The following is the address of His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece at the Graduation Ceremony of Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology on 18 May 2013.

Address of His Beatitude Ieronymos

at the Graduation Ceremony of Hellenic College

and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology

May 18, 2013

I would like to thank the All-Good God and His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America from the bottom of my heart for the highly honourable opportunity to partake of the joy of the celebration of these young theologians’ graduation from the School of Theology of Boston and I am deeply moved indeed to be here in your midst.

My dear children in the Lord,

Today’s event undoubtedly marks a significant milestone in your lives. Today a circle of your course so far is closing and as of tomorrow you are called to minister to the people of God either as teachers of the Divine Word and torch bearers of the sacred traditions bequeathed to us by our Holy Fathers or as priests by fully anchoring your lives and your ministration in the altar. When I put myself in your place, what comes back to memory to stir my emotions is the preparatory prayer of St. John Damascene, which we read out in awe during the Divine Liturgy before Holy Communion: “I stand before the doors of Thy sanctuary, yet I do not put away my terrible thoughts. But O Christ our God, Who didst justify the Publican, and have mercy on the Canaanite woman, and didst open the gates of Paradise to the Thief, open to me the depths of Thy love for men, and as I approach and touch Thee …”[1].

Today, with this prayerful supplication deep in your hearts, you are asked to formalize your answer to Christ’s calling: “Lovest thou me?”, then “feed my sheep”.

With today’s celebration, an important chapter of your lives is completed and another one, even more important, greater and more demanding, opens up. I am certain that, over these last days, and particularly at this hour, you must have been reminiscing about the moments, the events, the persons and the experiences which bore and nourished inside you the wish to enter priesthood and the fervor for knowledge and for ministering to the holy discipline of Theology in response to the calling of Christ the Great High Priest.

On this day you must be reminiscing about all that, small or great, which made your hearts leap and led your steps hither; which directed the course of your lives to this blessed place, the Holy Cross School of Theology. This School is indeed a jewel of our Church; a lighthouse of Orthodoxy in the vast Western Christian and multicultural world. Your School constitutes a point of reference for theological studies, a safe haven for priestly vocations and a truthful witness to the greatness of Orthodoxy within a world increasingly thirsting and seeking for sources of living water of faith, of the authentic kerygma of the Gospel, as preserved by the Orthodox Church through the centuries.

I have no doubt that your passage here has left indelible marks on you: Erlebnisse, experiences and emotions have been deeply engraved, essential interpersonal relationships and strong ties of friendship and love have been surely forged.

Your School offers you the possibility of constituting not merely a cohort of students but a particular Orthodox community. And this possibility is of great importance because, apart from high-level academic studies, you also share the experience of jointly partaking of worship and you combine studies with the development of interpersonal relationships and spiritual experiences, by cultivating Orthodox spirituality in practice. In this manner, relationships and bonds are promoted; relationships and bonds which may prove decisive for your future and your ministration, wherever God may call you to serve tomorrow, and this is something that all Schools of Theology should imitate.

So this blessed and fruitful phase of your lives ends today. And amidst the joyous and feastful atmosphere of the ceremony of your graduation, some challenging questions and crucial problematics are emerging.

Behind the emotional load of the feast and the intense and mixed feelings of bitter joy (harmolýpi) —since the enthusiasm for the obtention of the degree is combined with partings and with an exit from the security and the comfort of the School— the issues raised by tomorrow’s challenge make their appearance with intensity and almost with poignancy.

What does it mean to be an Orthodox clergyman or an engaged theologian in our times? What does it entail and what does it take to serve the Church and Theology in modern America? And even if you choose a way other than that of priesthood or of ministration to theology, what does that choice mean? How is it binding on you and what does being a graduate of this blessed and thriving Theology School entail?

These are crucial and essential questions, no longer mere ideas or theoretical problematics, and are indeed such that directly concern your very lives. They are challenges not confined to the limits of personal concerns but primarily pertaining to the shared responsibility and to the personal participation in the developments and the shaping of tomorrow’s Ecumenical Orthodox Church and, also, of the future of the Diaspora Hellenism.

We come from afar and may not be the most competent to speak to you of the affairs of the land where you live and work.

I hope, nonetheless, that you will allow me to share with you some thoughts and preoccupations which transcend national or local frontiers.

So what does it mean to be a priest or a theologian today?

At this point of transition in your lives, where the calling to take up an active and responsible part in the life of the Church and of the world in which you live peals joyously and dynamically, you are invited to respond to God’s precept that it may no longer be you who live but Christ who lives in you[2]. You are invited to serve the Church in the awareness that we, its members, exist and fare in the world and in history but we are not of this world[3]. Even so, we have the duty and the responsibility to receive this world and to transform it; to overthrow it creatively and with our love so that the world may be Church[4].

In this struggle the danger has cut both ways through the centuries. At times, taking sides with an ideological or political choice against another would lead to secularization. At other times, obsessing or getting engaged in individual truths at the expense of the whole would be the danger; in other tems, deviation from the agreement of the Fathers (consensus patrum), a fact which would lead to schisms and heretical departures from the wholeness of the truth, which we are constantly invited to revisit[5]. We should not forget that the truth we are called to witness to and the way we ought to indicate to people is not some abstract religious or ideological proposal but Christ himself, because He is “the way, the truth, and the life”[6].

In the course of the centuries unity of mankind has been threatened or even destroyed in the name of ideological or selfish interests giving rise to rivalries, enmity and intolerance. Against this trend of the world towards destruction, which is expressed in various ways, we must oppose ourselves in word and in deed, strengthened by Christ; strengthened by the Son and Word of God, who, in every Divine Liturgy, is broken on the Altar but not divided. And in this manner, He offers man the possibility, in deed and in essence, of recovering the unity lost because of the Fall.

He, Christ “broken and distributed; broken but not divided […] forever eaten yet […] never consumed, but […] sanctifying those who partake of Him”[7] offers all communicants partaking of His Body and Blood the possibility of becoming one Body[8]. In this manner, partaking of one chalice, “we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another”[9]. All of us who receive the Holy Eucharist, where “the sacramental rite is not a mere representation but a reality of sacrifice”[10] and the Risen Christ is “invisibly present among us”[11], realize the truth and the significance of the fact that He stretched out His hands on the Cross and united what had previously been divided[12]. He descended “into the nethermost parts of the earth” and shattered the gates of Hades[13], “having resurrected the fallen Adam along with the whole of the human race, as the lover of mankind”[14].

Our duty as clergy and laity is to witness, in word and in deed, to the fact that the Church exists by uniting mankind, even at the price of our own sweat too becoming “like great drops of blood”[15], if need be; and to the fact that Christ came to His Passion voluntarily so that all men “may be one”[16]. It is this unity that we are called to promote, not with grandiloquence or theorizing but with sacrifices of an ethos worthy of the Cross, illuminated by the unsetting light of Resurrection.

Those therefore who have accepted or will accept the call to priesthood are invited to live up to the requirements of the ministration entrusted to us by the Great High Priest, our Lord Jesus Christ, “who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire”[17].

We are called to minister to the Altar in the awareness that the Lord is always “the Offerer and the Offered, the One who receives and is distributed”[18]. It is not our task to put forward just another religion among many or to become a religious organization of social welfare. Our task is the sanctification and the salvation of man, the offer of the possibility of constantly defeating death through the Sacraments. Our social part consists in being first and foremost, by Grace and by obligation, bearers and advocates of the prophetic charism of priesthood, in other terms in the Holy Spirit to reveal all that which hurts and obscures truth at the present time and undermines the future and the quality of people’s lives, thus obstructing their salvation in the end.

Against the roar of the religious and ideological confrontations of all kinds the Orthodox clergyman extends an austere invitation. He invites everyone to meet around the Altar and to take part in the greatest of sacraments; so that people may be one, there; so that they may join their forces in order for love and unity in Christ to become a way of life; so that, from then on, the Divine Liturgy may be extended over our everyday lives and become a source of consolation through priesthood and through our sacrificial succour to the sufferings of each and every one of our ailing brethren.

This means that we, clergy and laity together, should live the developments of the Church. However, the people’s essential participation in the life of the Church presupposes living parishes. Amidst the confusion of our times what needs to be made clear is that parishes are not like branches for delivering religious services but the centres and the points of reference of our lives. This is where life begins. This is where it finds its meaning, is sanctified, brightened and distinguished. This is where life finds its way to eternity.

The parish is the place, and parish life is the way where, through Holy Communion, worship and partaking of the mystical Body of Christ, survival is transformed into life and death is defeated.

Wherever each faithful lives, the parish is his or her greater family and the priest is the father. And what parent who wishes a holy and virtuous life for his or her child will ever remain indifferent if he or she sees that child sick or starving or taking the wrong way?

Similarly, in our ministration too we should never lose the balance between the sanctifying work and charity. Personally, I do not know of a single saint of our Church who was not charitable or who remained indifferent to human suffering.

Worship is the driving force which cultivates and nourishes love; which makes us turn to our fellow human being and generates charity. It is therefore of vital importance that the life of worship, our charitable and, more widely, cultural and social works should exude an ecclesiastical ethos and Orthodox spirituality. Let me insist on this point, because some of you have been born and grown up within environments of other religious traditions and must now, as Orthodox clergymen and theologians, constantly cultivate the awareness of the Orthodox identity and self-consciousness and of the uniqueness of the Orthodox theological tradition.

This last remark directly brings us to the importance of the virtue of discernment in the Orthodox tradition. Indeed, the Fathers of the Church emphasize that discernment is a virtue of the highest value. Of course, its cultivation presupposes constant and intense spiritual struggle. However, nowadays, and particularly for those of us who are called to work for the Church within alien environments and in times of uncritical and untempered syncretism and cultural confusion, the virtue of discernment should be one of the sine qua non structural elements of our ministration. During the difficult transitional period of world history which we are currently going through, the precept “stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught”[19] is one of grave and fundamental importance. Unfortunately, the effort to observe this precept without the filter of the virtue of discernment sometimes leads to fundamentalist mindsets, to behaviors characteristic of religious authoritarianism or fanaticism, which, in turn, breed untested critique and foment a spirit of division. This is why our pastoral presence is primarily in need of discernment, love and a spirit of sacrifice and understanding.

