“To have faith in Christ means more than simply despising the delights of this life. It means we should bear all our daily trials that may bring us sorrow, distress, or unhappiness, and bear them patiently for as long as God wishes.”
St. Symeon the New Theologian
Acts 10:21-33
In those days, Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for; what is the reason for your coming?” And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house, and to hear what you have to say.” So he called them in to be his guests. The next day he rose and went off with them, and some of the brethren from Joppa accompanied him. And on the following day they entered Caesare’a. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his kinsmen and close friends. When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him. But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” And as he talked with him, he went in and found many persons gathered; and he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit any one of another nation; but God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without objection. I ask then why you sent for me.” And Cornelius said, “Four days ago, about this hour, I was keeping the ninth hour of prayer in my house; and behold, a man stood before me in bright apparel, saying, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon who is called Peter; he is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the seaside.’ So I sent to you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Now therefore we are all here present in the sight of God, to hear all that you have been commanded by the Lord.”
John 7:1-13
At that time, Jesus went about in Galilee; he would not go about in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him. Now the Jews’ feast of Tabernacles was at hand. So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples may see the works you are doing. For no man works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” For even his brothers did not believe in him. Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify of it that its works are evil. Go to the feast yourselves; I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” So saying, he remained in Galilee.
But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private. The Jews were looking for him at the feast, and saying, “Where is he?” And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said, “He is a good man,” others said, “No, he is leading the people astray.” Yet for fear of the Jews no one spoke openly of him.
Virgin Martyr Glyceria at Heraclea
Saint Glyceria suffered as a martyr for her faith in Christ in the second century, during a persecution against Christians under the emperor Antoninus (138-161). She came from an illustrious family, and her father Macarius was a high-ranking Roman official. Later, the family moved to the Thracian city of Trajanopolis.
Saint Glyceria lost both her father and mother at an early age. Falling in with Christians, she converted to the true Faith, and she visited the church every day. Sabinus, the prefect of Trajanopolis, received the imperial edict ordering Christians to offer sacrifice to the idols, and so he designated a certain day for the inhabitants of the city to worship the idol Zeus.
Saint Glyceria firmly resolved to suffer for Christ. She told the Christians of her intention, and she begged them to pray that the Lord would give her the strength to undergo the sufferings. On the appointed day Saint Glyceria made the Sign of the Cross on her forehead, and went into the pagan temple.
The saint stood on a raised spot in the rays of the sun, and removed the veil from her head, showing the holy Cross traced on her forehead. She prayed fervently to God to bring the pagans to their senses and destroy the stone idol of Zeus. Suddenly thunder was heard, and the statue of Zeus crashed to the floor and smashed into little pieces.
In a rage, the prefect Sabinus and the pagan priests commanded the people to pelt Saint Glyceria with stones, but the stones did not touch the saint. They locked Saint Glyceria in prison, where the Christian priest Philokrates came to her and encouraged the martyr in the struggle before her.
In the morning, when the tortures had started, suddenly an angel appeared in the midst of the torturers, and they fell to the ground, overcome with terror. When the vision vanished, Sabinus, who was hardly able to speak, ordered them to throw the saint into prison.
They shut the door securely and sealed it with the prefect’s own ring, so that no one could get in to her. While she was in prison, angels of God brought Saint Glyceria food and drink. Many days afterwards, Sabinus came to the prison and he himself removed the seal. Going in to the saint, he was shaken when he saw her alive and well.
Setting off for the city of Heraclea in Thrace, Sabinus gave orders to bring Saint Glyceria there also. The Christians of Heraclea came out to meet her with Bishop Dometius at their head, and he prayed that the Lord would strengthen the saint to endure martyrdom.
At Heraclea they cast Saint Glyceria into a red-hot furnace, but the fire was extinguished at once. Then the prefect, in a mindless fury, gave orders to rip the skin from Saint Glyceria’s head. Then they threw the martyr into prison onto sharp stones. She prayed incessantly, and at midnight an angel appeared in the prison and healed her of her wounds.
When the jailer Laodicius came for the saint in the morning, he did not recognize her. Thinking that the martyr had been taken away, he feared he would be punished for letting her escape. He wanted to kill himself, but Saint Glyceria stopped him. Shaken by the miracle, Laodicius believed in the true God, and he entreated the saint to pray that he might suffer and die for Christ with her.
“Follow Christ and you will be saved,” the holy martyr replied. Laodicius placed upon himself the chains with which the saint was bound, and at the trial he told the prefect and everyone present about the miraculous healing of Saint Glyceria by an angel, then he confessed himself a Christian.
The newly chosen one of God was beheaded by the sword. Christians secretly took up his remains, and reverently buried them. Saint Glyceria was sentenced to be eaten by wild beasts. She went to execution with great joy, but the lioness set loose upon the saint meekly crawled up to her and lay at her feet.
Finally, the saint prayed to the Lord, imploring that He take her unto Himself. In answer she heard a Voice from Heaven, summoning her to heavenly bliss. At that moment, another lioness was set loose upon the saint. It pounced upon the martyr and killed her, but did not tear her apart. Bishop Dometius and the Christians of Heraclea reverently buried the holy martyr Glyceria. She suffered for Christ around the year 177. Her holy relics were glorified with a flow of healing myrrh.
Saint Glyceria, whose name means “sweetness,” now rejoices in the unending sweetness of the heavenly Kingdom.
Obedience as the Path to Freedom (Part 1)
Archimandrite Georgios Kapsanis, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Gregoriou †
In the beginning, God made Adam and Eve free. They could accept His love or reject it; they could make good use of the freedom or misuse it.
The commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which was planted in the middle of Paradise, gave them this opportunity. According to Saint John Chrysostom, the knowledge of good was obedience and the knowledge of evil was disobedience. Observance of the commandment, obedience, would have helped our first ancestors to practice the good use of freedom, to become accustomed to it and to be confirmed in it. They would have directed their freedom permanently towards God and made their will identical to that of the Creator. In this way, they’d have achieved union with God, deification. They’d have been able to eat of the tree of life, that is, would have become immortal by grace. Freedom was a divine gift, which, however, they had to preserve and increase through their own cooperation. This is why the commandment was given.
An ancient interpreter says that God gave Adam and Eve three kinds of tree: ordinary ones, to ensure their physical survival; that of the knowledge of good and evil, to ensure their well-being; and that of life, to ensure that they would have eternal life. In other words, He gave them material goods, and He also gave them freedom, which is reinforced with the practice of obedience and love. And, in the end, with eternal life, that is divine life. Adam and Eve would have received these gifts gradually and by progressing ever higher, depending on their own will and ability to participate. The disobedience of our first ancestors, however, killed this opportunity to partake in the higher gifts of God. They were exiled to the wilderness of non-communication with God. A soul which is no longer nourished by God seeks nourishment from material goods in a spiteful and fatal manner.
The substitution of theocentric life with an egocentric one overturns the order of creation. People change the center of the world. This is followed by a fracturing and disordering of the world and the functions of life. The nous is clouded. The will sickens. The heart becomes malicious. In this way, the likeness of God is tarnished and the final outcome is death. Disobedience didn’t lead to our deification, as the first-created thought it would, having been seduced by the devil, but to our mortification.
The Orthodox view of the human being analyzes the drama of our disobedience, our fall and our exile from the Kingdom of Divine Love. Together with Eve, the first Adam brought disobedience and death into the world by misusing the gift of freedom. The forebears left their sin as a legacy to the human race, as a state of sickness in human nature, a condition of egotism and estrangement from God. According to Saint Cyril of Alexandria: ‘Nature therefore suffered sin through the disobedience of one person, that is Adam; in this way many were made sinners, not through having transgressed with Adam, since they were not even there, but as sharing in his nature…’.
Naturally, there was no lack of righteous people who made good use of freedom, directing it towards God, but they were unable to achieve deification, since human nature had sickened unto death and couldn’t, of itself, either find health or be glorified. These righteous people were the branches of a blessed tree. At the very tip of its uppermost and most exquisite branch, Mary the All-Pure, there blossomed the flower which suffused the whole world with its fragrance, the Lord, Jesus Christ. ‘The staff from the root of Jesse and the blossom of this, Christ, you sprang from the Virgin’. The Virgin was completely obedient to God. She gave Him all her freedom, as an offering of perfect love and trust: ‘Behold, the handmaiden of the Lord. May it be unto me in accordance with your word’ (Luke 1, 38). In this way the disobedience of our first mother, Eve, was rectified. It was Eve who first said ‘No’ to the love of God and His desire for human beings to be deified. The Virgin was the first to say ‘Yes’. The Merciful Lord waited for this ‘Yes’ as an eschewal of our freedom, in order that ‘the whole race of Adam’ might be made incarnate and rise from the dead.
Jesus Christ, the new Adam, rectifies the disobedience of the first Adam through His perfect submission to the will of the heavenly Father: My father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I wish, but as you do’ (Matth. 26, 39). He thus became ‘obedient unto death, indeed death on the cross’ (Phil. 2, 8). The Fathers say ‘Obedience life; disobedience death’. Christ’s obedience became life for the whole world. ‘Like Adam, He underwent death, and thus did the Savior, through obedience, put death to death’ (Saint Thalassios).
This week’s calendar reminders:
Monday 5/12: Matins 8:30 a.m.; Stewards’ Meeting 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday 5/13: no services or events
Wednesday 5/14: no services or events
Thursday 5/15: Matins 8:30 a.m.
Friday 5/16: Matins 8:30 a.m.
Saturday 5/17: Catechumen Class 4:30 p.m.; Great Vespers 6 p.m.
Sunday 5/18: Divine Liturgy 9:15 a.m.
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Christ the Savior Orthodox Church is located in Southbury, Connecticut, and is part of the New England Diocese of the Orthodox Church of America.
Mailing address: Christ the Savior Church, 1070 Roxbury Road, Southbury, CT 06488
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Fr. Moses Locke can be reached at frmoseslocke@gmail.com