The Right Hand of Saint Polycarp of Smyrna

St. Polycarp is the patron saint of Nafpaktos because his right arm is treasured in the Holy Monastery of Panagia Ambelakiotissa - Saint Polycarp outside Nafpaktos, which also treasures the miraculous icon of Panagia Ambelakiotissa (miraculously discovered in 1455).

The wonderworking relic was brought to this monastery from Smyrna a few decades after the Fall of Constantinople in 1479 by the monks Arsenios and Samuel with the blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarch. The relic before that time had been in the possession of a certain widow as part of her inheritance. It was only after much labor and expense that the monks were able to acquire the relic. The relic consists of the elbow down to the fingers, with the hand in a position of blessing. It is kept in a costly reliquary, adorned with the image of the Annunciation and the words of the Archangel Gabriel inscribed: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee" (Lk. 1:35). There is another inscription on the side which reads: "May of 1792 - the hand of the Holy Hieromartyr Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna - treasure of the Ambelakiotissa Monastery of Kozitses. Inlaid with silver at the expense of the most reverend Hieromonk Gregory the Plataniote, and smelted over again in gold by Panagiotis Damianopoulos the Kozitsian."

The photograph below depicts Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos leading a litany with the relic of St. Polycarp on May 2, 2009. Annually this three day celebration and litany takes place on the movable feast day of the Sunday of the Myrrhbearers (Saturday-Monday) during the Paschal season. See more here.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Saint Polycarp, the Friend of the Apostles

Below is the account written by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History (Book 3, Ch. 14, 15):

At this time, while Anicetus was at the head of the church of Rome, Irenæus relates that Polycarp, who was still alive, was at Rome, and that he had a conference with Anicetus on a question concerning the day of the paschal feast.

And the same writer gives another account of Polycarp which I feel constrained to add to that which has been already related in regard to him. The account is taken from the third book of Irenæus' work Against Heresies, and is as follows:

But Polycarp also was not only instructed by the apostles, and acquainted with many that had seen Christ, but was also appointed by apostles in Asia bishop of the church of Smyrna.

We too saw him in our early youth; for he lived a long time, and died, when a very old man, a glorious and most illustrious martyr's death, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, which the Church also hands down, and which alone are true.

To these things all the Asiatic churches testify, as do also those who, down to the present time, have succeeded Polycarp, who was a much more trustworthy and certain witness of the truth than Valentinus and Marcion and the rest of the heretics. He also was in Rome in the time of Anicetus and caused many to turn away from the above-mentioned heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received from the apostles this one and only system of truth which has been transmitted by the Church.

And there are those that heard from him that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe in Ephesus and seeing Cerinthus within, ran out of the bath-house without bathing, crying, 'Let us flee, lest even the bath fall, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.'

And Polycarp himself, when Marcion once met him and said, 'Do you know us? replied, 'I know the first born of Satan.' Such caution did the apostles and their disciples exercise that they might not even converse with any of those who perverted the truth; as Paul also said, 'A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing he that is such is subverted, and sins, being condemned of himself' (Titus 3:10-11).

There is also a very powerful epistle of Polycarp written to the Philippians, from which those that wish to do so, and that are concerned for their own salvation, may learn the character of his faith and the preaching of the truth.

Such is the account of Irenæus.

But Polycarp, in his above-mentioned epistle to the Philippians, which is still extant, has made use of certain testimonies drawn from the First Epistle of Peter.

And when Antoninus, called Pius, had completed the twenty-second year of his reign, Marcus Aurelius Verus, his son, who was also called Antoninus, succeeded him, together with his brother Lucius.

At this time, when the greatest persecutions were exciting Asia, Polycarp ended his life by martyrdom. But I consider it most important that his death, a written account of which is still extant, should be recorded in this history.

There is a letter, written in the name of the church over which he himself presided, to the parishes in Pontus, which relates the events that befell him, in the following words:

The church of God which dwells in Philomelium, and to all the parishes of the holy Catholic Church in every place; mercy and peace and love from God the Father be multiplied. We write unto you, brethren, an account of what happened to those that suffered martyrdom and to the blessed Polycarp, who put an end to the persecution, having, as it were, sealed it by his martyrdom.

After these words, before giving the account of Polycarp, they record the events which befell the rest of the martyrs, and describe the great firmness which they exhibited in the midst of their pains. For they say that the bystanders were struck with amazement when they saw them lacerated with scourges even to the innermost veins and arteries, so that the hidden inward parts of the body, both their bowels and their members, were exposed to view; and then laid upon sea-shells and certain pointed spits, and subjected to every species of punishment and of torture, and finally thrown as food to wild beasts.

And they record that the most noble Germanicus especially distinguished himself, overcoming by the grace of God the fear of bodily death implanted by nature. When indeed the proconsul wished to persuade him, and urged his youth, and besought him, as he was very young and vigorous, to take compassion on himself, he did not hesitate, but eagerly lured the beast toward himself, all but compelling and irritating him, in order that he might the sooner be freed from their unrighteous and lawless life.

After his glorious death the whole multitude, marveling at the bravery of the God-beloved martyr and at the fortitude of the whole race of Christians, began to cry out suddenly, 'Away with the atheists; let Polycarp be sought'.

And when a very great tumult arose in consequence of the cries, a certain Phrygian, Quintus by name, who was newly come from Phrygia, seeing the beasts and the additional tortures, was smitten with cowardice and gave up the attainment of salvation.

But the above-mentioned epistle shows that he, too hastily and without proper discretion, had rushed forward with others to the tribunal, but when seized had furnished a clear proof to all, that it is not right for such persons rashly and recklessly to expose themselves to danger. Thus did matters turn out in connection with them.

But the most admirable Polycarp, when he first heard of these things, continued undisturbed, preserved a quiet and unshaken mind, and determined to remain in the city. But being persuaded by his friends who entreated and exhorted him to retire secretly, he went out to a farm not far distant from the city and abode there with a few companions, night and day doing nothing but wrestle with the Lord in prayer, beseeching and imploring, and asking peace for the churches throughout the whole world. For this was always his custom.

And three days before his arrest, while he was praying, he saw in a vision at night the pillow under his head suddenly seized by fire and consumed; and upon this awakening he immediately interpreted the vision to those that were present, almost foretelling that which was about to happen, and declaring plainly to those that were with him that it would be necessary for him for Christ's sake to die by fire.

