Below we publish the statement issues by the Christians of Aleppo, Syria who are marking one month since the kidnapping of two bishops near the Turkish border:

One month lapsed and we are still living the nightmare of the abduction whereabouts our two Archbishops Mar Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim Metropolitan of the Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese of Aleppo, and Boulos Yazaji Metropolitan of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Aleppo, were kidnapped on the 22nd of April 2013. An unknown group has abducted them without claiming its responsibility until now, neither announcing the reasons for the abduction nor knowing their place.

We the Syriac and the Greek Orthodox Archdioceses of Aleppo and in coordination with our two Patriarchates in Damascus, express day after day our sadness and increasing pain about the abduction and the absence of these two eminent Prelates, and to what they represent in terms of their holiness, their local and international rank, their active role on all levels including the spiritual, the thoughts, the academic, the education and the social; but above all the humanitarian work which they were carrying within the current crisis which is engulfing our country Syria.

Today, and after one month of abduction, and despite all the prayers and the supplications in the local churches and worldwide; as well as the calls, the statements and the efforts from the Christian and Muslim organizations in the world and the international community, we renew our request for the abductees to revise their action, fear God, and release the two Archbishops without hurting their health or physical situation; and release all other abducted priests and innocent civilians. One month in abduction is more than enough for the two Archbishops. As it is painful for them in their abduction, it is also painful for all the faithful of their two communities, the people of Syria and the world. The continuous abduction of the two Archbishops is damaging the structure of Syria in its diverse components and its long history of coexistence and citizenship. Such a catastrophe will be remembered and recorded in history, likewise the devastating and the grieve of Syria. Such acts will not terrify us because we are the sons of the “Resurrection”. We trust that the mercy of the one God whom we all believe in, will guide the abductees and induce them to release the Archbishops without any pre-conditions, because there is no price equals the freedom of the two Archbishops, and no condition equals their safe return to their communities and churches.

We renew our supplication and continue our prayers with solemnity to our God for the release of the Archbishops, the priests and all those who are in abduction.

On the fourth Sunday after Easter, the reading from the gospel of John recounts Christ’s healing of a paralytic. “There was a feast,” writes the Evangelist John, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Bethsaida, which has five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and troubled the water: whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was healed of whatever disease he had. One man was there, who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his pallet and walked. (Jn 5:1-9)

That is the gospel record, and having heard it, many will respond that it’s just another miracle, another unbelievable event that has nothing whatsoever in common with our life, interests, needs, questions … But we listen carefully and reflect: the gospel is so childishly simple, and its stories so short, that a person of today is easily fooled by this brevity and simplicity. It seems to him or her that the truth about themselves and about their life must be complicated and cumbersome, because they themselves are complicated. But perhaps the gospel’s ageless power resides in its reduction of everything to the most essential, elementary, fundamental: good and evil, darkness and light, man and God, life and death. And indeed, any focused and deep thought that involves not merely the mind, but one’s entire being, in the end always concerns what is most essential. For all of life’s complexity balances on the simplicity of eternal questions: good and evil, life and death, God and man.

So, in this particular gospel story, what is eternal and enduring? At its center, very clearly, are the paralytic’s words to Christ, “I have no man.” This truly is the cry of someone who has come to know the terrible power of human selfishness, narcissism. Every man for himself. Looking out for number one. All of them, all that great multitude of blind, sick, paralyzed, are all “waiting for the troubling of the waters,” in other words, waiting for help, concern, healing, comfort. But…each waits by himself, for himself. And when the waters are troubled, each throws himself forward and forgets about the others… From the gospel’s point of view, this pool is of course an image of the world, an image of human society, a symbol of the very organization of human consciousness.

Oh, of course, within the world one can find many examples of people who overcome egoism, examples of goodness and self-sacrifice. But even when someone has apparently overcome personal selfishness, he is still held prisoner by the category “his.” He may have overcome bondage to himself as an individual, but then it is “his” family, and for “his” family, since “charity begins at home.” If not family, then “his” ethnic group or country. If not this, then “his” social class, “his” political party. His, always his! And this “his” is invariably opposed to someone else’s, which by definition becomes alien and hostile. We’re told that this is how the world works, what can you do? But is this really true, is this really the ultimate, objective, and scientific truth about the person and human life?

Is it really true that everything in this world boils down to personal or collective self-interest, and that everyone lives by this? We are told that capitalism is wrong because it is self-serving and must, therefore, be destroyed in the name of communism. But self-serving is exactly what communism has been, constantly trumpeting its own worldview, its own class, its own party and so forth: its own against not-its-own, the other. .. And there is no escape whatsoever from this vicious cycle.

Unknown to us, however, we no longer feel suffocated by this world so totally drunk on all-consuming ego. We have become accustomed to blood, hatred, violence and, at best, indifference. Sometime in the 1920′s, a young man, practically a boy, left a note and then committed suicide: “I do not want to live in a world where everyone is playing a con game … ” All of this was suffocating him, he could not stand it any longer. But we are gradually harassed into accepting this as normal, and the horror of self-centeredness we cease experiencing as horrible … This is what the gospel story of the paralytic is about. All these sick, helpless, paralyzed people are sick first and foremost with incurable narcissism. This is what brings a person to cry: “I have no man!” There is no one! And this means that a person comes into being when narcissism is overcome; it means that human beings, above all, are a face turned toward the other person, eyes looking intently with concern and love into the eyes of the other person. It is love, co-suffering and care. The gospel also tells us that this new and authentic human being has been revealed to us, has come to us in Christ. In him, the One who comes to the lonely and long-suffering paralytic is no stranger, but “his own”; He comes in order to take up the sick man’s sufferings as his own, his life as his own, to help and to heal.

“Do you want to be healed?” This is not the question of someone intent on forcing, convincing or subduing others. It is the question of genuine love, and therefore, genuine concern. Religion, alas, can also become narcissism, exclusively busy with itself and its own. But it is important to understand that this kind of religion, in spite of whatever Christian cloak it might be wearing, is in reality not Christianity … For the whole of Christianity consists of breaking through the terrible walls of self-centeredness, breaking through to that love which, in the words of St Paul, God has “poured into our hearts” (Rom 5:5). That is Christianity’s new, eternal commandment, and the content of the entire gospel and all our faith.

by fr.Alexander Schmemann (+)

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 Church calls St Constantine (306-337) “the Equal of the Apostles,” and historians call him “the Great.” He was the son o the Caesar Constantius Chlorus (305-306), who governed the lands of Gaul and Britain. His mother was St Helen, a Christian of humble birth.

At this time the immense Roman Empire was divided into Western and Eastern halves, governed by two independent emperors and their corulers called “Caesars.” Constantius Chlorus was Caesar in the Western Roman Empire. St Constantine was born in 274, possibly at Nish in Serbia. In 294, Constantius divorced Helen in order to further his political ambition by marrying a woman of noble rank. After he became emperor, Constantine showed his mother great honor and respect, granting her the imperial title “Augusta.”

Constantine, the future ruler of all the whole Roman Empire, was raised to respect Christianity. His father did not persecute Christians in the lands he governed. This was at a time when Christians were persecuted throughout the Roman Empire by the emperors Diocletian (284-305) and his corulers Maximian Galerius (305-311) in the East, and the emperor Maximian Hercules (284-305) in the West.