Modern reality is highly demanding and divisive, and extreme phenomena of this kind are a superfluous luxury, to say the least. In the spiritual desert of modern life it is a fundamental priority that there should be genuine, living Orthodox parishes, so that the young, in particular, may enjoy a small oasis; that young couples may find a refuge; that today’s afflicted family may find a quiet corner; that “all ye that labour and are heavy laden” may have a warm nest; a hearth, where the fire of spiritual quest will be burning ceaselessly; an altar whence all will begin and where all will end.

The greatest offer of the Church to the modern world is Its constant care so that there may be living parishes and monasteries everywhere, where it may be manifest in every way that Christ has risen; that death has been defeated. And this is why we can still bring our lives to the Eucharist and there to find joy, hope, consolation, meaning, and lead our fallen everyday lives in the certainty that, beyond and above any pain and any grief, life will in the end defeat death; because “Christ is risen, and life reigns”[20].

May I emphasise that what I have said thus far does not solely regard the clergy but also the pleroma of the Church. It is obvious that those who will not become clergymen are also called to labor in the Lord’s vineyard as lay theologians. Nothing of what I mentioned earlier can be put into practice by the bishop or the priests without the sacrificial presence of the lay staff of pastoral work, where theologians should have a leading part. Today, maybe more than ever before, activities such as catechism, the study of theological literature, the staffing of pastoral activities and the presence of the Church in every aspect of social life, at school, in hospitals, in charitable works, but also in arts and culture more broadly, create high requirements and the adequately trained representatives and laborers of the Church are not only more than valuable but absolutely indispensable.

This is also true of the graduates who may take paths other than those of priesthood or theology. Even then, they too are still equally invaluable to the life and the pastoral work of the Church and their contribution to the common spiritual struggle will always be important and essential.

In the end, no matter what rampart one fights from, the responsibility remains shared. Besides, in the Orthodox Church there is no separation of powers but of charismata and ministrations[21] and, consequently, when it comes to the life and the work of the Church, no one is redundant.

Certainly, the Orthodox people respects and honors its clergy very highly. Not because the latter hold some kind of administrative power but because the people recognizes them as having accepted God’s and their brethren’s calling to minister to the Altar and to the people of God in place and as a type of Christ. The bishop is in charge of a local Church not as a religious monarch or a secular governor but as president of the Eucharistic Synaxis in place and as a type of Christ. By extension, Presbyters preside over the parochial Eucharistic Synaxis in place and as a type of their bishop. In this manner, the Orthodox clergyman does not stand for a power as a representative of God on Earth but serves the Church as a representative of his flock to God.

The Orthodox clergyman is a leading figure and the first in the consciousness of the faithful because, as minister to the Church, he is “last of all”. He is glorified by ministering to and by manifesting the ethos of the sacrifice on the Cross and is respected not solely as a man per se but as man’s sacrifice in the service of his brethren. It is such clergymen, it is theologians of this kind of ethos that the Church needs urgently today, so that these may be living models of life and holiness and authentic examples of ecclesiastic mentality.

I am deeply conscious of the fact that the task of ministration to the Church and to our brethren and the devotion of our lives to such holy and admirable causes is no easy path. Those who choose the way of ministration and sacrifice consciously take the narrow and difficult way. Of course they rejoice with those who rejoice but more often they weep with those who weep. They choose to become the Cyreneans of every man around them who carries a cross, no matter how small or heavy. They decide to answer the question “lovest thou me?”, addressed to each one of them personally by the Lord, with Peter’s words: “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee”[22], to receive the same summon: “Feed my sheep”[23].

Here is how a modern-day theologian comments on this dialogue:

“Feed my sheep: In other terms, place your whole life within the Divine Liturgy and make it a way of life for your brethren’s lives too.

Feed my sheep: In other terms, learn to weep with those who weep and to rejoice with those who rejoice. Love the uniqueness of each and every man. Love the meaning and the contents of his freedom. Place the specific, the individual, the locally and temporally determined events of his life within the Liturgy of the Holy Eucharist so that everyone’s work and creative activities may become a vital function of the body of the Church.

Feed my sheep: In other terms, become perfectly transparent so that it may be evident where “all ye that labour and are heavy laden” can find rest[24]. Eucharistically offer on the Altar everything true that each one offers to the other, so that all those partaking of one chalice may share it, meaningful and enhanced.

Feed my sheep: In other terms, serve them in my way and with my authority: the authority of the one who “took upon him the form of a servant” and utterly “humbled himself ”. Be servant of all as last of all”[25].

And the answer remains unchanged through the centuries: “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee”, “thy will be done”.

However, I should stress one further point. No matter how tough and sometimes even painful the life of a clergyman may occasionally become, he nevertheless preserves a unique prerogative: namely, the priest always has the occasion and the possibility of depositing all his torments and temptations on the Altar. This is his consolation, his support and the source of his joy, because it is there that he always meets with the invisibly present Lord.

All this may seem difficult and it is only natural that we should wonder how we shall succeed. Nonetheless, there is no reason for us not to be optimistic. “Divine grace, which always heals what is infirm and completes what is lacking”[26] will see to it.

My dear children in the Lord,

On this day let us celebrate the joyful event of your graduation and wish to all and to each one of you personally that the seed sown in you during the years of your studies at the blessed Holy Cross School of Theology may bear fruit one hundred fold.

I wish and pray that the way which is opened up today, after your graduation, may be a course of life in Christ, illuminated by the unsetting light of Resurrection and enriched by the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

What you should humbly and earnestly ask of the Lord is this: “cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee”[27] and He will show you the way.

Use what your eminent professors offered you and what you were taught by them and by your spiritual fathers and proceed with courage to the materialization of your visions. Have confidence in the sense of security ensured by the inspired steering of the Church of America by His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America and by the love, ceaseless care and fatherly supervision of His All-Holiness Bartholomew, our Ecumenical Patriarch.

We can only be proud of you and pray to God to cover you with His feathers and under His wings, to bless you, to support you and to direct your steps “unto all good works”.

May you have a great career and a brilliant ministration.

God be with you.

 Notes

[1] Holy Communion Service, Prayer IX, by John Damascene.

[2] Cf. Gal. 2,20: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”.

[3] Cf. John 15,18-19: “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you”.

[4] Cf. Ad Diognetum (Epistle to Diognetus), in Sources Chrétiennes, vol. 33, H. I. Marrou (ed.), Paris 1965, pp. 52-84: “Christians are confined in the world as in a prison, and yet they are the preservers of the world”, p. 66.

[5] Cf. Gregory the Theologian, Oration XXX, PG 36, 125: “our best Theologian is he who has, not indeed discovered the whole, for our present chain does not allow of our seeing the whole, but conceived of Him to a greater extent than another, and gathered in himself more of the Likeness or adumbration of the Truth, or whatever we may call it”.

[6] Cf. John 14,5-6: “Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me”.

[7] Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.

[8] Cf. 1 Cor. 10,16-17: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread”.

[9] Cf. Rom. 12,5.

[10] Nicholas Cabasilas, Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, 32, PG 150, 440.

[11] Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.

[12] Triodion, Holy Saturday, Orthros, Ode 3 of the Canon: “Thou hast stretched out Thy hands and united what before had been divided”.

[13] Cf. The Paschal Canon: “Thou did descend into the nether regions of earth, O Christ, and did shatter the eternal bars which held the prisoners captive; and like Jonah from the sea-monster, after three days Thou did rise from the grave”.

[14] Apostichon at Vespers of the Sunday of Orthodoxy.

[15] Cf. Luke 22,44: “and being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground”.

[16] John 17,11.

[17] Psalm 103 (104 KJV),4.

[18] Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.

[19] 2 Thess. 2,15.

[20] Catechetical Sermon of St. John Chrysostom.

[21] Protopr. G. Metallinos, Parish: Christ in our midst, Apostolic Diakonia, Athens 1990, pp. 21-23.

[22] John 21,15-17: “So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep”.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Cf. Matth. 11,28: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”.

[25] Protopr. A. Avgoustidis, Theology of Consolation, Domi, Athens 2008, pp.101-102.

[26] “Order for the Ordination of a Presbyter”, in P. Trebelas, Small Prayerbook, “The Saviour” Fraternity of Theologians, Athens 1988, p. 231 (=Archieratikon, Apostolic Diakonia, Athens, s.d., p. 84).

[27] Psalm 142 (143 KJV),8: “cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee”.

source

[Below is an excellent article by Fr. George Metallinos that portrays the truth about Constantine the Great and shows with conviction why the Orthodox Church honors him as a Saint and "Equal of the Apostles". It also answers the numerous critics of Constantine, among whom accuse him as being one of the most evil men in history. This is a transcribed lecture translated from Greek by John Sanidopoulos]

Constantine the Great and Historical Truth

By Protopresbyter Fr. George D. Metallinos

(Professor Emeritus, University of Athens, Faculty of Theology)

The reason that I chose this day for the presentation of my thesis is the feast of St. Constantine and his mother, St. Helen, which was just two days ago (May 21st).

The Appropriate Use of Sources

It is a known fact that the stance of historians with respect to Constantine the Great is a contradictory one. For some, his life is an enigma and he himself is a sullen murderer and opportunist, while for others, his life is a huge miracle of history. This is due to the predominance of ideological criteria and a procession of assessments that are devoid of historical sources. Among the worst tragedies in the arena of history, which lead exclusively to the self-abrogation of the historian and his research, is the handling of history at will so that history is thus used to prove events, which history however is baseless and lacking in proof. Another problem is not only the ideological use of history and sources, but historical anachronism. What I mean is that hermeneutical attempts are made on historical events and historical persons within the understanding of the Present, whatever that Present may be. Of course, you know that when someone prepares a historical diatribe, and especially when it is the opus of a certain scholar, it serves as a prologue or a first chapter that is often quoted in the epoch in which the matters and the events are located in history. This situating is extremely needful, spherical from every side, so that a person may infer that his conclusions are undeniable. Historical anachronism and the ideological use of history, I repeat, are the worst illnesses of those who avail themselves with history, especially in our time. It is also possible for someone to work with history without utilizing sources. Then his work becomes a novel, not history. A novel is something used by someone, and it may include some sources, but in the end it becomes something that is composed by someone in an arbitrary way. This becomes another blot for the science of history. Apostolos Bakalopoulos, until his death the patriarch of ecclesiastical history of our land [Greece], in a classic work of his, in many volumes that he gave us, about new Hellenism, is forced to explain himself after the reissuance of the first and second volumes and to say that “You accuse me of not following the events, but I believe that science is firstly the search and then the presentation of one’s sources, analytically, critically, and then after all that, stochastically. Allow me therefore to deal with the sources,” Bakalopoulos would say, “and then go ahead and act on your stochasticism.”