Then, as those who were seeking him pushed the search with vigor, they say that he was again constrained by the solicitude and love of the brethren to go to another farm. Thither his pursuers came after no long time, and seized two of the servants there, and tortured one of them for the purpose of learning from him Polycarp's hiding-place.

And coming late in the evening, they found him lying in an upper room, whence he might have gone to another house, but he would not, saying, 'The will of God be done'.

And when he learned that they were present, as the account says, he went down and spoke to them with a very cheerful and gentle countenance, so that those who did not already know the man thought that they beheld a miracle when they observed his advanced age and the gravity and firmness of his bearing, and they marveled that so much effort should be made to capture a man like him.

But he did not hesitate, but immediately gave orders that a table should be spread for them. Then he invited them to partake of a bounteous meal, and asked of them one hour that he might pray undisturbed. And when they had given permission, he stood up and prayed, being full of the grace of the Lord, so that those who were present and heard him praying were amazed, and many of them now repented that such a venerable and godly old man was about to be put to death.

In addition to these things the narrative concerning him contains the following account: But when at length he had brought his prayer to an end, after remembering all that had ever come into contact with him, small and great, famous and obscure, and the whole Catholic Church throughout the world, the hour of departure having come, they put him upon an ass and brought him to the city, it being a great Sabbath. And he was met by Herod, the captain of police, and by his father Nicetes, who took him into their carriage, and sitting beside him endeavored to persuade him, saying, 'For what harm is there in saying, Lord Cæsar, and sacrificing and saving your life?' He at first did not answer; but when they persisted, he said, 'I am not going to do what you advise me.'

And when they failed to persuade him, they uttered dreadful words, and thrust him down with violence, so that as he descended from the carriage he lacerated his shin. But without turning round, he went on his way promptly and rapidly, as if nothing had happened to him, and was taken to the stadium.

But there was such a tumult in the stadium that not many heard a voice from heaven, which came to Polycarp as he was entering the place: 'Be strong, Polycarp, and play the man.' And no one saw the speaker, but many of our people heard the voice.

And when he was led forward, there was a great tumult, as they heard that Polycarp was taken. Finally, when he came up, the proconsul asked if he were Polycarp. And when he confessed that he was, he endeavored to persuade him to deny, saying, 'Have regard for your age,' and other like things, which it is their custom to say: 'Swear by the genius of Cæsar; repent and say, Away with the Atheists.'

But Polycarp, looking with dignified countenance upon the whole crowd that was gathered in the stadium, waved his hand to them, and groaned, and raising his eyes toward heaven, said, 'Away with the Atheists.'

But when the magistrate pressed him, and said, 'Swear, and I will release you; revile Christ,' Polycarp said, 'Fourscore and six years have I been serving him, and he has done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my king who saved me?'

But when he again persisted, and said, 'Swear by the genius of Cæsar,' Polycarp replied, 'If you vainly suppose that I will swear by the genius of Cæsar, as you say, feigning to be ignorant who I am, hear plainly: I am a Christian. But if you desire to learn the doctrine of Christianity, assign a day and hear.'

The proconsul said, 'Persuade the people.' But Polycarp said, 'As for you, I thought you worthy of an explanation; for we have been taught to render to princes and authorities ordained by God the honor that is due, so long as it does not injure us; but as for these, I do not esteem them the proper persons to whom to make my defense.'

But the proconsul said, 'I have wild beasts; I will throw you to them unless you repent.' But he said, 'Call them; for repentance from better to worse is a change we cannot make. But it is a noble thing to turn from wickedness to righteousness.'

But he again said to him, 'If you despise the wild beasts, I will cause you to be consumed by fire, unless you repent.' But Polycarp said, 'You threaten a fire which burns for an hour, and after a little is quenched; for you know not the fire of the future judgment and of the eternal punishment which is reserved for the impious. But why do you delay? Do what you will.'

Saying these and other words besides, he was filled with courage and joy, and his face was suffused with grace, so that not only was he not terrified and dismayed by the words that were spoken to him, but, on the contrary, the proconsul was amazed, and sent his herald to proclaim three times in the midst of the stadium: 'Polycarp has confessed that he is a Christian.'

And when this was proclaimed by the herald, the whole multitude, both of Gentiles and of Jews, who dwelt in Smyrna, cried out with ungovernable wrath and with a great shout, 'This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, the overthrower of our gods, who teaches many not to sacrifice nor to worship.'

When they had said this, they cried out and asked the Asiarch Philip to let a lion loose upon Polycarp. But he said that it was not lawful for him, since he had closed the games. Then they thought fit to cry out with one accord that Polycarp should be burned alive.

For it was necessary that the vision should be fulfilled which had been shown him concerning his pillow, when he saw it burning while he was praying, and turned and said prophetically to the faithful that were with him, 'I must needs be burned alive.'

These things were done with great speed — more quickly than they were said — the crowds immediately collecting from the workshops and baths timber and fagots, the Jews being especially zealous in the work, as is their wont.

But when the pile was ready, taking off all his upper garments, and loosing his girdle, he attempted also to remove his shoes, although he had never before done this, because of the effort which each of the faithful always made to touch his skin first; for he had been treated with all honor on account of his virtuous life even before his gray hairs came.

Forthwith then the materials prepared for the pile were placed about him; and as they were also about to nail him to the stake, he said, 'Leave me thus; for he who has given me strength to endure the fire, will also grant me strength to remain in the fire unmoved without being secured by you with nails.' So they did not nail him, but bound him.

And he, with his hands behind him, and bound like a noble ram taken from a great flock, an acceptable burnt-offering unto God omnipotent, said,

'Father of your beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the knowledge of you, the God of angels and of powers and of the whole creation and of the entire race of the righteous who live in your presence, I bless you that you have deemed me worthy of this day and hour, that I might receive a portion in the number of the martyrs, in the cup of Christ, unto resurrection of eternal life, both of soul and of body, in the immortality of the Holy Spirit.

Among these may I be received before you this day, in a rich and acceptable sacrifice, as you, the faithful and true God, have beforehand prepared and revealed, and have fulfilled.

Wherefore I praise you also for everything; I bless you, I glorify you, through the eternal high priest, Jesus Christ, your beloved Son, through whom, with him, in the Holy Spirit, be glory unto you, both now and for the ages to come, Amen.'

