Lives of all saints commemorated on August 23

Pascha (Easter)

Enjoy ye all the feast of faith; receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness.
(Sermon of Saint John Chrysostom, read at Paschal Matins)

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the center of the Christian faith. Saint Paul says that if Christ is not raised from the dead, then our preaching and faith are in vain (I Cor. 15:14). Indeed, without the resurrection there would be no Christian preaching or faith. The disciples of Christ would have remained the broken and hopeless band which the Gospel of John describes as being in hiding behind locked doors for fear of the Jews. They went nowhere and preached nothing until they met the risen Christ, the doors being shut (John 20: 19). Then they touched the wounds of the nails and the spear; they ate and drank with Him. The resurrection became the basis of everything they said and did (Acts 2-4): “. . . for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39).

The resurrection reveals Jesus of Nazareth as not only the expected Messiah of Israel, but as the King and Lord of a new Jerusalem: a new heaven and a new earth.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. . . the holy city, new Jerusalem. And I heard a great voice from the throne saying “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people. . . He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away (Rev. 21:1-4).

In His death and resurrection, Christ defeats the last enemy, death, and thereby fulfills the mandate of His Father to subject all things under His feet (I Cor. 15:24-26).

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing (Rev. 5: 12)

THE FEAST OF FEASTS

The Christian faith is celebrated in the liturgy of the Church. True celebration is always a living participation. It is not a mere attendance at services. It is communion in the power of the event being celebrated. It is God’s free gift of joy given to spiritual men as a reward for their self-denial. It is the fulfillment of spiritual and physical effort and preparation. The resurrection of Christ, being the center of the Christian faith, is the basis of the Church’s liturgical life and the true model for all celebration. This is the chosen and holy day, first of sabbaths, king and lord of days, the feast of feasts, holy day of holy days. On this day we bless Christ forevermore (Irmos 8, Paschal Canon).

PREPARATION

Twelve weeks of preparation precede the “feast of feasts.” A long journey which includes five prelenten Sundays, six weeks of Great Lent and finally Holy Week is made. The journey moves from the self-willed exile of the prodigal son to the grace-filled entrance into the new Jerusalem, coming down as a bride beautifully adorned for her husband (Rev. 21:2) Repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and study are the means by which this long journey is made.

Focusing on the veneration of the Cross at its midpoint, the lenten voyage itself reveals that the joy of the resurrection is achieved only through the Cross. “Through the cross joy has come into all the world,” we sing in one paschal hymn. And in the paschal troparion, we repeat again and again that Christ has trampled down death—by death! Saint Paul writes that the name of Jesus is exalted above every name because He first emptied Himself, taking on the lowly form of a servant and being obedient even to death on the Cross (Phil. 2:5-11). The road to the celebration of the resurrection is the self-emptying crucifixion of Lent. Pascha is the passover from death to life.

Yesterday I was buried with Thee, O Christ.
Today I arise with Thee in Thy resurrection.
Yesterday I was crucified with Thee:
Glorify me with Thee, O Savior, in Thy kingdom (Ode 3, Paschal Canon).

THE PROCESSION

The divine services of the night of Pascha commence near midnight of Holy Saturday. At the Ninth Ode of the Canon of Nocturn, the priest, already vested in his brightest robes, removes the Holy Shroud from the tomb and carries it to the altar table, where it remains until the leave-taking of Pascha. The faithful stand in darkness. Then, one by one, they light their candles from the candle held by the priest and form a great procession out of the church. Choir, servers, priest and people, led by the bearers of the cross, banners, icons and Gospel book, circle the church. The bells are rung incessantly and the angelic hymn of the resurrection is chanted.

The procession comes to a stop before the principal doors of the church. Before the closed doors the priest and the people sing the troparion of Pascha, “Christ is risen from the dead...”, many times. Even before entenng the church the priest and people exchange the paschal greeting: “Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!” This segment of the paschal services is extremely important. It preserves in the expenence of the Church the primitive accounts of the resurrection of Christ as recorded in the Gospels. The angel rolled away the stone from the tomb not to let a biologically revived but physically entrapped Christ walk out, but to reveal that “He is not here; for He has risen, as He said” (Matt. 28:6).

In the paschal canon we sing:

Thou didst arise, O Christ, and yet the tomb remained sealed, as at Thy birth the Virgin’s womb remained unharmed; and Thou has opened for us the gates of paradise (Ode 6).