After the death of Constantius Chlorus in 306, Constantine was acclaimed by the army at York as emperor of Gaul and Britain. The first act of the new emperor was to grant the freedom to practice Christianity in the lands subject to him. The pagan Maximian Galerius in the East and the fierce tyrant Maxentius in the West hated Constantine and they plotted to overthrow and kill him, but Constantine bested them in a series of battles, defeating his opponents with the help of God. He prayed to God to give him a sign which would inspire his army to fight valiantly, and the Lord showed him a radiant Sign of the Cross in the heavens with the inscription “In this Sign, conquer.”

The following night, our Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him in a dream and declared to him the power of the Cross and its significance. When he arose in the morning, he immediately ordered that a labarum be made (which is a banner or standard of victory over the enemy) in the form of a cross, and he inscribed on it the Name of Jesus Christ. On the 28th Of October, he attacked and mightily conquered Maxentius, who drowned in the Tiber River while fleeing. The following day, Constantine entered Rome in triumph and was proclaimed Emperor of the West by the Senate, while Licinius, his brother-in-law, ruled in the East. But out of malice, Licinius later persecuted the Christians. Constantine fought him once and again, and utterly destroyed him in 324, and in this manner he became monarch over the West and the East.

After Constantine became the sole ruler of the Western Roman Empire, he issued the Edict of Milan in 313 which guaranteed religious tolerance for Christians. St Helen, who was a Christian, may have influenced him in this decision. In 323, when he became the sole ruler of the entire Roman Empire, he extended the provisions of the Edict of Milan to the Eastern half of the Empire. After three hundred years of persecution, Christians could finally practice their faith without fear.

Renouncing paganism, the Emperor did not let his capital remain in ancient Rome, the former center of the pagan realm. He transferred his capital to the East, to the city of Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople, the city of Constantine (May 11). Constantine was deeply convinced that only Christianity could unify the immense Roman Empire with its diverse peoples. He supported the Church in every way. He recalled Christian confessors from banishment, he built churches, and he showed concern for the clergy.

The emperor deeply revered the victory-bearing Sign of the Cross of the Lord, and also wanted to find the actual Cross upon which our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. For this purpose he sent his own mother, the holy Empress Helen, to Jerusalem, granting her both power and money. Patriarch Macarius of Jerusalem and St Helen began the search, and through the will of God, the Life-Creating Cross was miraculously discovered in 326. (The account of the finding of the Cross of the Lord is found under the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, September 14). The Orthodox Church commemorates the Uncovering of the Precious Cross and the Precious Nails by the Holy Empress Helen on March 6.

While in Palestine, the holy empress did much of benefit for the Church. She ordered that all places connected with the earthly life of the Lord and His All-Pure Mother, should be freed of all traces of paganism, and she commanded that churches should be built at these places [at the sites of the Crucifixion and Resurrection, in Bethlehem at the cave where our Saviour was born, another on the Mount of Olives whence He ascended into Heaven, and many others throughout the Holy Land, Cyprus, and elsewhere.]

The emperor Constantine ordered a magnificent church in honor of Christ’s Resurrection to be built over His tomb. St Helen gave the Life-Creating Cross to the Patriarch for safe-keeping, and took part of the Cross with her for the emperor. After distributing generous alms at Jerusalem and feeding the needy (at times she even served them herself), the holy Empress Helen returned to Constantinople, where she died in the year 327.

Because of her great services to the Church and her efforts in finding the Life-Creating Cross, the empress Helen is called “the Equal of the Apostles.” The peaceful state of the Christian Church was disturbed by quarrels, dissensions and heresies which had appeared within the Church. Already at the beginning of St Constantine’s reign the heresies of the Donatists and the Novatians had arisen in the West. They demanded a second baptism for those who lapsed during the persecutions against Christians. These heresies, repudiated by two local Church councils, were finally condemned at the Council of Milan in 316.

Particularly ruinous for the Church was the rise of the Arian heresy in the East, which denied the Divine Nature of the Son of God, and taught that Jesus Christ was a mere creature. By order of the emperor, the First Ecumenical Council was convened in the city of Nicea in 325.

318 bishops attended this Council. Among its participants were confessor-bishops from the period of the persecutions and many other luminaries of the Church, among whom was St Nicholas of Myra in Lycia. The emperor was present at the sessions of the Council. The heresy of Arius was condemned and a Symbol of Faith (Creed) composed, in which was included the term “consubstantial with the Father,” confirming the truth of the divinity of Jesus Christ, Who assumed human nature for the redemption of all the human race.

Falling ill near Nicomedia, he requested to receive divine Baptism, according to Eusebius (The Life of Constantine. Book IV, 61-62), and also according to Socrates and Sozomen; and when he had been deemed worthy of the Holy Mysteries, he reposed in 337, on May 21 or 22, the day of Pentecost, having lived sixty-five years, of which he ruled for thirty-one years. His remains were transferred to Constantinople and were deposed in the Church of the Holy Apostles, which had been built by him (see Homily XXVI on Second Corinthians by Saint John Chrysostom).”

Feast Day: May 21

Read also: Why do we venerate Constantine the Great as a Saint?

Read also: Constantine the Great and Historical Truth

For one primary source account of the Life of Saint Constantine, see that of Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, at the following links:

Life Of Constantine

Book I

Book II

Book III

Book IV

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“Behold how good and pleasing it is for brothers [and sisters] to dwell together” (Ps. 132), especially in the risen Lord.”

We too, echo the words of the Psalmist, beloved brothers and concelebrants in the risen Lord, representatives of the Holy Orthodox Churches throughout the world, brothers in Christ from other Christian Churches, distinguished and esteemed seminar participants. We are delighted to have you with us in our city, in the courtyard of grace and history, the truth of faith and the experience of wonder, in this sacred place of our glorious Lord, who suffered, was crucified, buried and rose from the dead for our salvation.

This seminar, whose deliberations we now proclaim open in Christ’s name, marks the turning of a new page. It is not simply a new record, but a new reality. Sadly, for many people, it is the pages of ephemeral reality that provide the record of history.

Nonetheless, we who are of Christ – through whom and by whom and for whom all things came into existence, in periods of persecution and sorrow for the truth, up until 1700 years ago, with the declaration of the renowned Edict of Milan by Constantine the Great, through whom freedom was granted to the Church for worshipping the Lord and publicly confessing our faith in Him as the only true God and Savior – record history through the presence of God in various times and periods as well as in diverse ways and forms in the worldly arena. These pages of history are certainly influenced by human freedom but ultimately defined by the Lord of life and death.

We glorify the risen Christ and express our gratitude to all of you as delegates of the holy Orthodox Churches and to our venerable brother First-Hierarchs for your participation in this celebration, which is a tribute of honor to the divinely-crowned Emperor Constantine, who is truly one of very few Great Saints – for “whoever among you wishes to be great must be servant of all” (Matt. 20:26-27), according to the scripture. He was the first to grant freedom to the Church and to the world, the first to put an end to the ruthless persecutions against the Church. We confess that this page of history, from the earliest times to this day, is filled with bitter experiences and events, surrendered to oblivion and vivid only in the impassioned memory of some. At the same time, this historical page “has a name inscribed on his robe and his thigh, King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev. 19:16), who “makes all things new.” (Rev. 21:5)

The anniversary that we are celebrating and honoring provides occasion for us to ruminate on these events, considering and reflecting on the development of the contemporary world 1700 years after the divinely-inspired Emperor established in action and legislation the fundamental principles, on which modern Christian societies – and by extension and analogy, the entire world – are based to this day.