When he had offered up his Amen and had finished his prayer, the firemen lighted the fire and as a great flame blazed out, we, to whom it was given to see, saw a wonder, and we were preserved that we might relate what happened to the others.

For the fire presented the appearance of a vault, like the sail of a vessel filled by the wind, and made a wall about the body of the martyr, and it was in the midst not like flesh burning, but like gold and silver refined in a furnace. For we perceived such a fragrant odor, as of the fumes of frankincense or of some other precious spices.

So at length the lawless men, when they saw that the body could not be consumed by the fire, commanded an executioner to approach and pierce him with the sword.

And when he had done this there came forth a quantity of blood so that it extinguished the fire; and the whole crowd marveled that there should be such a difference between the unbelievers and the elect, of whom this man also was one, the most wonderful teacher in our times, apostolic and prophetic, who was bishop of the Catholic Church in Smyrna. For every word which came from his mouth was accomplished and will be accomplished.


But the jealous and envious Evil One, the adversary of the race of the righteous, when he saw the greatness of his martyrdom, and his blameless life from the beginning, and when he saw him crowned with the crown of immortality and bearing off an incontestable prize, took care that not even his body should be taken away by us, although many desired to do it and to have communion with his holy flesh.

Accordingly certain ones secretly suggested to Nicetes, the father of Herod and brother of Alce, that he should plead with the magistrate not to give up his body, 'lest,' it was said, 'they should abandon the crucified One and begin to worship this man.' They said these things at the suggestion and impulse of the Jews, who also watched as we were about to take it from the fire, not knowing that we shall never be able either to forsake Christ, who suffered for the salvation of the whole world of those that are saved, or to worship any other.

For we worship him who is the Son of God, but the martyrs, as disciples and imitators of the Lord, we love as they deserve on account of their matchless affection for their own king and teacher. May we also be made partakers and fellow-disciples with them.

The centurion, therefore, when he saw the contentiousness exhibited by the Jews, placed him in the midst and burned him, as was their custom. And so we afterwards gathered up his bones, which were more valuable than precious stones and more to be esteemed than gold, and laid them in a suitable place.

There the Lord will permit us to come together as we are able, in gladness and joy to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom, for the commemoration of those who have already fought and for the training and preparation of those who shall hereafter do the same.

Such are the events that befell the blessed Polycarp, who suffered martyrdom in Smyrna with the eleven from Philadelphia. This one man is remembered more than the others by all, so that even by the heathen he is talked about in every place.

Of such an end was the admirable and apostolic Polycarp deemed worthy, as recorded by the brethren of the church of Smyrna in their epistle which we have mentioned. In the same volume concerning him are subjoined also other martyrdoms which took place in the same city, Smyrna, about the same period of time with Polycarp's martyrdom. Among them also Metrodorus, who appears to have been a proselyte of the Marcionitic sect, suffered death by fire.


Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone
As a sharer of the ways and a successor to the throne of the Apostles, O inspired of God, thou foundest discipline to be a means of ascent to divine vision. Wherefore, having rightly divided the word of truth, thou didst also contest for the Faith even unto blood, O Hieromartyr Polycarp. Intercede with Christ our God that our souls be saved.

Kontakion in the First Tone
Through godly virtues, thou broughtest forth for the Lord God much spiritual fruit, O thou most blessed Hierarch, and so didst prove worthy of God thy Lord, O wise Polycarp. Wherefore, on this day we who have all been enlightened through thy holy words extol thy praiseworthy mem'ry and glorify Christ the Lord.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

To Be A Fool For Christ's Sake

"We are fools for Christ's sake" (1 Corinthians 4:10).

Thus speaks the great Apostle Paul who in the beginning was guided by worldly wisdom, which is against Christ, until he recognizes the falsehood and decay of the wisdom of the world and the light and stability of the wisdom of Christ. Then, the holy apostle did not become angry with the world because they called him "a fool for Christ's sake" neither did he, in defiance of the world, hesitate to be called by this name.

It is not of any value to us how the world is going to regard or call us. However, it is important, and extremely important, how the holy angels in the heavens will regard and call us when, after death, we meet with them. This is of crucial importance and everything else is nothing.

Either we are fools for the world because of Christ or we are fools for Christ because of the world. O how short-lived is the sound of a word of the world! If the world would say to us "fool," the world will die and its word will die! What then is the value of its word? But if the heavenly, immortal ones say to us "fool," that will neither die nor is it removed from us as eternal condemnation.

Whoever does not believe in the Living God, nor in eternal life, nor in the Incarnation of the Lord Christ, nor in Christ's Resurrection nor in the truth of the Gospel nor in God's eternal mercy and justice - is it any wonder if he considers that one a fool who does believes in all of this?

O, may every one of us who cross ourselves with the Sign of the Cross not only find it easy to endure but with satisfaction receive the name "fool" for Christ's sake! Let us rejoice and be glad if the non-believers call us such, for that means that we are close to Christ and far away from the non-believers. Let us rejoice and be glad and repeat with a powerful echo in the ears of the world: yes, yes, indeed we are fools for Christ's sake!

O Lord Most-wise, strengthen us by Your power that we not fear the non-believing world neither when they lash us with whips nor when they insult us with words for Your sake.

- St. Nikolai Velimirovich, Prologue

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Amazing Facts You Never Knew About Yourself

The medical term for belly button is umbilicus.

Those who smoke a pack of cigarettes a day drink half a cup of tar a year.

Humans are the only animals capable of drawing a straight line.

On average, an individual grows over 450 miles of hair in a lifetime.

When a person smiles, 17 muscles are engaged.

Human DNA contains 80,000 genes.

Men shorter than 4.2 feet and women shorter than 3.9 feet are considered dwarfs.

White blood cells live in the human body for 2 to 4 days, while red blood cells live up to 3 to 4 months.

Every human bends their finger 25 million times in a lifetime.

Human heart is equal in size to a human fist. Average weight of an adult’s heart is approximately 0.5lbs.

Human body contains four minerals: apatite, aragonite, calcite, and christobalite.

Human brain generates more electric impulses in a day than all telephones of the world combined.

The loss of vision caused by exposure to bright light is called snow blindness.

Total weight of bacteria living in the human body is 4.4lbs.

Human brain produces 100,000 chemical reactions per second.

Babies are born without kneecaps, which form only at the age of 2 to 6.

The area of human lungs’ surface is equal to that of a tennis court.