Finally, the procession of light and song in the darkness of night, and the thunderous proclamation that, indeed, Christ is risen, fulfill the words of the Evangelist John: “The light shines in darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

The doors are opened and the faithful re-enter. The church is bathed in light and adorned with flowers. It is the heavenly bride and the symbol of the empty tomb:

Bearing life and more fruitful than paradise
Brighter than any royal chamber,
Thy tomb, O Christ, is the fountain or our resurrection (Paschal Hours).

MATINS

Matins commences immediately. The risen Christ is glorified in the singing of the beautiful canon of Saint John of Damascus. The paschal greeting is repeatedly exchanged. Near the end of Matins the paschal verses are sung. They relate the entire narrative of the Lord’s resurrection. They conclude with the words calling us to actualize among each other the forgiveness freely given to all by God:

This is the day of resurrection.
Let us be illumined by the feast.
Let us embrace each other.
Let us call “brothers” even those who hate us,
And forgive all by the resurrection. . .

The sermon of Saint John Chrysostom is then read by the celebrant. The sermon was originally composed as a baptismal instruction. It is retained by the Church in the paschal services because everything about the night of Pascha recalls the Sacrament of Baptism: the language and general terminology of the liturgical texts, the specific hymns, the vestment color, the use of candles and the great procession itself. Now the sermon invites us to a great reaffirmation of our baptism: to union with Christ in the receiving of Holy Communion.

If any man is devout and loves God, let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast. . . the table is fully laden; feast you all sumptuously. . . the calf is fatted, let no one go hungry away. . .

THE DIVINE LITURGY

The sermon announces the imminent beginning of the Divine Liturgy. The altar table is fully laden with the divine food: the Body and Blood of the risen and glorified Christ. No one is to go away hungry. The service books are very specific in saying that only he who partakes of the Body and Blood of Christ eats the true Pascha. The Divine Liturgy, therefore, normally follows immediately after paschal Matins. Foods from which the faithful have been asked to abstain during the lenten journey are blessed and eaten only after the Divine Liturgy.

THE DAY WITHOUT EVENING

Pascha is the inauguration of a new age. It reveals the mystery of the eighth day. It is our taste, in this age, of the new and unending day of the Kingdom of God. Something of this new and unending day is conveyed to us in the length of the paschal services, in the repetition of the paschal order for all the services of Bright Week, and in the special paschal features retained in the services for the forty days until Ascension. Forty days are, as it were, treated as one day. Together they comprise the symbol of the new time in which the Church lives and toward which she ever draws the faithful, from one degree of glory to another.

O Christ, great and most holy Pascha.
O Wisdom, Word and Power of God,
grant that we may more perfectly partake of Thee in the never-ending day of Thy kingdom
(Ninth Ode, Paschal Canon).

The V. Rev. Paul Lazor
New York, 1977

The Leavetaking of the Feast of the Dormition falls on August 23. The office of the Feast is repeated, except for the entrance, readings, and Litya at Vespers; and the polyeleos and Gospel of the Feast at Matins.

The Martyr Lupus lived at the end of the third century and beginning of the fourth century, and was a faithful servant of the holy Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica (October 26). Being present at the death of his master, he soaked his own clothing with his blood and took a ring from his hand. With this clothing, and with the ring and the name of the Great Martyr Demetrius, Saint Lupus worked many miracles at Thessalonica. He destroyed pagan idols, for which he was subjected to persecution by the pagans, but he was preserved unharmed by the power of God.

Saint Lupus voluntarily delivered himself into the hands of the torturers, and by order of the emperor Maximian Galerius, he was beheaded by the sword.

The Hieromartyr Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, was born in the year 130 in the city of Smyrna (Asia Minor). He received there the finest education, studying poetics, philosophy, rhetoric, and the rest of the classical sciences considered necessary for a young man of the world.

His guide in the truths of the Christian Faith was a disciple of the Apostle John the Theologian, Saint Polycarp of Smyrna (February 23). Saint Polycarp baptized the youth, and afterwards ordained him presbyter and sent him to a city in Gaul then named Lugdunum [the present day Lyons in France] to the dying bishop Pothinus.

A commission was soon entrusted to Saint Irenaeus. He was to deliver a letter from the confessors of Lugdunum to the holy Bishop Eleutherius of Rome (177-190). While he was away, all the known Christians were thrown into prison. After the martyric death of Bishop Pothinus, Saint Irenaeus was chosen a year later (in 178) as Bishop of Lugdunum. “During this time,” Saint Gregory of Tours (November 17) writes concerning him, “by his preaching he transformed all Lugdunum into a Christian city!”