In our time, we observe various nations and countries mimicking one another, especially in this age of so-called “globalization,” when the velocity and quantity of information and misinformation, of truth and fabrication – to the point of distortion for some trivial or ephemeral “interest” in events as well as the relentless slander of people and circumstances – of justice and injustice, are broadcast “in a split second” throughout the world; we observe a tendency for all things to be permeated by only a secular spirit.

We sadly ascertain as contemporary human beings, and particularly those of us “called to a sacred vocation,” another reality, beyond the expected and surely desirable “good transformation.” More specifically, traditions are increasingly abandoned; faith is regarded as an individual affair and people endeavor to marginalize it within society; ideals and values – namely, the forces which have constituted and conserved nations through the centuries – are scorned; education is assaulted and secularized; legislation is estranged from its religious basis, which always – and especially from the time of Constantine to this day – comprised the theoretical foundation of all law; sin is no longer conceived as “evil” and adopts the garment of variation, that is to say merely of personal choice; immorality is accompanied and concealed by the scornful pretext or complex of fleshly weakness, while the morality of Christ is trivialized; in other words, people overlook the penitential cry: “Lord, have mercy,” which is the very content of faith and life.

Despite this disappointing development in human affairs, which is all the more apparent in the secularized Western society and civilization, the same Western world retains – in its heart and mind, as well as in its fabric and structure, its governance and legislation, its arts and values – the ethos and spirit of the Church, of Constantine the Great, and of the Gospel. Whatever good and righteous remains in today’s secularized society in fact derives from the Gospel and the Church.

The basic human rights, for which all peoples and societies strive, but which are frequently perceived in a sense of retribution that does not resemble the spirit of the Gospel or Christianity (“an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”), comprise spiritual values, which the Emperor Constantine planted within the governance and structure of his empire because he discerned and predicted that this was the only way of securing progress and preserving peace. It is essentially the same values that the modern world has inherited, except that the titles have been altered, while humanity now formally declares that it does not believe in God and the hour of Christianity has passed.

Nevertheless, despite these cries, Christianity and the Truth are not only not outdated, but in fact have increasingly matured, affirming on a daily basis the words of St. Paul: “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more; so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 5:20-21)

Despite frequent and dangerous reformations, which sometimes destroy the very foundations of society, such as a lack of respect for the sacred institution of family and marriage, the legal recognition and regulation of serious mortal sins or unnatural conditions (see Rom. 1:25-32), contemporary state institutions are deeply permeated by the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the blood of the Church Martyrs.

Constantine the Great colored his empire with the dye of Christ in order that this might not be extinguished with the passing of time. Have we ever asked ourselves why?

We judge one another, yet we ignore the words of Christ: “Do not judge in order that you not be judged.” We believe that, in our human frailty, everything comes and goes and is forgotten, although we know that God “sees all things” and “rules hearts and minds.” All things human are vain (St. John of Damascus); indeed, “the present pleasures resemble the flow of a river, shadow and smoke, a dream and blade of grass.” (St. Andrew of Crete) Nonetheless, the dye of Truth is “stronger than death.” Moreover, the dye of Christ through Constantine the Great could not be permanent unless it was preceded by the dye of “the indelible ink” of this sacred City and the whole world through the blood of the countless and great holy Martyrs, many of whom lived anonymously “in mountains and caves and the holes of the earth” (Heb. 11:38), as well as on cemetery gravestones, but also the countless and great heroes of the faith, through whose sacrifice the Church increases and is nurtured, reconciled and stabilized.

The blood of the Martyrs, their cross and sacrifice; the renunciation of the world and of the things of the world; the notion of solidarity and friendship (according to the words of Christ: “I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from the Father” [John 15:15]); the love that “casts out [every] fear” (1 John 4:18) and especially the fear of death; all these things brought peace to the Church, which was in turn visibly and tangibly articulated in the Edict of Milan. The suffering of the holy Martyrs and of those unjustly assaulted through the centuries to this day, all of which were modeled after the martyrdom of Jesus Christ Himself, who was covered with myrrh and who suffered for us “in order that we may follow in His footsteps” (1 Peter 2:22); these same sufferings of the Martyrs also granted to the Church mercy, salvation, peace after three centuries of horrible persecutions.

“For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” (Rom. 11:29)

The Orthodox Church is perfected in suffering, through the martyrdom of its children, who reveal the sincerity of their love for God precisely through suffering. Thus, the blood of the Martyrs comes first and the freedom to worship, which was proclaimed by Constantine the Great, follows. The suffering of the holy Apostles comes first and the rights provided by the emperors follow. The tears of the holy myrrh-bearing women come first and the absurdity of the Resurrection follows. The Lord invites St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, in order to warn him “about all the things that he would suffer in His name” (Acts 9:16), while St. Constantine is called by the triumphant and brilliant sign of the precious cross.

Truly, Constantine the Great, “as the Apostle of the Lord among emperors beheld the sign of the cross in heaven and, like Paul, received his vocation from above.”

When Constantine the Great encountered in the “Italian” skies the precious cross shining, he was transformed. And together with him, the entire world of the Empire and of humanity was also transformed. This tangible vision of the ever-present sign of the cross, silently and constantly calling him, is similar to the sign witnessed by St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, on his way to Damascus, “so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.” (Acts 9:2) Can it not also be said about us, that we too “persecute” those who hold views contrary to ours, whom we simply endure and tolerate, wishing that they would be “bound” to the cross – although not the cross of Jesus Christ, which would be desirable for their and our salvation, but rather the cross of our human weakness and evil?

Saul the persecutor was converted into the most zealous disciple of Christ and transformed the whole world through his preaching. Through the vision by daylight of the sign of the cross, the Emperor Constantine reformed the entire world. Not only did he put an end to the unjust persecutions against the Church and humanity as the image of God in the world; but his actions managed to attract the Christian doctrines and Gospel commandments into the ideology and lifestyle of the empire and the world, thereby introducing a profound division into world history without either planning or striving for it. So he did not receive his calling from below; nonetheless, behold, he was proclaimed an Apostle among emperors. A human paradox; yet, a divine gift.

In order to believe, human beings always require a sign. (Matt. 16:4) However, we ignore the fact that we shall not receive any sign, except the sign alone of Jonah the Prophet, who survived in the belly of the beast and foreshadowed the resurrection. In this sign, which shines more brightly than the sun, we are able to see and celebrate. And we should never forget that every sign is given as a gift, received and never planned; it is a calling, charisma, grace, mercy, commission, and constant journey.

With Constantine the Great and his genuinely radical service, the Lord our God entered the very heart of the worldly empire and gave life to what was previously corrupt and foul. He proved that the persecutors “became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being.” (Rom. 1:21-23) Finally, he taught us that the Lord alone gives life to the dead, and to all forms of death, by “calling things from non-being into being.” (Rom. 4:17)

It is noteworthy that the former kingdom of corruption, in the secular rule “of Augustus who was monarch of the world,” received the infant Jesus with the slaughter of thousands of innocent infants.

While, from the incarnation of the Lord, “deceit is overcome” and divine grace, love and justice reign, we cannot say with conviction that, despite human progress, everything under the sun has been transformed. Today, two thousand years after the incarnation of Christ and the murder of Herod, who thought of himself as “universal ruler,” unfortunately the murder of thousands of infants is legally recognized in most “Christian” countries.