I repeat then, that ideological use of history, historical anachronism, out-of-order mentality and unfounded stochasticism suppress the historian and his research.

The Sources

Speaking of Constantine the Great, what are the sources from which we gather his information? The contemporary historian of the era, the father of ecclesiastic history, Eusebius, was tied to Constantine by personal friendship, and so his information must be judged differently and cross-referenced with other sources. If they cannot be cross-referenced, they remain testimonies but cannot be used to prove a point. Another contemporary historian and friend of Constantine’s son, Crispus, was Lactantius. He wrote The Death of the Persecutors, that is those who persecuted the Christians. But there are also St. Gregory the Theologian who in his epics dealt with the two Romes, the Old and the New Rome. He considers the second Rome as a link between East and West (I will return to this). These are the safest, most trustworthy sources.

Zosimos

On the other hand, the only source that contains anything negative that is repeated to this day about Constantine the Great is the idol-worshipping gentile, the fanatical paganist historian Zosimos (425 – c. 518). He writes about one and a half century after Constantine.

Eusebius is the father of ecclesiastical history, and he died circa 339 or 340 A.D. Constantine died in 337, these two are synchronous. Zosimos was a fanatic of the ancient religion and he wrote the book New History in six volumes which begins with Augustus and ends in 410. His sources are paganistic. The information he provides cannot be cross-referenced. Those who wish to take advantage of the case against Constantine are constantly using the elements provided by Zosimos. You can see that I’m trying to stay objective. It’s not important to us whether Constantine appears good or bad. The problem in searching this topic is to see what the sources tell us. To this end, Eusebius must be cross-referenced many times, but Zosimos must be checked more since he writes much later. He is very anti-Constantine and also extremely vilifying to Constantine’s person.

Today, history accepts that Zosimos is not a true historian. He writes with bias, and he is rather more ethicological than scientific. There exists a fine article by Diddley that appeared in a German magazine in 1972 and also a splendid article using Diddley in a biographical lexicon of Mr. Tsakanikas. Zosimos’ fanaticism and his libelous attack on Constantine appear to be based on the decline of the ancient religion of the Roman Empire at a time when the empire acquires its greatest extent and is at its most unified and reaches its greatest glamour. Things are exactly opposite to what Zosimos is trying to present.

It is important to note that the views of Zosimos are referred to by people, especially the neo-paganists or new idol worshipers, without critical scrutiny. They want to stigmatize Constantine and to have his work rejected and to undervalue his person. This is rather devious, after this nothing can be done, and there can be no justice, since these things are published and very often published illegally. Many times they send me articles from the internet, where some people praise my work, but most of the time they accuse me and attribute things to me that I never said or thought. Even so and so says in his book that I wrote certain things that are anti-Hellenic, which I never wrote. I hope he repents for these lies before he leaves this world. It doesn’t bother me, but it hurts his readers and the students who read his books. This is pretty much what happened with Zosimos. For example, Voltaire has a very negative stance with respect to Constantine. Gibbon is also against him, and we shall see this later.

At the present time, diachronically and synchronically, who are they that attack and abase Constantine?

Constantine Paparigopoulos, in the 19th century, the first great historian of the Modern Greek nation, (many of his works should be renewed in our day), his work is very valuable because, I say this for those who do not know him, Paparigopoulos has one asset: he is never stochastic and he follows historical sources. If a person can’t find all the sources, he may trustworthily follow them and study them as they are presented by Constantine Paparigopoulos. He says that the first group that hated Constantine as a defender of the new religion (Christianity), is the defenders of the ancient religion (Roman idol-worshippers), like Zosimos. Zosimos attributes all catastrophes of his era to Constantine, without proof. Today also, these catastrophes are attributed to him by the neo-paganists. How justified they are in doing so we shall see later. Second, from the 18th century on, proponents of the Enlightenment (Renaissance) have attacked Constantine. A certain opinion of Zosimos that they use is this: “He abandoned the dogma of our forefathers and espoused dishonor.” Do you see how things are relative? Christianity is said to be ‘dishonor’. And the religion of our forefathers is honorable! Of course the person who studies history, like he who is speaking to you, does not concern himself with sentimentality. But it is understood that a person’s mindset is influenced by reading these things, and it becomes impossible for anyone to have a good opinion on Constantine. In spite of all this, I will say that there are times that Zosimos either keeps quiet when it comes to worthwhile things that Constantine did or praises him, a few times for his virtues. St. Gregory the Theologian, in talking about Basil the Great uses the following adage, which may be attributed to him: “Even his enemies marvel at the virtues of the man.” A man’s assets are awe-inspiring even to his adversaries. When your enemy praises you, it means that you are worth something. It is not only a few times that Zosimos is forced to praise Constantine.

Enlighteners

The Enlighteners, especially Gibbon and Voltaire, attack and abase Constantine. Voltaire constantly abases Byzantium, while Gibbon, despite the title of his book, even though he doesn’t refuse that the name of the empire is not Byzantium but New Rome, is on the side of politics and geography (the West), but not the scientific and spiritual, of the Old Rome, and he talks about the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. According to Gibbon, the fall is due to Christianity. His work is memorable and important, but he writes with a certain bias, so you understand his basic drawback. In the perversion of things according to Paparigopoulos, papism did not play a small role. Even though Constantine is considered a saint in Roman Catholicism, especially among the Uniates, he is still hated for having moved the capital to New Rome and led old Rome to insignificance. If something like that happened to us, say if the capital were moved from Athens to Salonika, what would we southerners do?

Now, this is significant: the name Constantine is derived from the Greek language. Konstas means ‘steadfast’, strength of character, from the verbs “istamai” and “istemi”, to stand and to erect respectively. Thus the etymology is from the ancient Greek, but the name Constantine came from the West. From the schism onward, neither Pope nor any other political leader in the West ever took the name Constantine. It became the most hated name in direct antithesis with the East where it got to the point where several years ago, every person in leadership, to the previous king, to the current king, and later to the president of the democracy and all the leaders of the opposing political parties had the same name, Constantine. Even Malvina Karali, God rest her soul, told everyone with a little indignation that they should start using ancient Greek names, like Vrassithas and Epameinondas, rather than Constantine. It became our favorite name and even I have a son in law by that name. There are now more Constantines than Georges or Johns. That shows how beloved this name became for our people.

The fourth group that stands against Constantine and his legacy are the western-minded people, who (amongst our people) always follow what the west says, no matter whether it’s right or not.

Biographical Elements

Two or three biographical elements before I continue with some apologetical themes. His name was Imperator Caesar Claudius Valerius Constantinus Augustus—that’s his full name after 324 when he became monocrat. He was born on 22 February circa 280 in Nissa of Serbia. His youth was spent as a hostage at the court of autocrat Diocletian or at the court of co-autocrat Galerios. He was held hostage so that his father, who was Caesar, Constantine the Chloros, would be prevented from revolting against the autocrat. Perhaps he witnessed the martyrdom of St. George and St. George’s miracles in the East, since his love for martyrs must have been caused by a specific event. He was a brave warrior with many other assets, heroism being one of them. In the beginning he married modest Ninevina who gave him Crispus, his first child. For political reasons, as his father had done, he was forced to divorce Ninevina and to marry the daughter of co-autocrat Maximian, Fausta. Vostantzoglou, R.I.P., wrote about Fausta. From Fausta he had three sons – Constantine II, Constantius, and Constans and all three reigned. See how all the names are derived from the same root?

Diocletian was the first Augustus and Caesar, and the second Augustus we might say was Galerius, his helper in the East. Maximian was also a co-Augustus, and his Caesar was Constantius Chloros, the father of Constantine, who was in Nissa. In 305, first of May, Diocletian and Maximian resigned, so Constantius was proclaimed Augustus in the West and Galerius in the East. Constantine then went to the West to be near his father. In 306 Constantine Chloros died and on 25 July of the same year, the army declared Constantine autocrat. We must consider something here. There was no inheritance of a kingdom back then, just the same as during the entire period of the Byzantine Empire, New Rome, meaning Romania, just as there was no inheritance of a kingdom back in Ancient Greece. Inheritance rules did not exist in the case of inheritance of position. The army or the senate or the people might allow the son of an emperor to succeed him, but it’s not because of the right of inheritance. That’s how Greek democracy worked. I have said this many times in this auditorium, the ruler was chosen by the people. That is democracy. Constantine therefore was nominated by the army and the senate to be autocrat. But Maxentios, the son of Maximian, in the same year on October 28 was nominated autocrat as well. In 311 Galarios died and was succeeded by Licinius who married Constantia, Constantine’s step-sister. On 28 October of 312 Constantine defeated Maxentios—we shall see how—on the Milvian Bridge, others spell it Moulvia Bridge. The senate then declared that Constantine is now first Augustus. In 313 Licinius defeted Maximinian. Now only two Augusti remained. Constantine was first and Licinius second. So in 313 the famous declaration of the Mediolanon (Edict of Milan) is given, and we shall see what its significance is. In 321 Licinius brings back the persecutions against the Christians, even though in 313 Constantine first had decided that the persecutions would stop. There is a battle between the two, and Licinius is defeated. In 324, Constantine becomes monocrat and the empire obtains unity despite its large territory, from Thoulin, which may be today’s Iceland, or at least from Ireland up to Persia and India. Thus it became a single country, with one central autocrat. In 325 he calls the First Ecumenical Synod together and in 330he inaugurates the new capital, New Rome. On 22 May 337 he dies at Drepano of Bithynia—in Asia Minor—which was the city of origin for St. Helen and that’s the reason why he named this city Helenoupolis. He was baptized by his friend, Eusebius of Nicomedia, in a white robe as a catechumen, and a little after that he got sick and died at the age of around sixty. His body was transferred and buried in the new capital, New Rome.