When the persecution against Christians quieted down, the saint expounded upon the Orthodox teachings of faith in one of his fundamental works under the title: Detection and Refutation of the Pretended but False Gnosis. It is usually called Five Books against Heresy (Adversus Haereses).

At that time there appeared a series of religious-philosophical gnostic teachings. The Gnostics [from the Greek word “gnosis” meaning “knowledge”] taught that God cannot be incarnate [i.e. born in human flesh], since matter is imperfect and manifests itself as the bearer of evil. They taught also that the Son of God is only an outflowing (“emanation”) of Divinity. Together with Him from the Divinity issues forth a hierarchical series of powers (“aeons”), the unity of which comprise the “Pleroma”, i.e. “Fullness.” The world is not made by God Himself, but by the aeons or the “Demiourgos,” which is below the “Pleroma.”

In refuting this heresy, championed by Valentinus, Saint Irenaeus presents the Orthodox teaching of salvation. “The Word of God, Jesus Christ, through His inexplicable blessedness caused it to be, that we also, should be made that which He is ... ,” taught Saint Irenaeus. “Jesus Christ the Son of God, through exceedingly great love for His creation, condescended to be born of a Virgin, having united mankind with God in His own Self.” Through the Incarnation of God, creation becomes co-imaged and co-bodied to the Son of God. Salvation consists in the “Sonship” and “Theosis” (“Divinization”) of mankind.

In the refutation of another heretic, Marcian, who denied the divine origin of the Old Testament, the saint affirms the same divine inspiration of the Old and the New Testaments: “It is one and the same Spirit of God Who proclaimed through the prophets the precise manner of the Lord’s coming,” wrote the saint. “Through the apostles, He preached that the fulness of time of the filiation had arrived, and that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand.”

The successors of the Apostles have received from God the certain gift of truth, which Saint Irenaeus links to the succession of the episcopate (Adv. Haer. 4, 26, 2). “Anyone who desires to know the truth ought to turn to the Church, since through Her alone did the apostles expound the Divine Truth. She is the door to life.”

Saint Irenaeus also exerted a beneficial influence in a dispute about the celebration of Pascha. In the Church of Asia Minor, there was an old tradition of celebrating Holy Pascha on the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan, regardless of what day of the week it happened to be. The Roman bishop Victor (190-202) forcefully demanded uniformity, and his harsh demands fomented a schism. In the name of the Christians of Gaul, Saint Irenaeus wrote to Bishop Victor and others, urging them to make peace.

After this incident, Saint Irenaeus drops out of sight, and we do not even know the exact year of his death. Saint Gregory of Tours, in his Historia Francorum, suggests that Saint Irenaeus was beheaded by the sword for his confession of faith in the year 202, during the reign of Severus.

The Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, Saint Polycarp of Smyrna, and Saint Irenaeus of Lyons are three links in an unbroken chain of the grace of succession, which goes back to the Original Pastor, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

In his old age, Saint Irenaeus wrote to his old friend the priest Florinus: “When I was still a boy, I knew you... in Polycarp’s house.... I remember what happened in those days more clearly than what happens now.... I can describe for you the place where blessed Polycarp usually sat and conversed, the character of his life, the appearance of his body, and the discourses which he spoke to the people, how he spoke of the conversations which he had with John and others who had seen the Lord, how he remembered their words, and what he heard from them about the Lord ... I listened eagerly to these things, by the mercy of God, and wrote them, not on paper, but in my heart.”

Saints Eutychius and Florentius were monks living an ascetical life in a monastery of the Valcastoria region of Nursia in Italy during the VI century. Saint Eutychius converted many to God by his teaching, and when the Igoumen of a nearby monastery died, they asked Eutychius to become its Superior. He consented, but continued to be concerned with his former monastery, where his fellow ascetic Florentius remained.

Saint Florentius performed many miracles during his lifetime. He tamed a bear, and trained it to serve him. It tended the sheep, carried water, and obeyed the Elder's commands. Jealous of the fame of Saint Florentius, four monks killed the bear. The Saint prayed that the wrath of God would fall upon the murderers. So it came to pass, just as he said. The monks were stricken with leprosy, and died shortly afterward. When he learned that the monks were dead, Saint Florentius was saddened and distressed, considering himself the murderer of those monks. He wept for them the rest of his life.