Just like Abraham the Patriarch, Constantine the Great “patiently endured and obtained the promise.” (Heb. 6:15) The Neros, Diocletians and Herods, the “worldly rulers” of every generation dress up in glory and purple robes,” like the rich man in the Gospel passage, and persecute people. They do not endure; instead, they forget and in the end mercilessly murder the poor Lazarus, who is starving and consuming the crumbs that fall from their table, just like the splendid icon of the Annunciation Church of Tataoula in our city depicts so characteristically. This is why they do not obtain the promise that is acquired by those, to whom it is given, who do not practice truth with injustice. (Rom. 1:19)

Constantine the Emperor rejected the “right” to claiming the status of a god, to which he was entitled by his office and the ideology of his time. Nevertheless, he gained the One who alone is necessary (Luke 10:42) and inherited the kingdom of God.

Beloved brothers and sisters in God,

We find ourselves in the city of Constantine. And we are justifiably exploring the condition today of the most Christian of cities, which was established and honored by Constantine the Great with his own name. Yet, the historical page and sign witnessed 1700 years ago overcomes any pessimistic and negative consideration. For the fact is that the Church contains the entire world through the cross; the fact is that faith is not a social phenomenon or mere ideology It is the sanctifying grace, which descends upon us and visits us eternally and silently, accompanying us like “fire,” “a gentle breeze,” something “unknown among known and unknown,” something discernible among those who obey God’s will but also recognizable among those who disobey his commandments, something that comforts the fearful disciples in the upper room of Jerusalem and the doubtful disciples of all ages – namely, the abiding grace of the risen Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Christians “find themselves protected in the world, yet at the same time holding the world together. (Epistle to Diognetus 6 PG 2. 1176) This is why we Christians are not dragged down and do not despair. We know that people make mistakes in their judgments, thoughts, programs, ideologies and considerations. However, the Church does not; the Church is not abolished, even when Christian nations are dissolved, even when the Church lives and exists in (sometimes harsh) captivity, even when the Church is persecuted. The Church is in the world and serves the world, but it is not controlled by the world, which is the reason why evil does not affect it. The spirit conquers the flesh. Christ reigns forever. The Lord is victorious over all.

With this experience and sense of the Church’s power, we are called to imitate the virtuous work of the Emperor Constantine, the saint and peer of the Apostles, in order that we, too, may leave behind a profitable legacy and favorable memory, which will precede us before the Lord on the great and awful day of judgment, which begins here, concludes when we die and is perfected with the Lord’s voice: “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (Matt. 25:34)

In the inscrutable will of the Lord, which has deemed us worthy of being “laborers in His vineyard” and of continuing the work of the Apostles and Hierarchs, we are invited in His name, without human plans and programs that are foiled on a daily basis, to labor for the transformation and reformation of society, whether in a smaller or larger community, while also advancing and converting ourselves into sons and daughters of the light of Christ.

It is true that contemporary social structures sometimes unfortunately distract us – and especially us as shepherds of Christ’s flock, and those of us inside His divine care – to a sense of pessimism due to the state of the world, which is alienated from the source of life. As a result, our passion is diminished and our heart is weakened in our love for Christ.

Yet, we believe that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, will never abandon us. The Lord celebrates our life mystically, profoundly and sacredly, invisibly transforming us.

With these thoughts, then, we declare open the deliberations of this seminar and beseech the Lord to grant us all, to our churches and our religious communities, and to the whole world a sign for our good so that we may record new pages of history and service in order that He may be magnified and honored, through the intercessions of the Lady of angels, the Martyrs and the great pillars of our faith and history, such as Constantine the Great and Basil the Great, while, through the work of the Church, Christ may be glorified as our resurrection and life. Amen.

photos by Nikos Manginas

+ BARTHOLOMEW

By the Mercy of God Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome

and Ecumenical Patriarch

To the Plentitude of the Church: Grace and Peace from God

Prot. No. 441

“Blessed is our God, who so deemed” and orders all things for all people, who has led us to “this day of the Resurrection” when “all has been filled with light, heaven and earth alike.”

This year marks the 1700th anniversary since the issue of the Edict of Milan about religious freedom. Therefore, we are communicating to the Church in all places and times in order to address a message of hope, love, peace and optimism from the most holy Apostolic and Patriarchal Ecumenical Throne in as much as the Church is the continual presence of God. “Whoever has seen the Son has seen the Father” (John 4:9), and whoever has seen the institution of the Church has seen the divine-human Lord and the Holy Spirit, who are with us.

The Church is precisely such an institution in freedom. “Such is Christianity: it grants freedom to those in slavery.” (St. John Chrysostom, Homily IX on 1 Corinthians 193).

As a result of the Edict of Milan, the persecutions against Church and religion, previously licit, ceased; and for the first time in human form, freedom of religious conscience was instituted in the world. However, the freedom that Christ granted us (see Gal. 5:1) is not mere “form” and “letter”. It is genuine freedom, which we are always seeking in order that all things may become “new.” Otherwise, how can we possibly expect a new heaven and a new earth?

Until the time of Constantine the Great, the history of the world, namely the period of “Old Israel” before Christ, and after the divinely incarnate presence of the “New Israel,” the free expression of conscious faith is replete with problems and persecutions to the point of martyrdom by blood for the sake of truth.

History recounts the persecution of individuals who shared a different perspective and faith about God from that proclaimed by the worldly authorities or the society, which they inhabited.

The Old Testament refers to the world leader, King Nebuchadnezzar and the creation of a large image of his person, which he demanded that all of his subjects should worship by bowing down before it.

“The three holy children” were cast into the fiery pit because they refused to worship the idle of Nebuchadnezzar. They refused to render the status of divinity to a secular ruler, which he claimed for himself. St. Solomone and the Seven Maccabean children were persecuted with martyrdom alongside their teacher Eleazar. The fiery pit publicly rejected the authority of Nebuchadnezzar and foreshadowed the mystery of our all-holy Theotokos, by rejuvenating and preserving the three children unharmed, just as the fire of divinity preserved the Virgin Theotokos.

The captive children, who refused to worship the irrational and arrogant human ruler claiming the features of God, cried out aloud in the pit: “let all God’s works praise the Lord.” In so doing, they prefigured the freedom brought by the Lord, “who became as one under the law so that he might win those under the law.” (see 1 Cor. 9:20)

In ancient Athens, the Philosopher Socrates was condemned to death on the charge that he accepted the gods worshipped by the city. Similarly, there are many individual persecutions recorded by the classical Greek authors about those who supported different beliefs, such as the example of the persecution of Anaxagoras of Clazomene, who claimed that the sun is a fiery rock, or Diagoras of Milos, who criticized the ancient idolatrous mysteries and discouraged citizens in these.

There is not doubt that physical or ideological persecutions through the centuries, which sometimes led and continued to lead to death by martyrdom, nevertheless did not abolish religious tolerance among people, as this was formally proclaimed in the Edict of Milan.

The Roman emperors had an absolutist mentality, rendering themselves leaders even of religion. Indeed, they reached the point of demanding recognition for their divine status, which required equivalent honor.

The rejection of Christians of such imperial demands provoked anger in as much as it questioned imperial authority. The result anthropocentric worldview was the well-known merciless persecutions, which filled many shrines with martyrs who “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.” (Rev. 7:14)

Ultimately, the persecutions against religion affirmed the words of St. John Chrysostom: “One who fights against God can never destroy good to the end; instead, such a person may perhaps not feel that he is doing something terrible at the outset of his daring act. However, if he persists in his madness he can never lay a warring hand on God, because he will never avoid the hand of the invincible God.” (To those Opposed to the Monastic Life 1, PG 47.319)

Emperors Constantine the Great in the East and Licinius in the West accepted the fact that, after three centuries of harsh persecution against the Christians, religious hatred and constant oppression resulted in no benefit for the empire. Therefore, they decided to allow Christians the freedom to practice their faith and worship of God. The content of the ever-relevant Edict of Milan in the 313 AD, which reflects the will of Constantine the Great, “who understood the craft of bitter warfare,” constituted the basis of the freedom of religious conscience that was recognized many centuries later.