At birth, a baby’s brain contains 14 billion cells, and this number does not increase till death. On the contrary, after the age of 25 it decreases by 100,000 cells per day. Reading a page of text in a minute kills approximately 70 cells. After the age of 40, the brain degradation is accelerated, and after 50, neurons shrink and brain volume reduces.

The human small intestines are 8.5 feet long during life. After death, when the muscles of the bowel walls relax, it may reach over 19 feet.

An average human has approximately 2 million perspiratory glands. An average adult person loses 540 calories with a liter of sweat. Men perspire 40% more than women.

The right lung holds more air than the left one.

An adult person makes approximately 23,000 breaths a day.

In a lifetime, the female body produces 7 million egg cells.

The human eye is capable of differentiating 10,000,000 hues.

There are approximately 40,000 bacteria in the human mouth.

It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

The human spine contains 33 to 34 spinal bones.

Women blink twice as often as men.

The smallest cells in the male body are sperm cells.

The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue.

There are approximately 2,000 taste buds in the human body.

Babies are born with approximately 300 bones, and adults have only 206 bones.

Human body contains enough fat to produce seven pieces of soap.

Nerve impulses in the human body travel with the speed of approximately 90 meters a second.

42,368,000 – a number of heartbeats a person experiences in a year.

Men suffer from color blindness 10 times more often than women.

Nearly half of all human bones are located in wrists and feet.

When in doubt, medieval doctors diagnosed patients with syphilis.

People with blue eyes are more sensitive to pain than others.

Fingernails grow 4 times faster than toenails.

A person changes skin approximately 1,000 times in a lifetime.

There are over 100 viruses causing runny nose.

There are nearly 46 miles of nerves in an adult’s body.

Source

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Vatican’s WWII Identity Crisis

Mass Grave of History: Vatican’s WWII Identity Crisis

BY JULIA GORIN
22/02/2010
OBL

The Catholic Church, looking for a bulwark against communism, supported what became a genocidal regime of Nazi satellite Croatia.

The controversy over the canonization of Pope Pius XII is concerned with whether he spoke out enough against the slaughter of Jews during World War II. But that question is a red herring when trying to grasp the big picture of the Vatican’s role during the war.

The real question is whether the Vatican supported the world order, or at least aspects of it, that the Third Reich promised to bring a world order in which dead Jews were collateral damage – which Pius indeed regretted. The answer can be found in a region of Europe that is generally ignored despite being the nexus of world wars: the Balkans.

The Catholic Church was looking for a bulwark against expanding, ruthless, church-destroying communism, but in doing so it supported a Croatian movement called Ustasha, which rose to become the genocidal regime of Nazi satellite Croatia.

American historian Jared Israel points to a February 17, 1941 New York Times article which reported that the Archbishop of Zagreb (Croatia’s capital), Alojzije (Aloysius) Stepinac, was holding conferences in Vatican City “seeking the freedom of Catholic priests detained in [pre-Nazi] Croatia in connection with the circulation of ‘Free Croatia!’ pamphlets, attributed to Ante Pavelic.” Pavelic, who once criticized Hitler for originally being too soft on the Jews, was the founder of the fascist Ustashas, who were engaging in terrorism all over Europe to “liberate” Croatia from Yugoslavia. He famously said, “A good Ustasha is one who can use a knife to cut a child from the womb of its mother.”

Israel explains the significance of the understated Times article: “The arrested priests were agitating for a fascist coup d’etat,” and if these had been rogue priests, “the Vatican would have disciplined them and perhaps issued a statement condemning them; it certainly would not have [held] top-level conferences to manage their defense.”

At the time, Pavelic was being harbored in Mussolini’s Italy – where his Ustasha soldiers were being trained – after France sentenced him to death for masterminding the 1934 double assassination of Yugoslavian King Alexander I and French foreign minister Louis Barthou. When Hitler invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941, Pavelic was activated and became fuehrer, or “Poglavnik,” of the new, clerical-fascist Croatia.

Archbishop Stepinac held a banquet for Pavelic, blessed the Ustasha leader and regime, calling them “God’s hand at work,” and the following month had Pavelic received by Pius XII. This was four days after the massacre in the town of Glina, where the Ustashas locked hundreds of Serbian Orthodox inside their church and burned it down, as became standard practice in Pavelic’s Independent State of Croatia (known by its Croatian acronym NDH). Pius XII received Pavelic despite a Yugoslav envoy’s request that he not do so, given the atrocities taking place.

In July of that year, Pavelic’s minister of education, Mile Budak, publicly outlined the purification process, already being implemented against Serbs: Kill a third, expel a third, convert a third.

That August, more than a thousand Serbs had gathered inside another Glina church for conversion, after which Zagreb police chief Bozidar Corouski announced, “Now that you are all Roman Catholics, I guarantee you that I can save your souls, but I cannot save your bodies.” In came Ustasha henchmen with bludgeons, knives and axes, killing all but one man – Ljuban Jednak – who played dead, then stole away from the mass grave he was dumped into.

Pius and Pavelic continued exchanging “cordial telegrams,” as author Vladimir Dedijer – former cochairman of Bertrand Russell’s International War Crimes Tribunal – wrote in his 1992 book The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican. The Croatian Catholic press consistently published approving articles about the regime.

In his forthcoming book The Krajina Chronicles: A Short History of Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, Dr. Srdja Trifkovic writes, “A part of the Roman Catholic hierarchy became de facto accomplices, as did a majority of the clergy. The leading NDH racial ‘theorist’ was a clergyman, Dr. Ivo Guberina… He urged Croatia’s ‘cleansing of foreign elements’ by any means. His views were echoed by the influential head of the Ustasha Central Propaganda Office, Fr. Grga Peinovic.

“When the anti-Serb and anti-Jewish racial laws of April and May 1941 were enacted, the Catholic press welcomed them as vital for ‘the survival and development of the Croatian nation’… Archbishop of Sarajevo [then part of Croatia] Ivan Saric declared… ‘It is stupid and unworthy of Christ’s disciples to think that the struggle against evil could be waged… with gloves on.’”

In an unusual move, Germany entrusted Croatia with running its own concentration camps, without oversight. Shamefully, clergy members took a voracious dive into the bloodbath, serving as guards, commanders and executioners at the 40 camps, most famously Jasenovac, the Holocaust’s third largest yet least spoken of camp. There, they killed Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and anti-fascist Croats. On August 29, 1942, a friar from the monastery of Siroki Brijeg, named Petar Brzica, won first place for killing the most Serbs in the shortest time, boasting 1,350 throats slit in one night.