Saint Eutychius did not work any miracles during his lifetime, but after his repose his cloak began to produce miracles of healing. During a drought in 1492, the people of Nursia went to the fields with his cloak, and God sent rain. Saint Eutychius went to the Lord on May 23, 540, and Saint Florentius, on June 1, 547.

Saint Gregory Dialogus (March 12) extolled their virtues and miracles in Book III of his Dialogues.

Saints Eutychius and Florentius are commemorated on May 23 in Greek usage.

Saint Callinicus, Patriarch of Constantinople (693-705), was at first a presbyter in the temple of the Most Holy Theotokos at Blachernae, but in 693 with the death of Patriarch Paul (686-693), he was elevated to the episcopal throne of Constantinople. The cruel Justinian II (685-695) reigned at this time. He undertook the construction of a palace very near the church of the Most Holy Theotokos and decided to demolish it. The emperor ordered Patriarch Callinicus to give his blessing for tearing it down. The patriarch replied that he had prayers only for the building of churches, not their destruction. When the church was demolished, he cried out with tears, “Glory to Thee, O Lord, in enduring all things.”

Soon the wrath of God befell Justinian. He was toppled from the throne and sent for imprisonment to Cherson, where they cut off his nose (from which he received the nickname “Short-nose”). Leontius (695-698) succeeded him on the throne.

High upon the fir-covered mountain peaks of southwestern Eurytania, wedged between vertical grayish rocks in savage majesty, is the Holy Monastery of Proussos. It is an historic stauropegial monastery, with magnificent three-storey buildings. There among them a cave has been carved out, inside of which is the first ancient temple of the monastery. In it is kept the wonderworking Icon of the Panagia (the All-Holy Virgin), called Prousiotissa, and her Feast Day is celebrated with grandeur and solemnity on August 23.

According to Tradition, this wonderworking Icon of the Theotokos is believed to have been painted by the Holy Evangelist Luke (October 18), and came from Prousa in Asia Minor (according to manuscript 3 of the codex of the Holy Monastery of Prousiotissa). It was taken from Prousa by a young nobleman in the reign of the last iconoclastic Emperor Theophilos (October 2, 829 – January 20, 842). Theophilos ordered all the icons to be removed from the churches and destroyed. The Orthodox people protected and hid the holy icons, even though the penalty for this "crime" was exile or death.

When the Emperor's decree was read in the city of Proussa, the son of a member of the imperial court chose to disregard it. Taking the the Holy Icon, he sought refuge on the Greek mainland, because the persecution was not quite as severe there, on the islands, or on the coast of Asia Minor. On the way to Greece, however, the young man lost the Icon at Gallipoli in Thrace, which caused him great sorrow. “Woe is me, the wretched one," he cried. “The Mother of God has abandoned me because of my sins."

The Icon had returned miraculously to a cave in a wild part of Eurytania (in the vicinity of Litza and Agrapha, where the monastery and the Icon's shrine are at present), and where it was revealed to some local shepherds on the night of August 22-23.

The young man chose not to go back, because he could not bear to live among the iconoclasts. He continued on his journey and settled in the city of New Patre, near the northwest end of the Peloponnesos. Time went by, and then one day he heard rumors about certain miraculous events in the region of Aitola. According to these reports, the son of a local shepherd was tending his father's flock in a rugged, inaccessible spot in the mountains. There were no homes or villages, but only a shelter for the shepherds. One night, as the child was sleeping, he was awakened by heavenly chanting coming from a cave behind him. With much apprehension he turned and saw a fiery pillar of light coming from the cave and reaching up to Heaven. This is why the Icon is also called Pyrsos - because of the place where it was hidden. Astonished, the boy went to inform his father what he had seen. The father thought that his son had been dreaming, and told him not to fear things that weren't real. The young man insisted, however, that what he had heard and seen was real.

The next night, the child brought his father to the same place where he had seen the pillar of light, so that he could see this phenomenon for himself. The man saw exactly what his son had described, but he did not dare to look in the cave. The next day he took other people there, and all of them saw the same vision. After searching the area they discovered the Holy Icon in the cave, radiant and luminous. Filled with joy, they venerated the Icon, and decided to keep it there. The discovery of her Holy Icon was the first miracle of Panagia Prousiotissa.