The Edict of Milan contains advanced positions on religious freedom, expressed in thirteen sections. It institutes principles which are foreign for that period of the fourth century but which still remain principles and signposts, even if some claim that these principles can also be fully applied in a world that lies in evil and in justice, where darkness prevails instead of righteousness and light.

The Edict confesses and declares: respect for the thought and will of every person to care for the divine affairs as he wills; regard and respect for the divine and freedom of choice in religious matters to Christians and all people without discrimination; the return without delay to the community of Christians, the Church and the Synod of places of worship and other assets which were seized and taken from them; and all these things in order that “the divine care, which protects us and which we have already experienced in many situations, may remain securely with us forever.”

This Edict and the consequent reformations of Constantine the Great introduced to the world the concept of human rights. For the first time the above-mentioned values were established: respect of religious tolerance, freedom of expression of religious conscience – values of human life – and all such values, which comprise the basis of the relevant legislation that is valid today and the various contents of occasional declarations by international organizations and state bodies.

Constantine the Great, who received his vocation from above, embraced all people, citizens and faithful, believers and unbelievers, thereby becoming a servant of the peaceful welfare and the salvation of all humanity. From his time onward, the Church of Christ transfigures institutions and regenerates the world, precisely as the burning bush on Mt. Sinai that was not consumed, the Womb that contained the uncontainable, namely Life in order that we may have life. (see John 10:10)

If we carefully observe the history of the world since that time, especially today, after 1700 years from the declaration of the Edict of Milan by Constantine the Great, we sadly ascertain that the various regulations about religious freedom have unfortunately been violated on numerous occasions in the past, not only against Christians, but sometimes even by Christians themselves against their fellow Christians and against the adherence of other religions.

Regretfully, when Christians became the majority within society, there were some instances of overzealous tendencies. One of the more contemptible instances of such spiteful conduct among Christians was the great schism and division of the One Church, which ignored in later generations that “Christ is not divided” (1 Cor. 1:13) and that we humans are “earth and ashes.” (Sir. 10:9) We overlooked and continue to overlook the aguish of the division of the seamless garment of the Lord, the Church, both locally and in every parish as One, Catholic, and Apostolic. Thus, as another “furnace of evil” (Prov. 16:30), we no longer enjoy love, peace, and tolerance; nor do we ask ourselves and one another the crucial question: “shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just” (Gen. 18:25) for us as well?

Last century, the Orthodox Church in particular was persecuted relentlessly by the atheist regime and other states, which depended on this regime ideologically, especially in the countries of Eastern Europe. In some countries, Christians are still, to this day, treated with great disfavor, despite the fact that many international treaties have now been universally recognize the right to religious freedom.

The relevant reports on religious oppressions by the appropriate international organizations are replete with specific examples of religious oppression against Christian religious minorities in particular as well as individual Christians.

To this very day, unfortunately, we must emphasize that religious tolerance and freedom of worship are an achievement of civilization. There are vast regions of the world that are inhabited by people, who do not tolerate a different religious faith from theirs. Religious persecutions continue to exist, even if they do not assume the same form as persecutions of the early Christians. Various unfavorable discriminations against adherents of several religious faiths still persist and are sometimes intensely oppressive. In many cases, religious fanaticism and fundamentalism prevail, so that the Edict of Milan is still relevant in our times and addresses those people, who, despite the passing of 1700 years since its declaration, have yet to apply it completely.

As we observe the journey of humanity from this sacred Center of Orthodoxy, we can freely admit that, despite the rapid progress of science and human discoveries, unfortunately the world has as a whole has not yet reached the noble concept and perception of religious freedom and that we still need a collaborative effort to achieve this goal.

Nonetheless, contemporary religious persecutions against Christians once again reveal the power of faith and the grace of sanctity.

Fathers, Brothers, and Children in the Risen Lord,

The anniversary that we celebrate is a crucial sign. It signifies that, when man loses his unity with the Church, whose constitution lies in the Trinitarian unity, he also loses his freedom. For one loses oneself when one loses all others. Everything in the Church is illumined by the Trinitarian unity, particularly the Eucharistic sacrament, which comprises the very heart of the Church as a gift from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. If man preserves the Trinitarian unity, man is preserved as person and communion. If we preserve and experience this unity, the divine – human unity, then we preserve the unconfused and undivided unity of the two natures in Christ, which are extended to us as a blessing in the unity of truth and life, institution and grace, law and freedom. Those things that appear antithetical in fact interpenetrate without change and without alteration in accordance with the model of the Theotokos, who brought the opposites into the same. At the same time, this interpenetration reveals the constant presence at all times and in all places of Christ, divine and human, who continues to journey in the field of history with another form. He journeys with every person who struggles searches and despairs not in order to grant “magical solutions” as some sensory narcotic but in order to open his eyes, grant new senses and lift him toward heaven, while bringing down to earth the Holy Spirit which enters our earthly knead as a Trinitarian leaven.

No human institution, even if labeled ecclesiastical, can contain, tolerate, and satisfy the man, who breathe God within and desires what lies beyond, namely ongoing perfection in Christ. Nor is it possible for such a man to be satisfied with any promise or worldly perspective when he thirsts for the inconceivable and humanly inaccessible. All human existence cries “No!” to every secular institution, which supposedly claims that it leads to the mystery of life and salvation.

Every mechanical and seemingly “good” spiritual institution is “only” ready is frail, dissolved and non-existent. Therefore, the Lord, who knows all things and guides human hearts, came to shatter these “prisons” so he was persecuted and continues to be persecuted. However, in the end He was victorious in His Resurrection. He destroyed deceit. He overthrew the bankers’ tables and the merchants’ benches, namely those who had converted God’s temple into “a house of commerce.” (John 2:17) He liberated humanity from the “curse” of the law. (Gal. 3:13) Through His descent into hades, “chains were broken, gates were shattered, tombs were open, and the dead were brought to life.” (Aposticha, Great Vespers, Holy Friday)

Thus, all those who were “dead” from love, freedom, human rights, faith, hope, expectation, light, righteousness, truth, life, passed over into light: “and none was left dead and buried.” (Catechetical Homily of St. John Chrysostom)

And thus was constituted the holy Church, which through the ages, the martyrs, the ascetics and the righteous, despite persecutions and human temptations, is no “prison,” but freedom and, like death, powerful love. As the herald of this truth through the centuries, the Church is the continuation and consequence of the womb of another Mother, “wider than the heavens,” which gives birth to freedom. Thanks to the Church, all of us are children of the free woman (Gal. 4:31), children of freedom, which is acquired through obedience to the divine truth and love. If human institutions are afraid of human freedom, either dispelling, or disregarding, or even abolishing it, the institution of the Church, generates free persons in the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit constitutes the entire institution of the Church in as much as it “breathes where it wills but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) The indefinable nature of freedom is the rock of our faith.

The Wisdom of God, the Lady Theotokos our Pammakaristos and Conciliation, St. Demetrios Kanavis, St. George the Trophy-bearer of the Phanar, and all the saints of our Church are not keepers of the law but legislators according to St. Symeon the New Theologian. The institution of the Church is charismatic, and the charismata of the saints function as institutional signposts for the faithful of the Church.

One can truly and experientially say that charismatics do not exist but in fact become and are continually born for charisma is not granted as a static quality, but as a blessing, which is granted perpetually. Charismatics are those who are truly free because they are aware of the ultimate weakness of humanity and goodness of God. Such is the teaching that has trickled down to us from the Edict of Saint Constantine.

Those who see everyone else good and pure, regarding themselves as being “beneath all creation,” possess the grace of compunction and humility. They recognize the gifts of inner rest and illumination, they regard nothing as their own achievement, nor do they exploit any opportunity to expand their “authority” by “undermining” others, namely by limiting the freedom of others. The saints marvel at God’s ineffable love and spontaneously return this love directly to the Giver of al gifts. This is precisely what renders the saints worthy of continually receiving gifts that are new, greater, spotless, spiritual, a blessing for all creation, general achievements. In turn, they continue to reserve to have no high regard for themselves. Their highest regard is God.

As soon as they become aware that the world honors them, the saints are surprised, worry, and withdraw. They retire behind the curtain of feigned foolishness or ignorance, which in fact is true freedom. They are comfortable because they live, follow, and contribute to the flow of divine blood and grace within the body of the Church community.

Brothers and Sisters in the Lord,

Human rights and the freedom of religious conscience are gifts which were “once given to the saints” (Jude 1:3), but which are constantly acquired along the journey of life. They are acquired through the experience of communion in Christ within the harmonious cosmic liturgy. We have been talking for 1700 years about the freedom of human conscience. However, the Orthodox Church always – and particularly in the recent years of global changes within the last tragic century – foresees and discerns in its entirety the “prevalence in the world of peace, righteousness, freedom, fraternity and love among all peoples, and the elimination of all racial and other distinctions,” as would be decided by the coming Holy and Great Synod.

These sacred gifts are experienced through grace in the Divine Liturgy, where the creation of the world is revealed. It is humanly impossible to comprehend the magnitude of our freedom because we do not respect human beings as the image of God. And if we do not love our neighbor, we do not truly love God.

In this world, people naively imagine that “all things are fluid and nothing is permanent and it is not possible to cross the same river twice” (Heraclitus), namely that all things come and go and are forgotten, while human stones and graves cover them.

The Lord granted us the mystery of memory in freedom, when he proclaimed that “nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered” (Luke 12:2) and that all things culminate in the truth of freedom in Him and in the sense of doxological gratitude “for all that we know and do not know.”

Therefore, beyond external differences and distances, beyond worldly changes and exchanges, beyond the “rational” West and East, from the creation of the world we have seen God’s love, which dispels the falsehood of deceit like an irruption in silence, granting us the truth of life as a blessing of freedom and unity, as a journey of surprises leading to the endless journey toward Pascha, which is Jesus Christ Himself. “It was no messenger or angel but His presence that saved” (Is. 63:9) us in freedom and for freedom. He is with us after His ascension, “neither separated nor distant from us.” (Kontakion of the Feast of the Ascension) He stands beside us even when it appears that He abandoned us. Finally, He grants us the assurance that He is always present manifesting His glory in love and kenosis, depicted in icons as the king of glory in His resurrection, delivering Adam and Eve from hell, even while hanging peacefully on the wood of the Cross in ultimate humiliation.

“Great are you, O Lord, and wondrous are your works, and no word suffices to Hymn your wonders.” In any case, “every hymn is inadequate, hastening to describe the multitude of Christ’s great compassion.”

Our Modesty, together with our brothers in the Holy Spirit and concelebrants in the Lord, stand before the “empty tomb” with the myrrh-bearing women and behold that “the stone has been moved.” We witness in ecstasy and awe the Risen Lord, who trampled down death by death, liberating us from the bonds of flesh and consuming hades, while granting us life.

Thus, on the occasion of our commemoration of the granting to Christians of the right to freedom of faith and worship, from this sacred Center of Orthodoxy, which has served in captivity the true freedom of humanity in Christ and of the ecclesiastical body, we express our intense concern, anxiety and protest for the ongoing persecutions throughout the world. In particular, today we fervently pray for the Christian populations of the geographical regions of the Middle East, who experience frequent murders, kidnappings, persecutions and threats, which have culminated in the kidnapping of two brother Hierarchs, whose whereabouts are still unknown, namely the distinguished and most reverend Metropolitan Paul of Aleppo, well-known for his spirituality and significant ecclesiastical, social and educational ministry, as well as the Syrian Jacobite Metropolitan Yohanna Ibrahim of Aleppo.

We wholeheartedly share in the pain, sorrow and challenges faced by Christians in the Middle East and Egypt, and especially in the ancient and senior Patriarchate of Antioch. Beyond any political stance, we categorically condemn once again the use of all forms of violence, appealing to the rulers of this world to respect the fundamental human rights of life, honor, dignity and property, recognizing and praising the peaceful lifestyle of Christians as well as their constant effort to remain far from turmoil and trouble.

We express our concern as the Church of Constantinople that, 1700 years after the issue of the Edict of Milan, people continue to be persecuted for their faith, religion and conscientious choices.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate will never cease, through all the spiritual means and truth at its disposal, to support the efforts for peaceful dialogue among the various religions, the peaceful solution to every difference, and a prevailing atmosphere of toleration, reconciliation and cooperation among all people irrespective of religion and grace.

In condemning every form of violence as contrary to religion, we proclaim from the Ecumenical Patriarchate that truly great is “the mystery of our religion; God was revealed in flesh, vindicated in spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among gentiles, believed in the world, taken up in glory” (1 Tim. 3:16), governs the world and the affairs of the world in accordance with His incomprehensible will and judgment, and will come again in glory as the righteous judge of the entire world.

To Him be glory, might, power, honor, worship, and the kingdom to the endless ages of ages. Amen.

In the year of the Lord 2013, May 19.

Your fervent supplicant to God,

+ Bartholomew of Constantinople

+ Athanasios of Chalcedon, co-supplicant

+ Apostolos of Derkoi, co-supplicant

+ Evangelos of Perghe, co-supplicant

+ Germanos of Theodoroupolis, co-supplicant

+ Irenaios of Myriophyton and Peristasis, co-supplicant

+ Chrysostomos of Myra, co-supplicant

+ Gennadios of Sassima, co-supplicant

+ Evangelos of New Jersey, co-supplicant

+ Kyrillos of Rhodes, co-supplicant

+ Damaskinos of Kydonia and Apokoronos, co-supplicant

+ Constantine of Singapore, co-supplicant

+ Arsenios of Austria, co-supplicant

Homily of Saint Gregory Palamas For the Sunday of The Myrrhbearing Women

(The Third Sunday of Pascha) (Gospel of Saint Mark 15:43-16:8)

Translated by Fr. Hierodeacon Photios Touloumes

The resurrection of the Lord is the regeneration of human nature. It is the resuscitation and re-creation of the first Adam, whom sin led to death, and who because of death, again was made to retrace his steps on the earth from which he was made. The resurrection is the return to immortal life. Whereas no one saw that first man when he was created and given life—because no man existed yet at that time—woman was the first person to see him after he had received the breath of life by divine inbreathing. For after him, Eve was the first human being. Likewise no one saw the second Adam, who is the Lord, rise from the dead, for none of his followers were near by and the soldiers guarding the tomb were so shaken that they were like dead men. Following the resurrection, however, it was a woman who saw Him first before the others, as we have heard from Saint Mark’s Gospel today. After his resurrection Jesus appeared on the morning of the Lord’s Day [Sunday] to Mary Magdalene first.

It seems that the Evangelist is speaking clearly about the time of the Lord’s resurrection – that it was morning – that he appeared to Mary Magdalene, and that he appeared to her at the time of the resurrection. But, if we pay some attention it will become clear that this is not what he says. Earlier in this passage, in agreement with the other Evangelists, Saint Mark says that Mary Magdalene had come to the tomb earlier with the other Myrrhbearing women, and that she went away when she saw it empty. Therefore, the Lord had risen much earlier on the morning on which she saw him. But wishing to fix the time more exactly, he doesn’t say simply “morning,” as is the case here, but “very early in the morning.” Thus the expression “and the rising of the sun” as used there refers to that time when the slightest light precedes from the east on the horizon. This is what Saint John also wants to indicate when he says that Mary Magdalene came to the tomb in the morning while it was still dark and saw the stone pulled away from it.

According to Saint John, she did not come to the tomb alone, even though she left the tomb without yet having seen the Lord. For she ran to Peter and John, and instead of announcing to them that the Lord was risen, told them that he had been taken from the tomb. Therefore, she did not yet know about the resurrection. It is not Mary Magdalene’s claim that Christ appeared to her first but that he appeared after the actual beginning of the day. There is, of course, a certain shadow covering this matter on the part of the Evangelists that I shall, through your love, uncover. The good news of the resurrection of Christ was received from the Lord first, before all others, by the Theotokos. This is truly meet and right. She was the first to see him after the resurrection and she had to joy to hear his voice first. Moreover, she not only saw him with her eyes and heard him with her ears but with her hands she was the first and only one to touch his spotless feet, even if the Evangelists do not mention these things clearly. They do not want to present the mother’s witness so as not to give the nonbelievers a reason to be suspicious. In that now my words about the joy of the risen one are directed to believers, the opportunity of this feast moves us to explain what is relative to the Myrrhbearers. Justification is given by him who said: There is nothing hidden that shall not be made known, and this also will be made known.

The Myrrhbearers are all those women who followed with the mother of the Lord, stayed with her during those hours of the salvific passion, and with pathos anointed him with myrrh. After Joseph and Nicodemos asked for and received the body of the Lord from Pilate, they took it down from the cross, wrapped it in a cloth with strong spices, placed it in a carved out tomb, and closed the door of the tomb with a large stone. The Myrrhbearers were close by and watched, and as the Evangelist Mark relates, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were seated opposite the grave. With the expression “and the other Mary” he means the mother of Christ without a doubt. She was also called the mother of Iakovos [James] and Joses, who were the children of Joseph, her betrothed. It was not only they who were watching the entombment of the Lord but also the other women. As Saint Luke relates:

And the women, also, who had come with him from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulcher and how his body was laid. These women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of Iakovos, and the other women who were with them.

He writes that they went and bought spices and myrrh; for they did not yet clearly know that he is truly the perfume of life for those who approach him in faith, just as he is also the odor of death for those who remain unbelievers to the end. They did not yet clearly know that the odor of his clothes, the odor of his own body, is greater than all perfumes, that his name is like myrrh that is poured out to cover the world with his divine fragrance. For those who wanted to remain close by the body, the contrived an antidote of perfumes for the stench of decomposition and anointed it.

Thus they prepared the myrrh and the spices and rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment. For they had not yet experienced the true sabbath, nor did they understand that exceedingly blessed sabbath that transports us from the confines of hell to the perfection of the bright and divine heights of heaven. Saint Luke says that “on the first day of the week, very early in the morning,” they came to the sepulchre bearing the spices that they had prepared. And Saint Matthew says that those who came “late on the Sabbath towards the dawn of the Lord’s day” were two in number. Saint John says that it was only Mary Magdalene who came, and that it was “morning, even though it was still dark.” But Saint Mark says that three women came very early in the morning on the first day of the week. By ‘’the first day of the week” all the Evangelists mean the Lord’s Day [Sunday] and they use expressions like “late on the Sabbath,” ”early dawn,” ”early dawn,” “early morning,” “morning,” and “even though it was still dark” [to refer to the Lord’s Day which is Sunday]. They mean the daybreaking hour when the darkness fights with the light and the hour when the eastern part of the horizon begins to become light as it presages the day. Observing from afar, one sees the light changing colors in the east at about the ninth hour of the night, which colors remain until the fulfillment of the day three hours later. It seems that the Evangelists disagree some-what concerning both the time of the visits and the number of women [that are involved]. This is attributable to the fact that, as we said, the myrrhbearers were many; that they did not come to the sepulchre one time only but two and three times, and not always in the same groups; that all the visits were at dawn but not at exactly the same hour. Mary Magdalene also came by herself without the others and stayed longer. Each of the Evangelists, therefore, relates one journey of some of the women and leaves the others. Consequently, by comparing all the Evangelists—and I said this before–I conclude that the Theotokos was the first who came to the grave of her son and God, together with Mary Magdalene. We are informed of this by the Evangelist Matthew who said: In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre (Matthew 28:1)

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary–who was, of course, the Mother of the Lord-went to look at the sepulchre. And behold there was a great earthquake: for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door of the tomb and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightening and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him the guards did shake and become like dead men.

The other women came after the earthquake and the flight of the guards, and found the grave open and the stone rolled back. The Virgin Mother, however, was there when the quake occurred, when the stone was rolled back, when the grave opened, and while the guards were there, even though they were completely shaken with fear. That is why the guards immediately thought of fleeing when they came to from the earthquake but the Mother of God rejoiced without fear at what she saw. I believe that the life-bearing grave opened first for her. For her and by her grace all things were revealed for us, everything that is in heaven above and on the earth below. For her sake the angel shone so brightly so that, even though it was still dark, she saw by means of the bright angelic light not only the empty grave but also the burial garments carefully arranged and in an orderly fashion, thereby witnessing in many ways to the resurrection of the one who was entombed. He was, after all, that same angel of the Annunciation, Gabriel; he watched her proceed rapidly towards the grave and immediately descended. He who in the beginning had told her “fear not, Mary, you have found grace with God,” now directs the same exhortation to the Ever Virgin. He came to announce the resurrection from the dead to her who, with seedless conception, gave him birth; to raise the stone, to reveal the empty grave and the burial garments, so that in this manner the good news would be verified for her. He writes: And the angel answered the women and said: fear not. Do you seek the Christ whom they crucified? He is risen. Here is the place where the Lord was placed. If you see the soldiers overcome with fear, do not be afraid. I know that you seek the Christ whom they crucified. He is risen. He is not here. For not only can He not be held by the keys, the bars, and the seals of hell, of death, and of the grave, but he is even the Lord of the immortal angels of heaven, and the only Lord of the whole world. See the place where the Lord lay. Go quickly and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead. And they departed, he says, with fear and great joy. At this point I am of the opinion that Mary Magdalene and the other women who had come up to that point were still frightened. For they did not understand the meaning of the angel’s powerful words nor could they contain to the end the power of the light so as to see and understand with exactitude. But I think that the Mother of God made this great joy her own, since she comprehended the words of the angel. Her whole person radiated from the light in that she was all pure and full of divine grace. She firmly appropriated all these signs and the truth and she believed the archangel, since, of course, he formerly had shown himself to be worthy of trust for her in other matters. And why shouldn’t the Virgin understand with divine wisdom. what had occurred in that she observed the events at first hand? She saw the great earthquake and the angel descending from heaven like lightening, she saw the guards fall as dead men, the removal of the stone, the emptying of the tomb, and the great miracle of the burial garments which were kept in place by smyrna and aloes, even though they contained no body. In addition to all of these things, she saw the joyous countenance of the angel and heard his joyful message. But Mary Magda-lene, in responding to the annunciation, acted as if she had not heard the angel at all–he had not in fact spoken directly to her. She testifies only to the emptying of the tomb and says nothing about the burial garments, but runs directly to Peter and to the other disciples, as Saint John says. The Mother of God went back to the tomb again when she met the other women and, as Saint Matthew says, behold Jesus met them and told them to rejoice.