Historian Carl Savich quotes an AP report stating that “a priest from Petricevac led Croat fascists, armed with hatchets and knives, to a nearby village. In the 1942 attack, they butchered 2,300 Serbs.” Testimony from a survivor of that February 7 massacre, Selo Drakulic, reads: “Prior to killing the adults, unborn children were violently cut from their mothers’ womb[s] and slaughtered. Of the remaining children in the village, all under the age of 12, the Ustashas brutally removed arms, legs, noses, ears and genitals. Young girls were raped and killed, while their families were forced to witness the violation and carnage. The most grotesque torture of all was the decapitation of children, their heads thrown into the laps of their mothers, who were themselves then killed.”

Archive photos of sadism that would make horror filmmakers blush survive today: Ustashas displaying an Orthodox priest’s head; an eyeless peasant woman; Serbs and Jews being pushed off a cliff; a Serb with a saw to his neck; and a smiling Ustasha holding the still-beating heart of prominent industrialist Milos Teslitch, who had been castrated, disemboweled and his ears and lips cut off.

Italian writer Curzio Malaparte in his 1944 book Kaputt offers this detail: “While [Pavelic] spoke, I gazed at a wicker basket on the Poglavnik’s desk [which] seemed to be filled with mussels, or shelled oysters… ‘Are they Dalmatian oysters?’ I asked. [Pavelic] said smiling, ‘It is a present from my loyal Ustashas… Forty pounds of human eyes.’”

In their 1991 book Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis and the Swiss Banks, reporter Mark Aarons and former Justice Department attorney John Loftus corroborate the grisly Croatian crimes, as does Genocide in Satellite Croatia 1941-1945 by Edmond Paris: “The Italians photographed an Ustasha wearing two chains of human tongues and ears around his neck.”

It has been 60 years, and the world still doesn’t know the story of wartime Croatia, where not only did the Vatican not speak out against crimes, not only was it complicit in the genocide of a million people, but it subsequently never expressed remorse for the spilled Orthodox blood as it’s done for Jewish blood. Because the world never demanded it. Which points to the same apprehensions that have dogged Jewish groups about the Vatican’s genuineness, especially with its reluctance to open archives about Pius’s World War II conduct.

One can't help wondering whether the Vatican as an institution was silently cheering the decimation of its Orthodox rival. Stepinac, who was photographed blessing the Ustashas before an upcoming battle or slaughter, reported in May 1944 the good news of about 244,000 forced conversions to Pius. (Pius himself might have caught BBC broadcasts such as on February 16, 1942: “The Orthodox are being forcibly converted to Catholicism and we do not hear the archbishop’s voice preaching revolt. Instead it is reported that he is taking part in Nazi and fascist parades.”) Observing the liquidation of Croatia’s Orthodox, Heinrich Himmler’s second-in-command, Reinhard Heydrich, wrote a February 17, 1942, letter to Himmler stating, “It is clear that the Croat-Serbian state of tension is not least of all a struggle of the Catholic Church against the Orthodox Church.”

It is not Jews to whom the [Catholic] Church owes the biggest apology over World War II, but Serbs. If by not speaking out about Europe’s Jews Pius hoped to avoid endangering millions of Catholics, what could have been the reason for not speaking out about Croatia, which itself horrified the Nazis to the point that German and Italian soldiers started shielding Serbs from Ustashas? And what would have been the risk to the faithful inside Croatia?

A July 5, 1994, Washington Times article attempted to get to the bottom of why so little is known of the Croatia chapter of World War II, and why Jasenovac is so rarely spoken of: “For years the gruesome details… remained officially taboo. Although documents and eyewitness accounts were at first ignored, and then mysteriously removed from international archives… [i]t now appears that a vast international conspiracy involving Marshal Josip Broz Tito… [and] the United Nations, some Vatican officials and even Jewish organizations strove to keep the Jasenovac story buried forever… Tito’s watchwords were ‘brotherhood and unity,’ and to pursue these high goals he tried to erase the chapter of Jasenovac. The West generally went along, particularly after Tito broke with Stalin in 1948. The Vatican wanted to protect Roman Catholic Croats, who had been willing Nazi proxies in the Balkans.

“The silence of Jewish organizations is less easily explained… [The late Milan Bulajic, of Belgrade's Genocide Museum, met] officials of the Holocaust Museum [in Washington to] find out why no one mentions the Yugoslav Jews who died there. He did not seem to get a clear-cut answer… When Yugoslavia fell apart in 1991… troops of newly independent Croatia briefly captured the site and, according to Serbian sources, blew up whatever was left of the camp and destroyed all remaining records.”

An apology is also owed to Catholic clergy whose appeals the Church ignored. Archbishop Misic of Mostar, Herzegovina, asked Stepinac to use his influence with authorities to prevent the massacres. And Bulajic wrote of a group of Slovenian Catholic priests who were “sent to the Jasenovac camp because they refused to serve a mass of thanksgiving to Ustasha leader Ante Pavelic… One of the imprisoned Slovenian priests, Anton Rantasa, managed to escape… On 10 November 1942, he informed [Stepinac and the papal legate Ramiro Marcone]… on the crimes of genocide being perpetrated at Jasenovac. He was told to keep silent.”

Similarly, historian Savich writes, “It bears noting that Stepinac was tried and convicted… by Roman Catholic Croats… under the regime of a Roman Catholic Croatian… Many of the historians who documented the Ustasha NDH genocide were Roman Catholic Croats, such as Viktor Novak.”

In his 1950 book Behind the Purple Curtain, Walter Montano wrote of the Stepinac trial: “A parade of prosecution witnesses testified at Zagreb, on October 5, 1946, that Catholic priests armed with pistols went out to convert Orthodox Serbs and massacred them… Most of the witnesses were Croat Catholic peasants and laborers.”

Indeed, just as blame for tacit approval of a genocide and subsequent escape for the perpetrators can’t fall merely on “a few individuals,” it’s more than a few individuals who deserve credit for the opposite. For example, Jews were saved by the entire Catholic nation of Italy (in its sovereign pre-1943 form), including the commandant of the Ferramonti concentration camp, who “said his job was to protect the inmates, not kill them,” as UPI reported in 2003. Not surprisingly, Italian soldiers also intervened in the slaughter of Serbs by Croats and Axis-aligned Albanians in Kosovo.