Meanwhile, the young man who had lost the Icon heard about an Icon of the Theotokos which had been revealed by a pillar of light. He and his servants left at once, and after two days they arrived at the cave where the Icon was kept. The moment he saw the Icon he knew it was the same one he had lost. After venerating the Icon, he gave gifts to the shepherds and started back to New Patre with it. The shepherds’ joy turned to sorrow when they realized they were being deprived of the Icon. They pleaded with the young man to leave the Holy Icon with them. He told them that the Icon belonged to him, and that he had given them rich gifts to compensate them for their loss. Furthermore, he said that the mountain was not a good place to build a church or to accommodate pilgrims. Then he took the Icon and left.

When he and his companion were tired and had to rest, they stopped at a certain place. They fell asleep and when they woke up, they couldn't find the Icon. Assuming that the shepherds had stolen it while they were sleeping, they retraced their steps. When they came to a narrow spot near the river, the young man heard a voice, saying, "Oh young man, be saved! Go in peace and do not labor any more. It pleases me to remain here with the shepherds and peasants, but not to be in the cities with people who preach heresy. If you wish to remain with me, then come to the place where you found me. This will be for your benefit."

Only the young man was able to hear the voice. In obedience to the Mother of God, he freed his servants, gave away all of his possessions, and went back to the cave where he had found the Icon, accompanied by one of his servants, who decided to remain with him. He was convinced that it was the will of the Panagia that she should remain there. The young man built a chapel in the cave for the Icon. He and his servant both received the monastic tonsure from Hieromonk Raphael, who came from the hermitage of Saint Demetrios. He was tonsured with the name Demetrios, and his servant received the name Timothy. Later, he built a cell opposite the chapel in a quiet place, where they repented for their sins. Father Demetrios reposed there in peace, after living a God-pleasing life. His disciple Timothy buried his body in the church he had built, and his blessed soul flew to Heaven.

This was the beginning of the Monastery of the Most Holy Theotokos of Prousa (or Prousiotissa).

The Icon of the All-Holy Virgin is of the Hodēgḗtria type and has a gilded silver-plated metal cover, the gift of General George Karaiskakis, who was housed in the Monastery during the Revolution of 1821. The metal cover was made by the goldsmith George Karanikas in 1824, as is shown by the embossed inscription above the right shoulder of the Mother of God: "The Pantanassa. Through the generosity of General George Karaiskakis, made by the hand of George Karanikas, 1824."

The Monastery's records show that it had been devastated many times during the Turkish occupation. The last act of vandalism (by the Germans in 1944) reduced the buildings into piles of rubble. After the buildings fell, an officer wanted to burn down the church. He tried to do so many times, but to no avail. While he was standing outside and giving orders, he was punished by the Panagia, as an example to others. An invisible force threw him violently onto the pavement. The impact was very powerful, and the German was unable to get up. The soldiers lifted him and placed him upon an animal in order to carry him to Agrinio. Thus the temple remained unharmed, just as it has been preserved intact through the centuries.

Four years passed, and a civil war was raging in the Greek countryside. The inhabitants of Eurytania and Naupaktos left their villages, seeking safety in other parts of Greece. They brought their wonderworking Icon with them. She also shared the fate of her children, and was carried by the monks of Proussos to the acropolis of Naupaktos. The monastery remains completely deserted.

After a long time, the army's operations began. The Ninth Division launched an attack to wipe out Eurytania. Some sections passed through Proussos. Some officers and soldiers approached the dark church of the cave and went in to pray. Inside, they beheld a strange sight. In front of the iconostasis, to the left of the Beautiful Gate, was a lit candle and a nun was kneeling there. The soldiers were amazed. How could this nun be living there at a time when Eurytania was completely abandoned by its residents? How did she live, what did she eat, where did she get oil for the lamp? When they asked her, she replied modestly and with pain: "My children, I've been living here alone for two and a half years. For my own life, I don't need food and bread. It is enough for me to have my lamp lit."

The soldiers grew tired of this business, and were in a hurry to leave, so they paid no attention to her words. But the next day, when they thought about it, they realized that this was a wondrous thing. Later, when they passed through Naupaktos, they begged their commanding officer for permission to visit Metropolitan Christophoros of Naupaktos and Eurytania. The hierarch welcomed them with love, and after hearing their story, he was able to shed some light on the mystery.

"The temple that you visited," he told them, "belongs to the now abandoned Prousiotissa Monastery, whose wonderworking Icon has been kept here for more than two years, in the chapel of our metropolis, at Saint Dionysios. Go there and venerate it, and then you will understand."

They did go to venerate the Icon. Then suddenly, everyone understood the mystery. In the Icon of the Mother of God, they recognized the nun they had met in the chapel of the cave, high above Proussos!