said: "Fool, do you not see that these torments are as cobwebs to me because of God's help? If you can, find other, fiercer ones, for these are like playthings." Finally they led the martyr of Christ to the place of execution. Then holy Euplus opened the Holy Gospel and read from it to the people at length. Many were converted to the Faith of Christ, and holy Euplus was beheaded in the year 304, and he departed into the Heavenly Kingdom. His wonder-working relics lie in a village near Naples called Vico della Batonia.
2. HOLY MARTYR SUSANNA THE VIRGIN AND OTHERS WITH HER
She was the daughter of the Roman presbyter Gabinius, and the niece of Pope Caius. Caius and Gabinius were of the imperial line and kinsmen of the reigning Emperor Diocletian. This emperor had an adopted son, Maximian Galerius, whom he wished to wed to Susanna. But Susanna was wholly devoted to Christ the Lord and would not hear of marriage at all, and especially not of marriage with an unbaptized man. Those nobles who came to ask for her hand on behalf of the emperor's son — Claudius and Maximus — Susanna converted to the Christian faith, together with their entire household. Enraged by this, the emperor ordered that the executioners take Claudius and Maximus, together with their families, to Ostia, where they were burned in fire and their ashes cast into the sea. Susanna, however, was beheaded by the sword in the house of Gabinius. The emperor's wife, Serena, a secret Christian, by night took the martyred body of Susanna and honorably buried it. And Pope Caius made that house, where Susanna perished, into a church and served the services in it. Shortly after the suffering of this bride of Christ, her father Gabinius and her uncle Pope Caius also suffered. All suffered honorably for the Lord and received the crown of glory in the years 295 and 296.
3. SAINT NIPHON, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE
A Greek by birth. In his youth he became a monk and practiced asceticism, first outside the Holy Mountain and then on the Holy Mountain, in various monasteries, remaining longest at Vatopedi and Dionysiou. He was beloved by all the Holy Mountain fathers both for his rare wisdom and for his extraordinary meekness. Against his own will he was made Bishop of Thessalonica. But after two years he went on business to Constantinople, and there he was elected to the vacant Patriarchal throne. Banished by the sultan to Adrianople, he lived there in exile. The Wallachian prince Radu obtained him from the sultan and installed him as Archbishop of Wallachia. Because of Radu's transgressions, Niphon left Wallachia and went to the Holy Mountain, to the monastery of Dionysiou, where he practiced asceticism until his ninetieth year, when he departed into the Kingdom of God in the year 1460. He composed the prayer of absolution that is read at the funeral service.
4. VENERABLE BASIL AND THEODORE OF THE CAVES
Both met their end through the violence of the silver-loving Prince Mstislav in the year 1098. The life of Saint Theodore is especially instructive for the covetous. Theodore was very wealthy, but he distributed his riches to the poor and became a monk. Afterward he repented and grieved over his lost wealth, and was greatly tempted by the evil spirit of avarice, from which Saint Basil delivered him.
Hymn of Praise
A branch of Paradise was planted,
And on earth she was nurtured.
The branch grew and flourished,
Her heart grew into heaven.
The dark earth did not dim her,
The evil of the earth did not bend her.
Susanna is a branch of Paradise,
Illumined by the Spirit of God.
A bride of Christ God,
She scorned the emperor's son.
The emperor raged, the emperor threatened
That he would take cruel revenge.
But Susanna would not hear of it;
In her, God's mind held sway.
Her heart was illumined,
Betrothed to Christ.
Her kinsmen marveled
And were all baptized in Christ.
All her kinsmen were baptized
And became martyrs.
The emperor raised his bloody hand,
Upon Susanna he heaped torments,
But all the torments were in vain
When the soul is mighty through faith.
Susanna's head fell,
But her soul entered Paradise,
Entered Paradise before her Christ —
Susanna's soul, pure and bright.
“Susanna is a branch of Paradise, illumined by the Spirit of God.”