Unfortunately, rather than distancing the Church from Aloysius Stepinac, the Vatican-centered newspaper L’Osservatore Romano responded that the “trial was a trial against the Catholic Church.” New York cardinal Francis Spellman outrageously named a parochial school in White Plains after Stepinac, and in 1952 Pius XII made him cardinal. Then, despite requests by the Simon Wiesenthal Center to hold off until the cardinal’s wartime role could be better assessed, Pope John Paul II beatified Stepinac in 1998.

Croatian groups (and some Croatian Jews) even appealed to Yad Vashem to give Stepinac the Righteous Gentile title, since he saved some Jews on condition of conversion. To which Yad Vashem had to reply in almost absurd terms: “Persons who assisted Jews but simultaneously collaborated or were linked with a fascist regime which took part in the Nazi-orchestrated persecution of Jews, may be disqualified for the Righteous title.”

The same should be said to Pope Benedict about his efforts to canonize Pius XII. Even as it denied Stepinac’s well known association with the Ustasha, Pius’s Vatican served as the conduit for smuggling the Ustashas out after the war. According to declassified US documents introduced in a recent class-action lawsuit against the Vatican Bank for laundering Ustasha loot – used to finance the Ustashas’ escapes and postwar sustenance – Pavelic was hidden in a Croatian Catholic monastery in Rome, where the office of the American Counterintelligence Corps on September 12, 1947, reported that “Pavelic’s contacts are so high, and his present position is so compromising to the Vatican, that any extradition of subject would deal a staggering blow to the Roman Catholic Church.” From Rome, Pavelic fled to Argentina, where he became a security adviser to Juan Peron, who issued thousands of visas to fleeing Ustashas.

Haaretz in 2006 reported that Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini, Pius’s undersecretary of state and later Pope Paul VI, learned of “the investigation [that US Army counterintelligence agent William] Gowen’s unit was conducting. Montini complained about Gowen to his superiors and accused him of having violated the Vatican’s immunity by having entered church buildings, such as the Croatian college, and conducting searches there. The aim of the complaint was to interfere with the investigation.”

A May 2007 press release from plaintiffs’ attorney Jonathan Levy in the Vatican Bank case states, “To date, the Vatican attorneys… [are] insisting that the Vatican Bank’s money laundering scheme for Axis plunder violated no international law, since the Ustasha’s victims, mainly Orthodox Christian Serbs, were technically citizens of ‘Independent’ Croatia. The unrepentant tone of the Vatican bodes poorly for Pius XII and the current controversy involving his elevation to sainthood.”

The Vatican's ongoing World War II identity crisis was evident last September when, after prodding from Croatian leaders, Zagreb Archbishop Josip Bozanic paid a 60-year-late visit to the Jasenovac memorial site, the first official representative of the Croatian Church to attend the annual memorial ceremony. Instead of an apology, Bozanic defended Stepinac and the Church, and used the long-awaited moment to also mourn the massacre of fleeing Nazis by partisans in Bleiburg, Austria – where an annual, Croatian government-sponsored commemoration ceremony is well attended by Catholic dignitaries. Bozanic was not reproached by the Vatican, which also doesn’t reproach the Croatian Church’s tolerance of the ubiquitous pro-Nazi symbolism in that country, which reemerged as Croatian “culture” in the early 1990s.

President Stjepan Mesic himself, who just left office after 10 years, had to recently ask the Vatican to pay closer attention to a bishop and military chaplain who regularly recites a violent poem that ends with the Ustasha saying: “For the fatherland, ready.”

This is the Balkan country that’s on the fast-track for EU membership. That’s where decades of evasion, deflection and cover-up get us, something that contributed to John Paul II’s own neglect of Jasenovac – the Balkans’ largest killing grounds – during his three trips to Croatia. It also leads us to last December’s spectacle of Pope Benedict having a private audience with Marko Perkovic, lead singer of the notorious clerical-fascist Croatian pop band Thompson, which regularly invokes “For the fatherland, ready” and had odes to concentration camps on earlier albums. Many Thompson fans engage in Nazi salutes, and nuns and politicians attend the “patriotic” concerts.

People bury history in order to repeat it. John Ranz, chairman of Buchenwald Survivors, in a 1996 letter to The New York Times, wrote: “Ironically, with US help, [1990s president] Franjo Tudjman was able to accomplish last year what the Nazis and their World War II collaborators could not, namely the uprooting of the entire Serbian Krajina population… The World War II fascist regime of Ante Pavelic is being officially rehabilitated in Croatia today. Streets and public buildings are being named after the architects of the Holocaust, Nazi-era currency revived, while the numbers and scope of the human carnage are being rewritten.”

Had history not been dumped into a mass grave, Western publics might have been allowed a fuller understanding of the Balkan wars, given that by 1991 it was “normal to kill Serbs,” as Zarko Puhovski, of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, put it. When Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia in June 1991 – and the Vatican was the first to recognize it despite a UN resolution warning this could imperil a peaceful solution – survival dictated that the Serbs secede from the secessionists. “A few days after the Croatians declared war,” writes historian Israel, Pope John Paul II “sent a letter to the Yugoslav government demanding it not suppress the rebellion.” And so it was that in 1991 three Croatian soldiers saw “truckloads of bloated, stinking bodies, mothers and children blown up by bombs, and someone wearing a necklace made of ears,” Reuters reported on January 28, 1998.

And so it was that president Tudjman was a prominent guest at the inauguration of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993, despite saying that “900,000 died, not 6 million,” and ranged from calling Jasenovac a “myth,” to blaming Jews for the killings there, to offering a formal apology for the 20,000 Jews killed there – but not for the several hundred thousand Serbs. And so it was that in 1995, as Croatian soldiers with Ustasha insignia cleansed the Krajina of Serbs – under US air cover – the Glina massacre survivor Ljuban Jednak once again fled for his life, dying a refugee in 1997.

And so it was that in 2005, when then Hague prosecutor Carla del Ponte learned that indicted 1990s war criminal Gen. Ante Gotovina was being sheltered in a Franciscan monastery in Croatia, the Roman Catholic lady found herself “‘extremely disappointed’ to encounter a wall of silence from the Vatican” which, she told the Daily Telegraph, “could probably pinpoint exactly which of Croatia’s 80 monasteries was sheltering him ‘in a few days.’”