So you see that even before Mary Magdalene, the Mother of God saw Him who for our salvation suffered and was buried and rose again in the flesh.

And they approached, touched his feet and worshipped him.

Just as the Theotokos alone under-stood the power of the angelic words–even if she heard the good news of the resurrection together with Mary Magdalene–when she met her son and God with the other women she saw and recognized the risen one before all the other women. And falling down, she touched his feet and became his apostle to his apostles. We learn from Saint John that Mary Magdalene was not with the Mother of God when, on her return to the sepulchre, she encountered the Lord. He writes:

She runs to Peter Simon and the other disciple whom Jesus loved and tells them: they have taken the Lord from the tomb and we don’t know where they have put him.

If she had seen and touched him with her hands and heard him speak, how could she say the words “they have taken him and placed him elsewhere, and we don’t know where?” But after Peter and John ran to the grave and saw the burial clothes and returned, Saint John says that Mary Magdalene was standing near the tomb and crying.

You see that not only had she not yet seen him but neither had she been informed of the resurrection. And when the angels that appeared asked her “why are you crying, woman,” she again answered as if she thought that he was dead. Thus when, upon turning, she saw Jesus and still did not understand, she answered his question “why do you weep” in the same manner. Not until he called her by her name and showed her that he was the same did she understand. Then, when she also fell down before him wishing to kiss his feet, she heard him say: “Don’t touch me.” From this we understand that when he appeared previously to his mother and to the women who accompanied her, he allowed only his mother to touch his feet, even if Matthew makes this a common concession to all the women. He did not wish, for the reason we mentioned in the beginning, to suddenly present the appearance of the mother into the issue. It was the Ever Virgin Mary who came to the grave first and she was the first to receive the good news of the resurrection. Many women then gathered and they also saw the stone rolled back and heard the angels, but they were separated on their return. As Saint Mark says, since they were afraid, some of the women left the tomb in a frightened and ecstatic state without saying anything to anyone. Other women followed the Mother of the Lord and because they happened to be with her they saw and heard the Lord. Mary Magdalene left to go to Peter and John, and with them was returning to the grave. And even though they left, she stayed and she also was made worthy to see the Lord and to be sent by him to the apostles. Thus, as Saint John says, she again comes to them shouting to all that she had seen the Lord and that he had told her these things.

And Saint Mark says that this appearance happened in the morning, the indisputable beginning of the day, when the dawn had passed. But he does not contend that the resurrection of the Lord occurred at that time, nor that it was his first appearance. Therefore, we have information concerning the Myrrhbearers that is exact and the general agreement of the four Evangelists as a higher confirmation. But even with all that they had heard on the same day of the resurrection from the Myrrhbearers, from Peter, and even from Luke and Cleopas that the Lord lives and that they had seen him, the disciples showed disbelief. That is why He castigates them when he appeared to all of them gathered together. When, however, he showed them many times through the witness of many that he was alive, not only did they all believe but they preached it everywhere.

Their voice poured out on all the earth and their words spread to the ends of the earth; and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by signs that accompanied it. For until the teaching is preached to all the earth, the signs were indispensable. Exceptional signs were needed to represent and certify the truth of the message. But excellent signs are not needed for those who accept the word through firm belief. Who are these [who have firm belief]? They are those whose deeds bear witness [to their faith]. ‘’Show me your faith in your deeds,” he says. “Who is faithful? Let him manifest it with the deeds of his good life.” For who will believe that he who commits wicked acts and is oriented to the earth and material things has a true, exalted, great, and heavenly under-standing which is, so to speak, exactly what piety is? Brethren, what does it profit a man to say that he has divine faith if he does not have deeds analogous to the faith? What did the lamps profit the foolish maidens when they had no oil, in other words, the deeds of love and of compassion? What did it profit that rich man who, when he was burning in the unquenchable flame because of his indifference to Lazarus, invoked the father of Abraham? What did it profit that a man to accept an invitation to the divine wedding and that incorruptible bridal chamber when he did not have a suitable garment of good deeds? Of course, in so much as he believed anyway, he received an invitation and went to sit amongst those holy ones who were at the banquet. But he also received the examination and was ashamed because he was clothed in the wickedness of his attitude and works, through which his hands and feet were tied and he was lowered to Gehenna where wailing and gnashing of teeth reverberates. May no one who has the name of Christ experience [such a thing]. Rather let us all manifest a life analogous with the faith and enter the bridal chamber of unstained joy and eternal life with the saints, which is the resting place of all who perceive the true joy.

Translated from MIGNE P.G. vol 151, pp 236-248

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As described in the Acts, Lydia was a “seller of purple”, a person who traded in purple dyes and fabrics for which the city of Thyatira was noted. Purple goods were part of a high value industry and were used by emperors, high government officials, and priests of the pagan religions.

Tradition relates that she and her husband may have been involved in this business. At some point Lydia and her household moved from Asia Minor to the city of Philippi in Macedonia. The reasons she moved may have been business related as Philippi was a Roman colony on the major east-west trade route, the Egnation Highway, between Rome and Asia. Also, she may have been a Jewish convert who no longer could worship in the custom of the Thyatirans.

Lydia met with the Apostle Paul on his second missionary journey about the year 50. Paul and his companions started their journey visiting the established churches in western Asia Minor when he answered a vision in which he saw a man dressed in a Macedonian manner calling upon him to “Come over to Macedonia and help us.“

Paul’s custom was to find local synagogues in which he would preach. But, apparently the Jewish population in Philippi was not sufficient to allow holding Sabbath Services for the Jewish men. Thus, Paul’s party walked out of the city following the Gangites River (now called the Angista River) when they came upon a group of women praying in the manner of Jews, along flowing water. After greeting the women, Paul and his companions sat down and shared the good news of Christ’s salvation with them. Lydia, among the women, had listened attentively and took the message to heart. She and her family were then baptized in the Gangites River along which they had been praying. Thus, Lydia became the first person in Europe to become a follower of Christ.

As Acts notes, Paul and his companions were well received by Lydia as they stayed at her house after their release from the Philippi prison. Surely, during their imprisonment, Lydia and those who assembled in her home spent the night in prayer for the release of Paul and Silas, making her home the first Christian Church in Europe. When Paul departed from Philippi he left Luke behind to preach the Gospel and to establish firmly the church in Philippi, using as its core Lydia, the jailer, and their households.

Paul speaks fondly, in his letter to the Philippians, of the brethren who were members of the church of Philippi, calling them ”…my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown…” (Philippians 4:1).

Feast Day: May 20

The Baptistery of Saint Lydia near Philippi

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