That’s the basic history.

Criticism from Zosimos

Constantine was criticized by Zosimos for killing and eliminating his enemies. What do the sources say? Certain things that his enemies say and especially Zosimos who is the main source of criticism against Constantine will pretty much be left to conjecture. When something cannot be proven, any historian must only mention it, and avoid basing any conclusion on unfounded hypotheses or thoughts.

The Case of Maximian

To remain on a few characteristic examples, here’s the case of Maximian. Maximian wanted to become Augustus, autocrat, and he was persecuted by his own son Maxentios. He received help from his daughter, and he was Constantine’s father-in-law. In 310, however, he organized a conspiracy to overturn Constantine’s reign. That was the situation at that time. You know that every man, no matter how grand he may be, cannot stop being a child of his age. That’s why I told you that when historical anachronism is applied, it is a travesty to historical research. We shall interpret the events of that time, staying in that epoch and not transferring those events to our present conditions. Maximian spread the word that Constantine was killed in action against the Franco-Germans on the northern border, and then he took part of the army to his side and crowned himself autocrat. Constantine returned and Maximian locked himself in the castle of Massalia. Constantine took him prisoner, but then he forgave him through his wife Fausta’s intervention. There was a new plot of Maximian and Fausta herself this time, to kill Constantine. This attempt failed. Fausta then blamed her father. Maximian then hanged himself, because he understood that things would get very difficult for him. Many historians since Zosimos blame Constantine for this. Look, when someone is the highest authority, and not only political and administrative leader, but has total control of his office, he is called Rectus Totius Omnis, meaning governor, ruler of the whole world. Constantine then was Grand Juror. He was Pontifex Maximus. He did not give himself these powers; he received them from the Roman Empire. Every wrongful action had to be judged by the Grand Juror, who was selected by the army but checked by the senate.

Thus it is not possible to hand all the blame to Constantine, just like the president of a democracy who signs the paperwork for a death penalty case that has been handed down by fair trial is obligated to sign it. If the man holding the highest office refuses to sign it, refuses to do what the juridical process decreed, you know what the repercussions will be.

The Case of Bassian

Second is the case of Bassian. I’ll avoid the details, because, in Bassian’s riot, here Constantine showed magnanimity even when the riot was discovered–again there was a plot against the ruler of the world. Is it possible that this might be a cold-hearted murder, as the historians consider Constantine? Every other ‘ruler of the world’ would have to be called a murderer, unless he is acting within the law.

The Roman Empire was able to survive a long time because it acted in this way.

“In This, Be Victorious”: The Case of Maxentios

The case of Maxentios, the brother-in-law of Constantine is typical. Maxentios wanted to be sole autocrat and turned against Constantine, invoking death by murder in his mind, of his father, Maximian. He orders that all statues of Constantine be destroyed. Constantine comes up through the Alps to Italy and the two armies meet at the same bridge of the Tiber River, two kilometers outside Rome. Here appears the well-known sign of the Cross up in the sky, as is described by Eusebius, at noontime. Constantine saw a Cross up in the sky and the letters that said “In this, be victorious,” not “By this, be victorious”. With this symbol you will conquer, you will win. Lactantius mentions this in Latin. And he says that it was a Cross that Constantine saw in his sleep – you see how there are differing versions – and he said that the words were “In Hoc Vincas”; here we see the “In” – “In this you will conquer”. St. Artemios and the army, there are other sources, testify that they also saw this sign, thus the entire army saw it, not only Constantine. Whether he saw it in the daytime or in his sleep doesn’t matter, what matters is that Constantine had the symbol of the Cross put on his flag, and the monogram XP, Christos on a crown, and on his soldiers’ shields.

Zosimos leaves this event without mention, and even though he may have been able to prove it wrong, it must be that he could not. He does not mention it – and all the other pagan writers do not refer to it either in their books. But later historians, Philostorgios, the hesychast of the 14th century Nicephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos, Sozomenos a 5th century historian one century after Constantine, and also Socrates the Scholastic, say that the words “In this be victorious” were in fact Angels, like the star of Bethlehem was, according to St. Chrysostom, or a supernatural event, or the uncreated energy of the Triune God. Sozomenos also interprets it in his own way.

On 28 October 312 there’s a battle. Constantine has 25,000 soldiers, Maxentions 100,000. Maxentios’ army is completely wiped out. One of Tiber’s bridges breaks up and many soldiers fall into the river and drown, and Maxentios is among them. Again Constantine is blamed. In my research, I’m interested in why they call him a “murderer” again. You know what it means to be a killer. If you say that because of the way Constantine attacked the bridge fell and Maxentios fell into the water and drowned, I believe it. But why is he a murderer? Not when there’s a battle for which there is a revolution against the highest authority. Three years after, Constantine built the Triumphant Arch which exists to this day in Rome. Now the contradiction that we give to Constantine’s enemies is that Constantine did not prosecute any of the soldiers of the opposing faction. He did not take any stand against them. Now you see what contradictions exist in the case of Constantine.

Crispus and Fausta

Characteristic among these — to complete all the reports — is the case of the son Crispus and Fausta, the second wife of Constantine. In 316 he was celebrating the tenth anniversary of his ascent to the throne, in the palace. He received the news that Crispus had been arrested and incarcerated in the prison of Polas in Istria—that’s where John Kapodistrias and his family hailed from, Istria. Crispus was a serious and well-disposed young man with many leadership skills and charisma. At seventeen he received a high ranking in the army and was actually the leader of the Navy of the Empire. Don’t think this is impossible. Guarne, son of Josephine and adopted by Napoleon, at sixteen went to conquer the Heptanese with the democratic French. Here we see the hatred of Fausta. Crispus was thought of more highly than her three sons. She took it as his desire to ascend the throne. And another thing, Saint Helen loved Crispus for his talents, he reminded her of her own son in his youth. Then a satanic event takes place. One month before Crispus’ death, Constantine the Great had made a law against adultery. Not simply fornication, but adultery with a married woman. The punishment was death. With some false witnesses Fausta accused Crispus, first for a conspiracy against Constantine, and second with an attack against her, his step-mother, with immoral aims. Zosimos, the idolater historian – attention here – and John Zonaras in the twelfth century, accept that these accusations are baseless, and serious researchers accept that there is no proof to these accusations, only conjecture.

Constantine’s dilemma in this case was analogous to the great lawmaker of Hellenism – Zaleukos. In the seventh century, Zaleukos —“Zaleukos” means “thoroughly white” (meaning very clean, righteous) – who was a contemporary of Hammurabi, gave the first Hellenic code and is more ancient than Solon. He had a law which said: “The accused and arrested for adultery is condemned to losing two eyes”. The first person arrested for adultery was Zaleukos’ son. The king came along, like Constantine, to try him in court. What should he do? Should he blind his own son, whom the army wanted to succeed him as well as the people of the city? Thus, Zaleukos wisely asked the participants in court as to how many eyes does the law require in this case as punishment? They told him two. He told them, there you go, one of my son’s eyes, and take one of mine. He was blinded in one eye so that he wouldn’t take both from his son. Constantine did not execute Crispus; he simply put him in jail. The young man was put to death in an unknown way, and no command by Constantine was ever found that condemned him to death, as there should have been. Historians tell us that the only person who could use the emperor’s bull was his wife Fausta, and this execution is attributed to her.

Helen returned from Rome and found out about Fausta’s conspiracy and revealed it to Constantine. Constantine then ordered that Fausta be arrested. Zosimos then tells us that Constantine ordered her death by drowning in her bath with hot water. A few days ago I received an article where an enemy of Christianity repeats what Zosimos wrote, without any other sources, without any reference to this event. This judgment of Constantine remains unproven. Ieronymos disproves this myth of Zosimos. A church historian (366 – 419 A.D.), an excellent Hellenist, he had lived near the Fathers in the east, and especially St. John Chrysostom. He belongs with the Fathers, on the side of Orthodoxy. Ieronymos lived these events, and he gives us the information that Fausta lived on, for three or four years after the death of Crispus. How is it possible for the two events to be tied together? Even the historian Gibbon, in his history, contests this type of death for Fausta. Paparrigopoulos also disputes this theory. The events surrounding the deaths of Crispus and Fausta are again impossible to prove.

Constantine’s Stand Against Idolatry

One year after the Synod of Nicaea in 326, Constantine went to Rome to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of his reign. In the Capitol building he was called to offer an idolatrous offering – he refused. You understand that his refusal was felt like a thunderbolt, an emperor refusing to do his duty as leader of a pagan empire. We should also know, I’ll say this parenthetically, why Christianity was persecuted for the first three centuries. These persecutions have not stopped to this day. It was persecuted because it denied any other deities. In the Divine Liturgy, the statement: “One is holy, one is Lord, Jesus Christ”, came into the liturgy early, even as early as the first century. “One is Holy” is the answer to the Jews, that there is only one who sanctifies – the Triune God. “One is Lord”, one is king and emperor is directed towards the Romans. One is our king. This is repeated around the year 160 in the West by St. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, during his trial. What did Statios Condratios the ruler of Smyrna tell him? “Give offerings to the statue of Caesar.” This is because Caesar was revered as a god on earth. The spirit of Caesar and the spirit of Rome were honored with statues and offerings, and they were considered deities. Thus Rome would not have objected if the Christians were to honour one more deity in the existing pantheon of deities. Horatio had said that at the time, there were more gods than people. Thus Rome wouldn’t have objected if the Christians had accepted the deities of Caesar and Rome. This is why the Christians were persecuted. It was considered illegal to them, to repeat the words of Socrates, to accept the gods ‘that the state’ considered to be gods by law. So for the pagans it was rather curious that the emperor, who was honored as a god, and Constantine to that day was considered a god, refused to offer the lawful sacrifice as was imposed by the religion of Rome. After having been present at the Synod of Nicaea, he could no longer accept these things.

Also according to Zosimos, he caused the pagans to hate him, and they, in order to take revenge on him and to embarrass him, they disfigured the face on his statues. That is, they used every possible means to destroy his face, but he, peacefully, when told what had happened, put his hand up to his face and said: “Lucky for me, I don’t see any wounds on my face.” He did not persecute the pagans, however, he also did not try to cultivate a friendship with them. In his letters, he advised the citizens of the country and all the regions where pagans resided to turn to the Christian faith. How could the gentiles love him? The only people that he showed severity towards were the heretics. That’s why he exiled Athanasios the Great, and another time he exiled Arius. Every ruler, in every epoch, is only interested (per the common phrase) in three things – calm, order and safety. He wanted to avoid inopportune conflicts. This is why Athanasios the Great was exiled to the west, (according to many historians) since he was threatened by death from the Arians. Exiled to Rome in 335-6, and to Remida, today’s Prir, birthplace of Karl Marx. That’s where Athanasios the Great was sent, and thereafter had transfused to the West the monasticism of St. Anthony and St. Pachomios, i.e., the coenobium.

Constantine did not do wrong to the pagan religion. According to Zosimos he even supervised the reconstruction of pagan temples. My colleague at the University of Athens in Philosophy, Polymnia Athanasiades, has written a splendid work in which she writes that immediately after Nicaea, Constantine – as emperor of the nation – had funded four temples – two idolatrous and two Christian ones. He wanted to keep the two sides balanced and not show favoritism, and wanted to ensure the equality and unity of his citizens. He also funded the churches that were created by St. Helen – the Ekatopiliani or “100-Portal” one on Paros island, the churches that exist to this day in Jerusalem, in Bethlehem, on the Mount of Calvary, also the monastery where St. Helen transferred a large portion of the True Cross, and many others. Forgive me, I see in this article (which I won’t read in its entirety) that the neo-pagans accuse us that there’s not just one piece of the True Cross, but that there’s an entire forest. Don’t think that whoever has a piece that he calls True Cross that it’s directly from the Cross of Christ. We have what we call phylacteries that have touched the blood of martyrs, or the wood of the Cross of Christ. These phylacteries and pieces of wood are sanctified, and these are called ‘True Wood’ but they are not a part of the Cross. There is a difference here. At the monastery of Xeropotamou and the monastery of Stavrovounion in Cyprus there are large pieces of the Cross. They are not among the little pieces that have been cut, but in this way the little pieces that come in contact with these larger pieces, have created phylacteries that have come into contact with the True Cross. Constantine’s father did not persecute the Christians, like Diocletian. Constantine followed his father’s example.

The Decree of the Mediolanum (Edict of Milan)

The Edict of Milan is spoken of in the work of Lactantius and in Eusebius’ history. What does the edict consist of? It allowed for freedom of worship for any religion. It repealed all laws against Christians and had all churches that were confiscated returned to them, or if that wasn’t possible they were compensated. We spoke of the First Ecumenical Synod. Constantine also elevated Hellenism politically and culturally. Constantine used the language of Romania, the Greek Empire which spread from the West to the far reaches of the East. There were two languages, Latin and Greek. Constantine spoke Greek at the Synod and also at the one in 324 in Antioch. This is where he shows his humility at the Synod in accepting the Synodic institution where he told them this famous quote: “You are the bishops in spiritual matters, in the sacra interna of the Church. I’m the emperor, rendered by God as the person in charge of secular matters.” The Greek work ‘an eie’ means that if he wanted to, he could also be, since he was recognized as such by the other bishops, an administrator of the Church. We may conclude from later sources about the sacra interna of the church. The problem in the relationship between church and state today—is the same as that of Constantine and many other emperors of New Rome. I’ll talk about a couple more things and I’ll conclude.

Works by Constantine the Great

He changed the course of history with his religious policies and urbanization changes that he brought about. One of those was the ability of slaves to become free men. He did not end slavery, since it wasn’t a possibility back then, but as the apostle Paul said in his letter to Philemon, he changes the content of slavery. A slave can also be a brother, or a coworker to his master, since whenever a slave is considered a man, a coworker, he can no longer be an object for his former master. He is the first Roman emperor, or the first Orthodox emperor in history, since he’s the one who built New Rome, the new capital. In 326 he began to look for a new city. He was not satisfied with the Latin-minded environment of the West and he understood that the empire must be moved eastward in order to prosper. That’s where the game began, which lasted a thousand one hundred years and longer, and it is even played up to today. Hellenism has remained intertwined spiritually with New Rome, with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Constantine at first selected Troy to be his capital. That’s where he wanted to build his capital, that’s what the historian Sozomenos wrote. In the end he understood the strategic placement of old Byzantium, which at that time was in ruins. It controlled the passage to the Black Sea, the Straits of Bosporus. Paparrigopoulos, Gibbon, and many other historians attempted to measure the distance from Constantinople to Iceland and from Constantinople to China. The distance is about the same. Constantine figured that Constantinople was the center of the world. When he was telling his generals as to where the city limits ended, they asked him, “Where are you taking us, you are making the city too big.” Constantine said, “I can’t stop because someone else is leading ahead of me.” He’s saying that he is being led by divine intervention, by an angel of the Lord. Whether this is true or not is not our problem. The amazing thing is that he was clear headed enough and sharp enough to see that Constantinople would play a huge role in history being located in this part of the world. He is the one emperor who never lost any battle. He was never defeated, neither from within nor without. He put down the senatorial system, since it was to the point where they were more powerful than the emperor, he stopped putting prisoners to death by crucifixion, he renewed the rights of families, he put a stop to adultery, as we saw, he made laws which raised the position of mothers, he protected the family unit and children from men who abused their patriarchal authority, and young girls from being snatched from their families for forced weddings. He regulated the matters of divorce, inheritance, dowries, etc. His entire policy shows that he acted as a Christian. He wrote laws that punished those who caused the death of their slaves and he limited violence and painful punishment. And something extremely important for the 4th Century – he outlawed branding on the faces of slaves. They used to brand their slaves with a heated sword. He used to say that the face is created in God’s image. How can a person’s face be marred like that?

Constantine contributed in the triumph of Christianity. A terrible mistake by historians — let’s hope that is that it was done in ignorance — is that Constantine the Great proclaimed Christianity as the official religion. This was done on February 28 in 380, not by Constantine, but by the Emperor Theodosios I. Constantine ensured the freedom of all religions, whereby Christians were given the right to worship their God freely. Christianity did not become the State Religion. This is a huge historical mistake and a lie at the same time. Constantine Paparrigopoulos says that “Constantine could have acted otherwise towards Christianity, and he might have persecuted it rather than protected it.” Paparrigopoulos sees a rather unbelievable change of heart in Constantine in his stance towards the Christians. And here is another thing that is very significant. There is no politician ever who bases his views on the minority, but rather always on the majority. He normally strives to gain the majority of votes or get his ways approved. At the time of Constantine the Great, until the First Ecumenical Council where he shows his interest in Christianity, I ask, what was the overall number of Christians in the Empire? Eight to ten percent. That’s testified to by the superb work of Adolf von Harnack, one of the great historians of free ideology in Europe, in Germany, called “The Spread of Christianity in the First Few Centuries”. At eight to ten percent Christianity was a large minority.

Constantine the Great is considered great by the Church and a Saint for this reason. To be a Saint means that he has the Grace of God within him, that’s what that means, it doesn’t mean that he’s infallible. He has the Grace of God, a living and perceptible grace. As an emperor, Constantine the Great presented himself as a commoner at the time of the Synod, accepting the most democratic system of history, which is the synod, the synodical system. In 311 and continuing in 313-314 a great conflict broke out, the schism of the Donatists. The Christians who belonged to Donatos and the other Christians who belonged to the regular bishop were fighting against each other as to whom the churches belonged as well as the plots of land belonging to those churches. Constantine, being emperor, should have judged the whole affair, being the “supreme judge”, but he made himself neutral and told Miltiades, a Greek (Hellene)bishop of Old Rome: “You have the synod, judge the affair by the synodic system.” When we say that Constantine the Great was president of the Synod, my colleague, professor Vlasios Feidas, has published a book about his presidency in the First Ecumenical Synod. The sources tell us, analyzed critically by Mr. Feidas and other scientists, that the true president of the Synod was Eustathios of Antioch. There is a difference between the president who coordinates the events of the Synod, and the president who recognizes the need for a Synod. The emperor was the only one who had the right to allow all the bishops to meet, especially since there were bishops from all parts of the empire, and not only to meet at the capital of the empire but in Nicaea of Bithynia. This tenet was in effect from the time of Old Rome and even at the time of Justinian, even during the German occupation. Could anyone travel without getting leave from the German administration? Or how about during the time of the Soviet Union, could anyone say that I’m leaving to go shopping in Europe without a police permit? People were afraid. This was even more so in effect during the Roman Empire. Constantine, however, and the emperors after him, gave their permission for the Synod to meet. Thus he called the Fathers of the Synod together, in excellent Greek – he was fluent in the Greek language – and then he withdrew and the work of the Synod was carried out by the Holy Fathers, among whom were St. Nicholas, St. Spyridon, Alexander of Thessalonica, Alexander of Alexandria, Athanasios the Great (a deacon still); you can understand what personages we are speaking about. Constantine did not preside over the First Ecumenical Synod; this is what is implied throughout Church history. People may say that emperors did exert their influence. But since there were Saints present in the Ecumenical Synods, ready to sacrifice themselves for the faith, there is nothing and no one that can influence them. That’s the problem that we have today. Can we convene an Ecumenical Synod today? If there are no saintly people left, there cannot be an Ecumenical Synod. If we don’t have bishops that fight for the faith in Christ and follow the Saints of the past, but rather any Synod that does take place in the future but goes against the words and the policies and the praxis of the saintly men of the past, will show itself (and I hope this doesn’t happen) to be a false Synod. From a lover of Greek learning and philosophy, Constantine the Great became truly faithful to the Sun of Righteousness, Jesus Christ. He became an advocate of the Christian faith, as was proven in 313 with the decree of Mediolanum, without, as I said, proclaiming Christianity as the official and unique religion of the empire.

What is His Relationship with Christianity?