And so it was that at the 2006 inauguration of the spruced-up Jasenovac memorial, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Efraim Zuroff observed “the absence of any identification of the individuals responsible for the crimes described… I was amazed that none of the speakers mentioned… Croatia’s greatest achievement in facing its Ustasha past – the prosecution and conviction of Jasenovac commander Dinko Sakic… Could it be that the punishment of such a criminal… is so unpopular, even in today’s Croatia…?”

And so it was that Sakic was buried last July in full Nazi uniform, with a Father Vjekoslav Lasic – one of many who hold masses in honor of Ante Pavelic – officiating. “Independent State of Croatia is the foundation of today’s homeland of Croatia,” Lasic said. “Every honorable Croat is proud of the name Dinko Sakic.”

When no Croatian official of stature spoke out against the display, Zuroff called on the president to condemn the organizers and remind Croatian society that Sakic brought it shame, not pride.

In enshrining the Church’s divided World War II loyalties by canonizing the ambivalent pope at the time, the Church would be announcing to the world what it’s made of. But the Church is better than the sum of its nastier parts. Canonizing Pius XII would be unjust to Catholics who did more than he, and an insult to Catholics everywhere. Pius shouldn’t be demonized, but he shouldn’t be sanctified.


The writer specializes in the Balkans, and is an unpaid advisory board member of the American Council for Kosovo.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Archaeologist Uncovers Support for King Solomon

Archaeologist Sees Proof for Bible in Ancient Wall

By MATTI FRIEDMAN
Associated Press
February 22, 2010

JERUSALEM – An Israeli archaeologist said Monday that ancient fortifications recently excavated in Jerusalem date back 3,000 years to the time of King Solomon and support the biblical narrative about the era.

If the age of the wall is correct, the finding would be an indication that Jerusalem was home to a strong central government that had the resources and manpower needed to build massive fortifications in the 10th century B.C.

That's a key point of dispute among scholars, because it would match the Bible's account that the Hebrew kings David and Solomon ruled from Jerusalem around that time.

While some Holy Land archaeologists support that version of history — including the archaeologist behind the dig, Eilat Mazar — others posit that David's monarchy was largely mythical and that there was no strong government to speak of in that era.

Speaking to reporters at the site Monday, Mazar, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, called her find "the most significant construction we have from First Temple days in Israel."

"It means that at that time, the 10th century, in Jerusalem there was a regime capable of carrying out such construction," she said.


Based on what she believes to be the age of the fortifications and their location, she suggested it was built by Solomon, David's son, and mentioned in the Book of Kings.

The fortifications, including a monumental gatehouse and a 77-yard (70-meter) long section of an ancient wall, are located just outside the present-day walls of Jerusalem's Old City, next to the holy compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. According to the Old Testament, it was Solomon who built the first Jewish Temple on the site.

That temple was destroyed by Babylonians, rebuilt, renovated by King Herod 2,000 years ago and then destroyed again by Roman legions in 70 A.D. The compound now houses two important Islamic buildings, the golden-capped Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque.

Archaeologists have excavated the fortifications in the past, first in the 1860s and most recently in the 1980s. But Mazar claimed her dig was the first complete excavation and the first to turn up strong evidence for the wall's age: a large number of pottery shards, which archaeologists often use to figure out the age of findings.

Aren Maeir, an archaeology professor at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, said he has yet to see evidence that the fortifications are as old as Mazar claims. There are remains from the 10th century in Jerusalem, he said, but proof of a strong, centralized kingdom at that time remains "tenuous."

While some see the biblical account of the kingdom of David and Solomon as accurate and others reject it entirely, Maeir said the truth was likely somewhere in the middle.

"There's a kernel of historicity in the story of the kingdom of David," he said.


See also:

Archaeological Dig Uncovers Support for Old Testament Account

Massive Wall in Jerusalem Dated to Solomon’s Time

Eilat Mazar’s 1980s Excavations and Today

Jerusalem City Wall from 10th Century B.C.E. Uncovered

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Orthodoxy and the Russian Armed Forces

See also: Nearly Half of Russians Believe Armed Forces Need Chaplains

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

The Ascetics of Karoulia on Mount Athos

The most isolated area on Mount Athos is an area known as Karoulia. Karoulia is located at the southernmost shore of Mount Athos on a rocky and very steep site. The hermit monks have built their huts inside caves, holes and rock protrusions. The name "karoulia" (pulleys) derives from the fact that in the old days supplies were delivered to the monks with pulleys. To move around they need to climb down with chains that are nailed to the cliffs. Only those who truly desire with their whole hearts to imitate Christ can endure this harsh and dreaded lifestyle.

The ascetics are principally occupied with prayer. They have diminished their corporal needs to the absolute minimum. They drink rain water which they collect and eat just enough to stay alive; they support themselves by weaving baskets and making prayer ropes, which they sell or exchange for food in Daphne.






















Father Stefan, Serb by origin, cooking in 1982. He spent over 40 years on Karoulia. A great ascetic, his kelli was burnt so he had to go back to Serbia, where he spent last days of his life in the monastery Slanci near Belgrade (capital of Serbia). He is buried there, returned to rest in peace in his homeland after 40 years of asceticism in the most cruel part of Mount Athos - Karoulia.

Below is a one-hour documentary in Greek about the modern day ascetics of Karoulia, most of whom have passed on and left their cells empty. It begins in the cell of Fr. Stephan (pictured above) and the guide, who knew many of these ascetics while they were alive, moves on from cell to cell telling stories of the various holy personalities of these great ascetics who lived so strictly their Orthodox ascetic calling. It is said that the ascetics of Karoulia live like the birds of the air, only receiving and being sustained with that which God provides for them. This documentary reveals how true this is as if one were there.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

The Root Issues of Western Scholasticism

by Jay Dyer

A friend asked a good question, and it was something I began to wonder a few years ago. What exactly constitutes "scholasticism." Varying dates, personages, movements and scholarly opinions could be listed. The Orthodox person usually thinks (wrongly - as I did 4 years ago) that the Eastern criticism is that the west was using logic and philosophy and this is what the issue was/is. That's not exactly right and any Roman Catholic would be right in pointing out a hypocritical double standard on the Orthodox part.