Reflection
If a man sets out on the path of righteousness, let him walk that path of righteousness with both feet alone, and let him not tread with one foot on the path of righteousness and the other on the path of unrighteousness. For God spoke through the prophet concerning the righteous man who commits iniquity: The righteousness he has done shall not be remembered; for his iniquity that he has committed and for his sin that he has sinned, he shall die (Ezekiel 18:24). The Wallachian prince Radu was a righteous man and did many good deeds. He brought Saint Niphon out of captivity in Adrianople and brought him to be archbishop in Bucharest. But suddenly he committed a terrible iniquity: he gave his own sister in marriage to the corrupt Moldavian prince Bogdan, while Bogdan's wife was still alive. And Radu would not listen to Niphon's protests. Niphon prophesied an evil end for him, publicly excommunicated him from the Church, and departed from Wallachia. Soon a drought and great famine befell Wallachia, and Radu fell into an incurable illness, and sores covered his entire body, and from the stench no one could approach him. And when they buried him, his grave shook for three days, as once the grave of Empress Eudoxia, the persecutor of Saint John Chrysostom, had shaken.
“The righteousness he has done shall not be remembered; for his iniquity that he has committed and for his sin that he has sinned, he shall die.”
Contemplation
Contemplate the self-will of the Jewish people (1 Samuel 8), namely:
1. How the Jews asked Samuel to set a king over them;
2. How Samuel opposed this in the name of the Lord, who declared that He alone was King;
3. How the people remained obstinate, rejecting the will of God and the counsel of Samuel.
Homily
on how ugliness comes with sin
Instead of fragrance there shall be stench, and instead of a girdle rags, instead of well-set hair baldness — instead of beauty, burning (Isaiah 3:24)
This is a word about luxurious and dissolute women, about the daughters of Zion, who are haughty and walk with outstretched necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go and jingling with their feet. What made the Jewish women so proud? Was it virtue? Virtue never makes one proud, for virtue is precisely the remedy against pride. Was it the might of the nation and the stability of the state? No; on the contrary, the prophet foretells the imminent enslavement of the nation and the collapse of the state. And as one of the chief causes of enslavement and collapse, he cites the vain luxury, spiritual emptiness, and dissoluteness of women. What, then, made them so proud and haughty? Ornaments and embroidery, necklaces and chains, earrings and hairpins, garters and girdles, combs and rings, purses and mirrors. That is what made them proud and haughty! Indeed, all of this is an expression of their senseless pride, and the true cause of the pride is spiritual emptiness. From spiritual emptiness comes pride, and that outward adornment which women hang upon their bodies is merely the clear proclamation of their senseless pride. What shall become of all this in the end? Stench, and rags, and baldness, and burning. This shall come when the nation falls into captivity. As usually happens: first the spirit is enslaved by the body, and then the body by an external enemy. But this shall also come when the inevitable conqueror of our bodies arrives — death. Perfumes will be of no help in the grave, in the kingdom of stench. Nor will girdles be needed for bare backbone. Nor will braids save from the baldness of the skull, nor all beauty from black burning. This is the unavoidable fate of even the most beautiful, the healthiest, and the most luxurious women. But this is not the greatest misfortune. The greatest misfortune is that the souls of these women, with stench, ungirdedness, baldness, and burning, shall come before God and before the heavenly host of the most beautiful angels and righteous ones of God. For the stench of the body signifies the stench of the soul from lustful passions; the ungirded body signifies the insatiability of the soul for bodily pleasures; the baldness of the body signifies the baldness of the soul of good deeds and pure thoughts; the burning of the body signifies the scorching of conscience and mind. O how terrible is the vision of Isaiah, son of Amoz — terrible then, terrible now; terrible, because true.
O Holy and Most-Pure Lord, help the women who are signed with Thy Cross, that they may remember their souls and cleanse their souls before Thy righteous Judgment, that their souls, together with their bodies, may not become an eternal stench. To Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“Instead of fragrance there shall be stench, and instead of a girdle rags, instead of well-set hair baldness — instead of beauty, burning.”