Many things have been written about this, hundreds of articles, if not thousands. They talk about expediency, but I’ve already told you that Christianity was a minority among the religions. Our teacher, may he rest in peace, Andreas Fytrakis, in 1945 wrote his doctoral dissertation titled The Faith of Constantine the Great and the Last Years of his Life. Having studied the ancient sources and some of the newer ones, he tells of the honor that Constantine bestowed upon the martyrs of the faith. He fully accepted the theology of the Church regarding martyrdom, and that of the simple people of God. He prayed on his knees at the places of martyrdom of many early martyrs, he built a ‘Martyrion’ a place where he wanted the bones of martyrs collected, and he wanted to get all the bodies of the apostles collected and placed in one temple. In this Constantius, his son who succeeded him, did find the relics of six apostles. Another characteristic is that he desired to be baptized in the Jordan, when he learned that the Jordan’s waters have been sanctified due to the baptism there of Jesus Christ. Be careful with this: even though he was baptized at the end of his life, and didn’t know when that would be, as none of us knows when the last moment of his life will be, Constantine acted as the Christians of his era did. He is a child of his era. I want to ask you where did Basil and Gregory the Theologian commune when they lived in Athens? They did not commune. They went to church at St. Isidore’s church there at Lykavetos, but they were baptized around 32 years of age. People back then would visit the most spiritual people of their locale, and if they weren’t told that they have been purified in heart, they did not get baptized. You understand, that was common practice at that time. Who was Constantine’s spiritual father? Was it not Eusebius of Nicomedia? They were friends; they knew each other from idololatrous times. That’s why he asked at the end of his life from the bishop of Nicomedia, who lived between Old and New Rome, to be baptized. They say that he received the baptism of an idolater. Maybe, but God did what God wanted. If the man was an idolater, Constantine did not know it. Constantine simply had a great ascetic as another spiritual director, St. Kordoui from Cordoba of Spain. The Church honors Constantine not for the things they say about him, but because he helped the church in many ways. So that you may understand why we honor him open the Minaion (Book of Months) to see the services, and the troparia hymns that are mentioned in honor of St. Constantine and St. Helen. The first one: “…like Paul, your calling was shown forth from above…” When the apostle Peter went to Cornelius, he was saying to Christ: “Where am I going?” when He appeared to him in a vision. And he was told, “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common”, don’t defile the things God has cleansed. When he went to Cornelius the Centurion, the Roman, he found in him with the experience of having seen God. Thus God had made all things ready! And Peter gave in and did what he must do; he baptized Cornelius who had much time in front of him to be baptized. Consequently, in this case, Constantine the Great, ‘received the calling from heaven’, as had the apostle Peter. This is very significant. Of course, someone told me, that is this for certain? Since it reaches the bounds of folklore, despite our having ancient sources which testify as to the vision or Constantine the Great’s life in God. What matters to me are the criteria of the Church in proclaiming him a Saint. Where do we stand? He did not only help, but he gave. He built churches, bell towers and other things. You know that Orthodoxy, in direct antithesis with Papism, does not make anyone a Saint. I ask that you forget about beatification. This is a blasphemy. There is no beatification in Orthodoxy or in the Holy Fathers. What happens in the Orthodox Church? It is the acknowledgement of holiness. God, through many manifestations such as myrrh-bearing relics which work miracles, and with other signs from above, proves that the person has indeed reached holiness. That’s when we honor him whom God has honored and shown to us.

The second thing is that in Constantinople, the locals would say and also chant that the grave of Constantine the Great heals people with illnesses. When anybody goes to Corfu and says that the grave of Metallinos heals people, everyone will laugh. Not because I haven’t died yet, but because I’m not worthy enough so that my grave will exude holiness. In order for the locals to say this about Constantine, they must have been certain. The historian Sozomenos says this about St. Constantine, “…his miracles are like those of St. Spyridon.”

The third is that Constantine “kept the faith of Nicaea” in allowing the Synod to be convened and to decide things with God’s grace. This shows that he brought about the faith of the Orthodox Fathers of the Church. As for St. Spyridon, it is said characteristically that He reportedly converted a pagan philosopher to Christianity by using a fragment of pottery to illustrate how one single entity (the piece of pottery) could be composed of three unique entities (fire, water and clay); a metaphor for the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. As soon as Spyridon finished speaking, the fragment is said to have miraculously burst into flame, water dripped to the ground, and only the soil remained in his hand (other accounts of this event say that it was a brick he held in his hand). With this miracle St. Spyridon gives status to the Symbol of Faith. Constantine simply keeps the Orthodox faith, since he was inspired to self-abase and to submit himself to the Synodic institution.

One last conclusion, a few words from Constantine Paparrigopoulos.

I have studied Paparrigopoulos and that’s the reason I refer to him so often. He says: “Even if Constantine committed certain lawless acts, this is not due to ferocity of the soul, but because he was born and lived in times that had already established certain terrible customs and traditions. His predecessors and contemporaries did not respect any sacred or human laws. It is rather worthy of wonder that in defeating all these great temptations, he was able to comprehend and allow for the onset of the Gospel news.” This is what Constantine Paparrigopoulos says.

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And when they hear the word “saint”, the trumpeters of atheism and unbelief start to sound off. Is he a saint? General, yes. King and Emperor, yes. Great, yes. But saint? No, he’s not a saint, they say. Because, they say, Constantine the Great committed crimes: he killed his son Crispus; he killed his second wife Fausta; and so shouldn’t be considered a saint*.

What can we say in response to those who are against Constantine the Great for no other reason than that he was a Christian? Had he not been a Christian, but an idolater like Julian the Apostate, who betrayed the Church, then they would be praising him. But, no. Constantine, who supported the Orthodox faith and established firm foundations, is slandered and hated by the enemies of Christ.

We would answer: they either forget or do not know that, in our faith, there is a great thing called repentance. One tear from a sinner, whatever act they’ve committed, one tear at the sacrament of confession, redeems any fault. Were there no repentance, paradise would be empty, we wouldn’t have a calendar of feasts nor any saints, because there isn’t a saint who hasn’t cried and hasn’t repented sins. There’s no other way to Paradise, beloved, than the door of repentance. Constantine wasn’t born a saint, he became one. He made mistakes, but he repented. Let’s not forget that he was brought up in the inhuman surroundings of the courts of Diocletian and Galerius, yet he disagreed with people like them.

He’s a saint because his presence in the world is the light of Christ. This light is also shown in his call, which is remarkably like that of Saint Paul and which is why it is mentioned in his dismissal hymn. Saint Paul was called by Christ in a vision when he was walking along the road to Damascus; he saw a shining light and heard a voice saying: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” In the same way, Saint Constantine was called in a vision. A historic vision which is reported by contemporary historians[2]. What was the vision? When he arrived outside Rome on 28 October, in the year 312 A. D., the army of his rival was three times larger and defeat stared him in the face. As he sat there pondering, in broad daylight, he saw a great sign: the stars in the heavens formed a cross and below the cross he saw the words: “In this conquer” (In hoc vinca). And from that moment on, he was convinced that the future of humanity rested with Christ. He then adopted the banner which proceeded his troops and, with this sign, “In this conquer”, he defeated Maxentius, entered Rome and proclaimed to the whole city that this victory did not belong to his legions but to the Honourable Cross.

His edicts are light. The first edict, in February, 313, was for the persecutions to cease. Just imagine. The persecution of Christians had lasted 300 years. It was forbidden to be Christian. The very word “Christian” was cause enough for conviction, nothing else needed to be investigated: “Are you Christian?”. That was it. Possessions confiscated, incredible sufferings, horrifying tortures. How many martyrs? 12 million. For 300 years, Christians begged: “Lord, give us peace”. And He did. Peace came into the world through the chosen vessel of divine providence[3], Constantine the Great.

How, then, can we not honour him? We ought to do so if for nothing other than that edict which he signed with his holy hands. His nobility of soul and forgiving nature were also light. They say that some idolater enemies once decapitated a statue of him. When the news was brought to him he raised his hands, took hold of his head and said: “This is my head here. There’s nothing missing. Don’t punish them”. On another occasion he said that if he saw a cleric sinning, he would cover him with his robes, so as to prevent other people seeing his sins. This showed his intense concern that the Church should not be subjected to scandals.

He abolished the worship of the Roman emperors, who were considered gods on earth.

His legislation was also light. For the first time, Christian legislation was introduced. His vision was rare. What vision? To make a Christian state, on a global scale, and offer it to Christ for sanctification and deification. This is why he’s depicted holding an orb. And just as the Patriarch Abraham heard the voice of God telling him to leave his homeland and settle in a land that God would show him (Gen. 12, 1), so, too, Saint Constantine left Old Rome, the city stained with the blood of innocent Christians criminally killed, and built a New Rome on the Bosphorus, which, after his repose, was quite rightly called Constantinople. And from here he took measures aimed at raising the spiritual state and sanctity of the people.

What measures? He closed all the night-time places of corrupt pleasure. There were places of entertainment where women gathered under the protection of disgusting divinities, Aphrodite centres, Bacchus centres and he closed them all. He closed the oracles and got rid of the magicians who were exploiting people and deceiving them. He forbade blasphemy. He said he would forgive anything, except blasphemy. If anyone blasphemed the name of Christ, they were immediately arrested and exiled.

He honoured Sunday by edict. He declared it a great and splendid day and forbade any shops to open. Horse races, places of relaxation, everything closed.

He supported small land-holders and workers and took measures against usury and every of other form of injustice. He was the first to support human rights, he protected widows and orphans, and showed particular concern for social welfare.

He protected the Orthodox faith. When Arius, the leader of the heresy named after him, came along and opened his dirty mouth against our Lord, Jesus Christ, and said that He was not really God and of the same substance as the Father, Constantine convened the First Ecumenical Synod in Nicaea, Bithynia, to write the Creed. He himself went to the convention, not as emperor and ruler of the planet, but in humility and kissed the hands of the holy bishops, many of whom still had the marks of their mistreatment fresh on their bodies. Not being a theologian, when he was asked for his opinion, he replied: “I respect what I do not know”.

He supported missionary work. It was during his time as emperor that the Armenians and Georgians became Christians, and the light of Christ reached as far as India.