But it's really simpler than that once you get the system down. It's a system trying to be consistent. It isn't, but many of it's doctrines are inter-connected and fit together. Thomas doesn't posit something in his eschatology, say, that doesn't line up with his doctrine of absolute divine simplicity. So what really is scholasticism? I replied as follows:

Good questions. The problems with scholasticism aren't so much the use of philosophy and logic, since ALL the Eastern Doctors do this, as well as the ecumenical councils, but rather certain assumptions and beliefs.

It really begins with Augustine, who imports a very Neo-Platonic doctrine of God (very candidly), and Augustine then tries to mold this into Christianity. In the West, he became the dominate force and authority even into Aquinas' works. The works of Aristotle were discovered in the 13th century and brought to the west. Aquinas attempted a great synthesis of neo-platonic, Augustinian and Aristotelian ideas. The Summa makes this clear throughout.

The problems are these:

1. That religious knowledge is divided into two categories - "natural" theology and revealed theology.

2. That God's essence bears a resemblance to creatures.

3. That we reason up from creatures via "analogia entis" to know something of God's essence.

4. God created things in the world after archetypes of things pre-existing in His essence.

5. That nature and Person are identical in God.

6. That essence and energy/action are the same in God, as well as all attributes being the same. This "god" is actus purus - pure act.

7. That the meaning if theosis or salvation is being raised to a higher level of created grace.

8. That the eschaton is an intellectual vision of the essence of God, as well as being a bizarre lake of lava where demons throw you in and out and evil and sin continue in eternal opposition to God (dualism).

These are the awful ideas of scholasticism. It's NOT bad because it uses philosophy and logic. If that were true, then Nyssa, Maximus, Basil, Theodore, Athanasius, the two Cyrils, John of Damascus, and all Eastern Fathers are all "scholastics." And I've read every one of them at length. They were classically educated. But that's not what the criticism is. That's what unknowing Orthodox think the criticism is (as I thought for a long time and it partly kept me out of Orthodoxy, since it was hypocritical).

Scholasticism is the train of schoolmen who follow in the footsteps of Augustine and his philosophical assumptions - it's the three "A's" - Anselm, Aquinas and Augustine. It's Duns Scotus and Peter Lombard - all of whom are in varying degrees using the above assumptions.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Nine Righteous Children Martyrs of Kola

Nine Martyred Brothers of Kola (Feast Day - February 22)

Many centuries ago, the village of Kola was located at the source of the Mtkvari River. There Christians and pagans dwelt together as neighbors. Christian and pagan children would play together, but when the Christian children heard church bells ringing, they recognized the call to prayer and dropped their games. Nine pagan children—Guram, Adarnerse, Baqar, Vache, Bardzim, Dachi, Juansher, Ramaz, and Parsman—would follow the Christian children to church.

But the Christians always stopped them near the gates of the church and reprimanded them, saying, “You are children of pagans. You cannot enter God’s holy house.” They would return sorry and dejected.

One day the nine pagan children tried to enter the church forcibly, but they were cast out and scolded. “If you want to enter the church, you must believe in our Lord Jesus Christ and be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” they were told. “You must receive Holy Communion and join the community of Christian believers.”

With great joy the youths promised the Christians that they would receive Holy Baptism. When the Christians of Kola related to their priest the good news of the pagan boys’ desire, he recalled the words of the Gospel: He that loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me: and he that loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he that takes not his cross, and follows after Me, is not worthy of Me. (Matt. 10:37–38).

He was not afraid of the anger that would follow from the pagan community, but rather took the boys on a cold winter night and baptized them in the icy river. A miracle occurred while the Holy Sacrament was being celebrated: the water became warm and angelic hosts appeared to the youths. Greatly encouraged in their faith, the children decided to remain in the Christian community rather than return to their parents.

When their parents learned that they had been baptized in the Christian Faith, they dragged their children away from the church, abusing and beating them into submission all the way home. The heroic children endured the abuses and, though they went hungry and thirsty for seven days, repeated again and again, “We are Christians and will not eat or drink anything that was prepared for idols!”

Neither gentle flattery, nor costly clothing, nor promises of good things to come could tempt the God-fearing youths. Rather they asserted, “We are Christians and want nothing from you but to leave us alone and allow us to join the Christian community!”

The enraged parents went and reported to the prince everything that had happened. But the prince was of no help—he simply told them, “They are your children, do with them as you wish.” The obstinate pagans asked the prince permission to stone the children. So a large pit was dug where the youths had been baptized, and the children were thrown inside.

“We are Christians, and we will die for Him into Whom we have been baptized!” proclaimed the holy martyrs, the Nine Children of Kola, before offering up their souls to God.

Their godless parents took up stones, and then others joined in, until the entire pit had been filled. They beat the priest to death, robbed him, and divided the spoils among themselves.

The martyric contest of the Nine Righteous Children of Kola occurred in the 6th century, in the historical region of Tao in southern Georgia.

Source

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Finding of the Relics of Apostles and Martyrs at Evgenios of Constantinople

Finding of the Relics of the Holy Apostles and Martyrs of Evgenios (Feast Day - February 22)

During the persecutions against Christians the relics of the holy martyrs were usually buried by believers in hidden places. So at Constantinople, near the gates and tower in the Evgenios quarter, the bodies of several martyrs were found. Their names remain unknown by the Church.

When miracles of healing began to occur at this spot, the relics of the saints were discovered after an investigation and transferred to a church with great honor. The discovery took place during the reign of Emperor Thomas I (607-610). It was revealed to a certain pious clergyman, Nicholas the Calligrapher, that among the relics discovered at Evgenios were the relics of the holy Apostle Andronicus of the Seventy and his helper Junia (May 17), whom the Apostle Paul mentions in the Epistle to the Romans: "Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives and my fellow prisoners; they are prominent among the apostles and they were in Christ before me" (Rom 16:7). In the twelfth century, a great domed church was built on the spot where the relics of the holy martyrs were discovered. This work was undertaken by the emperor Andronicus (1183-1185), whose patron saint was the holy Apostle Andronicus.

Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone
Thy Martyrs, O Lord, in their courageous contest for Thee received as the prize the crowns of incorruption and life from Thee, our immortal God. For since they possessed Thy strength, they cast down the tyrants and wholly destroyed the demons' strengthless presumption. O Christ God, by their prayers, save our souls, since Thou art merciful.

Kontakion in the Fourth Tone
When ye shone forth from the earth like luminaries, ye dispersed the gloomy mist of all impiety, O Saints, and ye enlightened believing souls, O godly Martyrs who championed the Trinity.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr