The Shepherd, January 2010
Among the Saints we celebrate in January, we have:
Our Venerable Mother Syncletiki (5th / 18th) was born into a rich and noble family which originated in Macedonia. She was educated in the great city of Alexandria, and from her youth conceived an ardent desire for her Heavenly Bridegroom. She made her own the words of the Song of Song concerning Him. However, because of her wealth and her position in society she had many suitors. She refused them all, and on the death of her parents, taking care only for her blind sister, she distributed her fortune to the poor and fled from the city to live in seclusion. In time, attracted by her spiritual perfections, other young women came to join her and seek her guidance. At first, fearing to lose the treasure of her stillness, and out of humility she refused to receive them. However, she finally gave way to their entreaties, constrained by love. She became the Eldress and foundress of a large community of nuns, whom she guided with her words of wisdom. Although she lived a very strict ascetic life, she instructed those who live in communities that obedience was preferable to ascetic feats. In her old age, her patience was tried by many illnesses. First she was afflicted with fevers and troubles with her lungs, later she developed cancer, and gangrene attacked her limbs. She bore these trials with great patience, and even used her afflictions to instruct others, telling them that to endure illness and still to send up hymns of thanksgiving was the greatest ascetic feat of all. Seeing that she used her afflictions to benefit and instruct others, the enemy of salvation took away her power of speech, but her serenity in her sufferings was itself a powerful sermon and instruction for those around her. She entered into rest in the mid-fourth century. Her feast day falls on the eve of Theophany, and so her service is chanted together with the hymns of that Great Feast of the Saviour, Whom she so ardently desired.
Saint Brithwald, Archbishop of Canterbury (9th / 22nd) was the abbot of the Monastery at Reculver on the North Kent coast. When St Theodore of Tarsus died, Brithwald was chosen to be his successor as Archbishop of Canterbury. He was not as learned as his predecessor but was well versed in the Scriptures and one formed by the monastic discipline. He went to Lyons, in France, to receive episcopal consecration and this resulted in some delay before he was installed in his see. However, he lived to hold that see for thirty-seven years and, during that time, built on the secure foundations which St Theodore had laid. On his repose, in 731 A.D., his sacred relics were laid to rest next to those of St Theodore in the Monastery of Sts Peter and Paul in Canterbury, which is now more commonly named after its founder, St Augustine.
The Venerable New Martyr Damascene (16th / 29th) came from the village of Gabrovo, near Trnovo, in Bulgaria. As a young man he joined the Sacred Monastery of Hilandar on the Holy Mountain, where he became a priestmonk. He was later sent by the fathers of the Monastery back to Bulgaria to attend to the needs of a dependency that they held there. Some local Turks, unwilling to pay certain dues that they owed, smuggled a woman into his lodgings and then raided them. They stole what they could, and bound the saint and took him to the judge, accusing him of having had sexual relations with the woman, they had planted there. The judge was hesitant, but eventually gave in to the persistent accusations of the Turks and condemned the priest to death. Three times, they offered him the chance of saving his life by consenting to become a Muslim, but each time he steadfastly refused. He was taken out, allowed to cross himself and say a prayer, and then hanged, in the year 1771.
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