It was at his command that the Honourable Cross was found an d the first churches were built in Jerusalem. He was the initiator and founder of a Christian Empire that lasted one thousand one hundred years.

Finally, beloved, when he realized that his earthly end was approaching, he surrounded himself with bishops and confessed his sins and wept. He was then baptized, at the age of about 63, and never again put on the royal robes, the splendid imperial vestments, but wore only his white baptismal robes, telling people that he now really did feel like an emperor. He took communion, the Body and Blood of Christ, and, pure and clean, rejoicing and praying, departed for the heavenly kingdom.

Beloved, even if we ignore all the above, there are two criteria for the Church regarding his sanctity: a) the vision of God and the grace which the saint enjoyed, as we have mentioned; b) his miracles after death.

After his departure from this life, his sacred relics were buried with imperial honours in the narthex of the church of the Holy Apostles, where they gave off a powerful aroma and myrrh and performed many miracles[4]. It may be that some people wonder whether what the Christians say is really the truth. Beloved, even if some people don’t believe, there are two criteria for his sanctity and only two. It is with the seal of God that Constantine is a saint and Equal to the Apostles. History has shown him to be great and the Church to be a saint.

[1] Words attributed to Konstantinos XI Palaiologos in a poem about the capture of Constantinople (trans. note).

* The truth of the matter is as follows: when Constantine the Great was Caesar in the West, Rome proclaimed the cruel, anti-Christian, Maxentius, as emperor, who wishing to cover his back in the west, since he feared Constantine, forced him to divorce his wife, Minervina and marry Fausta, a very ambitious and cunning woman who was also Maxentius’ sister, in order to control him. When she saw Constantine’s eldest son, Crispus, distinguishing himself in battles and being groomed for the succession, she wanted to destroy him at all costs, in order to promote her own three sons to positions of power. So she slandered Crispus by saying that he had tried to rape her and kill his father in order to seize power, like a new Absalom. Unfortunately, Fausta’s plot was so convincing and her lies so persuasive that Constantine and the generals fell into the demonic trap. And they allowed Crispus to be put to death, in accordance with the law. When the queen mother, (Saint) Helen, who was many miles away, learned what had happened she rebuked her son severely for his decision. Constantine instituted exhaustive enquiries, from which it became clear that he was the victim of a criminal conspiracy on the part of his wife, Fausta, and her supporters. So he ordered that she, too, be put to death. These two murders of people of his own family greatly distressed Constantine, who regretted them bitterly to the end of his days and sought God’s forgiveness. And I order to show his repentance publicly he had a statue erected to Crispus, with the inscription “To my much-wronged son”.

[2] Lactantius (De Mortibus Persecutorum, 44), Eusebius (Eccl. Hist. IX, 9.1-11, Socrates (Eccl. Hist. I, 2.5-10), Sozomenos (Eccl. Hist. I 1) et al.

[3] In his book “The Ecumenical Synods”, Saint Nektarios writes that Saints Constantine and Helen were the hands of divine providence.

[4] See the calendar of the Church.

by Meletios Stathis

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The faith of a Christian is tested by the Resurrection of Christ like gold in a furnace. Out of the entire Gospel, the Resurrection of Christ is the most unbelievable thing, totally inadmissible by our logic and a true cause of its suffering. Because it is something totally unbelievable, for this reason it requires all of our faith to believe in it. We people often say we have faith, but we only have it for those things that are believable to our minds. But then faith is not needed, since logic is enough. Faith is required for the unbelievable.

Many people are unbelievers. The same disciples of Christ did not have faith in the teachings of their Teacher who had told them He would be raised, despite all the respect and loyalty they had for Him and the trust they had in His words. And when the Myrrh-bearers went at dawn to the sepulcher of Christ, and beheld the two angels who spoke with them, who told them that He had risen, they ran to tell the joyful news to the disciples, but the disciples did not believe their words, having the idea that it was just a fantasy: “But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense” (Lk. 24:11).

Do you see with how much unbelief Christ Himself struggled? And from His own disciples. Do you see with how much long-suffering He endured everything? And with all this, the majority of us are separated from Christ by a wall of ice, the wall of unbelief. He opens His arms to us and calls us, but we deny Him. He shows us His pierced hands and feet, and we say that we do not see them.

We try to find support for our unbelief to satisfy our ego, and we call these Philosophy and Science. The word Resurrection does not have a place in our books of knowledge. Because “the knowledge of this world cannot know anything except the multitude of their thoughts, not however with the simplicity of ones mind.” Yes, those who have this mind of blessed simplicity, the Lord blessed, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” And to Thomas, who sought to touch Him in order to believe, He said: “Because you have seen Me Thomas, you have believed? Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe.”

Let us ask the Lord to give us this rich poverty, this pure heart, so that we can see Him being raised and be raised with Him. “This ignorance is higher than knowledge” (St. Isaac the Syrian). Most fortunate and thrice-fortunate are they who have it.

Christ is Risen!

by Fotios Kontoglou (+)

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos

Thursday 05/09/2013

My brethren, I have just returned with my family from a pilgrimage to St. George in the village of Kambi in Farmaka. One hour traveling full of anticipation brought us before the beautiful church in the village, and although it was late at 9:00PM, there were still pilgrims who gathered by the grace of our Saint. The people were simple, happy and laughing both outside and inside the church. With child-like anxiousness we took our place, we approached, and we kissed the icon in order for it to bathe us with its grace and fragrance. As you can see from the photo below, the course of the myrrh is obvious, which began from the top, to the left of the head of the Saint, even though today it was limited. The priest was making cross-wise marks with oil on its acrylic cover and distributing it to the people. I asked for the details to the story and with great joy Father Polydoros and the commissioner Mr. Anthony, together with some women who were present all these days to protect the church, gave it to us for the world to know better.

The phenomenon seems to have began on Sunday, although it existed to a limited extent, unbeknownst to all. Therefore, beginning on Sunday one villager simply saw something and reported it as unusual, but the problem came during the procession, when those who held the icon noticed it was heavy. Especially on Monday, it took six people to lift it, as they told me. On Monday towards Tuesday, it seems that the myrrh reached its peak, with testimonies that the icon was fragrant while on the road towards the church. The outflow of liquid which they saw, occurred in at least two places on the icon. The distinctive Priest did not immediately want it to be known, and he contacted the responsible Bishop, Metropolitan Isaiah of Tamasos and Oreinis, who undertook an examination of the phenomenon. He immediately called specialists from the antiquities museum and the Archdiocese, and indeed, I was told that the iconologist went to the church at 10 at night because the Metropolitan is very ordered and considered that it would be good for his flock to perform a Liturgy quickly, which he did.

The experts concluded that the happening could not be explained scientifically and it was probably supernatural, and therefore a miracle. It was determined that the myrrh was gushing from the inside, beneath the varnish, which is why it was moistening the icon externally, and a hidden stream formed on its surface, which had almost solidifed (at least when I saw it). This can also be seen in the photographs. Perhaps this is the reason why it is said the icon gained weight. Of course, they told me that for many hours, the icon of myrrh was changing – and perhaps changed again – and appeared to be fluid, but by the instruction of the Bishop, there was placed around the icon a protective cover, so that the faithful would be prevented from touching and scratching the icon and inadvertently harming it.

It is worth mentioning that at times the icon flowed more myrrh, and at other times the fragrance became more intense, presumably because people would come and sit for a long time praying, or because the faith of some was more shallow and the Saint allowed, by the grace of God, for the phenomenon to more intensely burn within their heart. It was also moving, according to testimonies, that the face of St. George, especially on Monday, was so lively that it seemed as though he would talk.

From the time this became known, the church remains open until 10 every night, with the priest ministering to the people, and they intend to keep it this way until people stop coming. It should be noted that it is not permitted for anyone to be allowed to take advantage of this happening, so that no one outside is selling anything, as often happens, specifically so that the people will not be scandalized in order from the outset there would not be an aim toward economic benefit.

source:Translated by John Sanidopoulos

See photos at this link: http://imageshack.us/g/1/10143066/

The Western-style icon presents a scene that no-one ever saw. The moment of the Resurrection is a concealed secret. The Orthodox approach is entirely different. It depicts the results of the event of the Resurrection for people and for the world.

Christ, in the centre, is wearing shining white garments and is within a mandorla. He is holding the hands of Adam and Eve and raising them from death, into which they were brought by their erroneous choice in Paradise. With this action, which is dynamic (we might almost say explosive) our attention immediately focuses on the central meaning of the scene: “and raising Adam up with Himself”, the Salvation of humankind. It is significant that both are emerging from tombs.

Christ is standing firmly on two pieces of wood lying in such a way as to form a cross. These are the gates of Hell, which Christ demolished through the grace of His cross. With death, they closed, but were not powerful enough to hold Him in thrall. All around, there are broken and now useless bits of locks and chains which, until then had sealed off any escape route from Hell. Below all this there this the blackness of Hell, which, until the Resurrection was the end of the road for humankind.

To the left and right of Christ stand people who had lived on earth before Him. All turn to Him in expectation of their salvation. Among them there is, first, Saint John the Baptist, and also the prophets and the righteous of the Old Testament, such as the Prophet King David.

At the rear of the composition there are hills, which, in some depictions feature representations of prophets (e.g. David and Jonas), who had foretold the mighty event of the Resurrection. They are holding scrolls with their prophecies written upon them.

In conclusion, we would mention the white raiment worn by Christ, which symbolizes the joy of the Resurrection and prefigures our own Resurrection, which will follow.

By Athanasios Moustakis

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When we examine the issue of the Resurrection in terms of liturgical order, we usually talk about the First Resurrection as that of the Matins and Divine Liturgy which occurs the night of Pascha, and the Second Resurrection as the Service of the Vespers of Agape, which occurs on the day of Pascha, that is, the evening of the Sunday of Pascha. However, in Holy Scripture the expression first and second resurrection is associated with the Christian faithful and refers to the spiritual life. Characteristic is the passage from John the Evangelist which is written in Revelation: “Blessed is he who has a part in the first resurrection” (Rev. 20:5). This means that there is a first resurrection, which the saints participate in, and a second.

To see what is the theological meaning of the first and second resurrection we must first consider what is the first and second death. The first death is the separation of man from God, Who is the real life, and the second death is the definitive separation of sinners from God that will occur at the Second Coming of Christ. Thus, the first resurrection is the communion of man with God, as long as man lives in this world within the Church, and the second resurrection is the communion of man with God at His Second Coming, when his body also will be resurrected.

Therefore, the first resurrection that is within the Church is very important, where man lives biologically. This is the “period of a thousand years”. In Revelation, John the Evangelist speaks of those who did not worship the beast and his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand, and who “lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years” (Rev. 20:4). What is this period of a thousand years?

According to Saint Andrew of Caesarea, the time of a thousand years is symbolic and characterizes a period “from the time of Christ’s coming to the appearance of the Antichrist”, that is, the period of the Church in history. Those who truly live in the Church with its Mysteries and asceticism live the first resurrection, and the second resurrection will occur when their bodies are raised at the Second Advent of Christ.

Thus, according to Saint Andrew of Caesarea, there are two deaths and two resurrections. The first death is the spiritual and physical death, which came from man’s disobedience to the command of God, and the second death is eternal hell. By extension, the first resurrection is “those who are brought to life from dead works”, which occurs through Baptism, Chrismation and the deadening of the passions, while the second resurrection is the alteration “from the corruption of the body to incorruption.”

This means that when we live in the Orthodox Church, with the Mysteries and asceticism, we partake in the first resurrection, which, as Anthimos of Jerusalem writes, “is the the glory of God and grace”, which is received “in this life by the saints”. For those living the first resurrection there is no power “in the second death, which is the distancing from God.”

John the Evangelist blesses those who partake in the first resurrection who now live this biological life. These are saints: “Blessed and holy are they who have a place in the first resurrection”, because “on these the second death has no dominion.” Those who partake in the first resurrection will be “priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with them a thousand years” (Rev. 20:6).

The Church, beloved brethren and children in the Lord, with all the splendor in which it celebrates the Resurrection of Christ, wants to encourage and motivate us to live the first resurrection from now, that is, the liberation from the passions and the life of the Resurrection of Christ in our hearts. Thus, we avoid the death of sin acting within us. In this way we will experience Grace, the love and peace of Christ within us, and this life unfolds around us. And then there will be hope for a second resurrection, the eternal communion with Christ.

by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Saint Vlassios

Source: Paremvasi, “Η πρώτη καί δεύτερη Ανάσταση”, April 2011 (Paschal Encyclical, 2011). Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

]]> http://www.omhksea.org/2013/05/the-first-and-second-resurrection/feed/ 0 http://www.omhksea.org/2013/05/patriarchal-encyclical-for-holy-pascha-2013/ http://www.omhksea.org/2013/05/patriarchal-encyclical-for-holy-pascha-2013/#comments Sat, 04 May 2013 11:15:06 +0000 admin http://www.omhksea.org/?p=4366 Patriarchal Encyclical

For Holy Pascha 2013

Prot. No. 388

† BARTHOLOMEW

By God’s mercy

Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch

To the plenitude of the Church

Grace, peace and mercy from Christ risen in glory

Beloved concelebrants and devout, god-loving children of the Church,

Christ is Risen!

The proclamation of the Resurrection by the myrrh-bearing women to the disciples of Christ was considered delirious. Yet, the word, formerly conceived as delirious, was confirmed as Truth. The risen Lord appeared to His disciples on several occasions.

In our time, the proclamation of the Resurrection is again considered delirious by rationalists. Nonetheless, we faithful not only believe in but also experience the Resurrection as a profoundly truthful fact. Indeed, if necessary, we seal our testimony with self-sacrifice because in the risen Christ we transcend death and are liberated from its fear. Our hearts are filled with joy when we repeat: The Lord has risen. Our saints, who have died according to the world, continue to live among us, responding to our petitions. The world that follows death is truer than the world that precedes death. Christ has risen and dwells among us. He has promised to be with us to the end of the world. And so He is – as our friend, brother, healer, who bestows all good things.

Blessed is our God, who has risen from the dead, granting eternal life to all people. O death, where is your sting? Christ has risen, revealing and ridiculing the one who formerly boasted without end to be a mockery. (See the Canon of St. John Damascene, 4th tone, 9th ode) Everything is filled with light and our hearts are replete with limitless joy.

And more than joy, they are filled with strength. For whoever believes in the Resurrection is unafraid of death; and whoever is unafraid of death is spiritually unyielding and unbending inasmuch as what may be the most terrible threat for the majority and for the disbelievers is of little significance to the Christian; for it is the entrance to life itself. The faithful Christian lives the Resurrection even prior to his or her natural death.

The consequence of experiencing the Resurrection is the transformation of the world. It inspires the soul. And an inspired soul also attracts other souls to its ways, when these souls are moved by the genuine joyous experience of immortality. Christ’s Resurrection and our own resurrection are not simply an abstract truth. They are a dogma of faith. They are a tangible reality. They are a force that overcomes the world despite the extremely harsh persecutions waged against it. “This is the victory, which has conquered the world, namely our faith” (1 John 5.4) in His Resurrection. Through the Resurrection, humanity is called to divinity through grace. Through the victory of the light of Resurrection over the impure passions, divine eros and a strange love, which surpasses human boundaries, are established in our souls.

Therefore, Christ is Risen! Our hearts are filled with the light and joy of the Resurrection. We approach the Risen Lord with authenticity and simplicity. For, as the royal Prophet David says, our God, who supervises our hearts from above, “will not despise a broken and contrite heart.” (Psalm 50.19)

The Resurrection is our strength, hope, joy, and delight. Through the Resurrection, we transcend pain and sorrow for all the evils of this natural, worldly life. The Resurrection is God’s response to the helplessness of wounded humanity before the suffering of worldly humanity.

We do not surrender to the difficulties and challenges of the modern world. The gathering of the Lord’s fearful disciples in the upper room in Jerusalem encourages us. We are not afraid because we love everyone, even as He loved us and gave His life for our sake. Mysteriously and invisibly, the Lord accompanies us. We only need to have – and we do have – love. For though love, we understand the power of the Mystery; we know the Mystery itself.

If others hesitate, “garnering their actions in thick sheaves” (Vespers of the Prodigal Son), yet we boast. And if we do not “winnow the chaff of our [sinful and passionate] actions with the wind of His loving-kindness or on the threshing floor of repentance,” the Risen Lord is Love and disperses all forms of darkness and fear that surrounds us, entering our hearts and our world, even when the doors are closed. He “remains with us” permanently through the cross of love. His calling is peace, and He grants us His peace. The powerful of this world pledge and promise peace, but can never produce or realize it. Whereas the power of divine Love, Peace and Wisdom remains beyond all human panic. It is not found on the margins of reality or the surface of human convictions. Instead, it is the heart of humanity, the center of life, the lord of life and death. It is Truth.

The incontestable transcendence of Power invisibly controls the reigns and directs all things, especially at a time when “the minds of so many lie in darkness.”

At this time of widespread dissolution throughout the world, the hope of all throughout the universe, the Wisdom of God, is the presence of the heavenly solution and harmony. At a time of collapse and anticipated death, we have the reality of Resurrection and the strength of our conviction in Christ.

The peace that derives from Him who trampled down death by death through his self-emptying, together with the joy of love, flow and heal our contemporary humanity that sighs and suffers as well as all of creation that groans and laments with us, who “await adoption and redemption” as well as “the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8.20-23)

Truly the Lord is Risen, beloved fathers, brothers and sisters!

Holy Pascha 2013

† Bartholomew of Constantinople

Your fervent supplicant before God

In Matins of Holy and Great Tuesday, which is chanted by custom in the evening of Holy and Great Monday, there will parade before us hypocrisy and the hypocrites, the theater and actors, and will feature the terrible “woe” which our Lord sent to the exponents of hypocrisy.

“Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces… You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin… You are like whitewashed tombs…” (Matthew 23:13-29).

What is hypocrisy? It is the pretense of friendship, the God-bearing Fathers of the Church will answer. Hatred hidden under the schema of friendship. Hatred manifested as friendship. Envy characterized as love. Hypocrisy is fictional and not real life virtue. It is the pretense of justice. It is fraud which has the form of truth, according to Maximus the Confessor.

A hypocrite is a man who from a person becomes a mask. A hypocrite is one who puts forward his ego, and idolizes his own self. A hypocrite is one who plays the actor.

Hypocrisy is when one supposedly cares and sacrifices for others while exploiting them. It is one who pretends to be unhappy, sad, persecuted and complains in order to create impressions and distract the attention of others.

A hypocrite is one who uses various disguises, masks, to reveal the frustrations of his experiences, to externalize the passions which exist in the soul.

This is why it is observed that this phenomenon is not given much importance to what the Church calls a sin, rather considering it as a natural state, and others as a catapult to punish our ruthless fellows.

For those ears that can endure the words of my revered Elder, the Metropolitan of Katerini Agathonikos, he said: “When you see these situations know that there is a problem there and even a schizophrenic situation, and you are to supplicate God for the healing of this man.”

The hypocrite constantly wants to show himself off so people can talk about him, to praise him and receive honors from everyone else. This situation makes him anxious, nervous, and it gets even worse when it is perceived by people. This occurs especially in our era and in the lifestyle we choose that moves away from our tradition.

And unfortunately we all, more or less, are possessed by this passion. Clergy and laity are under the cloak of hypocrisy.

We have been altered from persons to masks and from people who had upon us the grace of God to secularized beings, as has been observed by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos.

How correct was the Elder of Chalcedon Meliton when he said on Cheesefare Sunday in the Metropolitan Church of Athens, “I criticize hypocrisy”, stressing that all of us “pretend that yesterday is today and tomorrow comes without us.”

Let us supplicate fervently with tears of repentance and kneeling to come to the Passion of the Savior and Redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ to rid us of the terrible passion of hypocrisy.

May He cleanse us from the passions that we may discard the masks of hypocrisy and become real people. “O Lord, deliver us from all deceit and hypocrisy” (1 Peter 2:1).

by Metropolitan Seraphim of Kastoria

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos