THE COMING MONTH, 2

The holy New Martyr Stamatius of Thessaly (16th/29th) was from Volos in that region. When a local functionary of the Ottoman rulers cruelly afflicted the local people with inhumane taxes, Stamatius could not bear to see their plight and resolved to go to Constantinople to put their case to the Vizier. However, in so doing, he antagonised the Turkish authorities, and he was arrested. They first tried to persuade him to accept Islam, flattering him, and promising him position and wealth, glory and honour. When he remained steadfast in his Christian confession he was put to torture, and finally decapitated in front of the Church of the Holy Wisdom in the year 1680. So the love that he had shown his fellow-citizens of Volos by taking up their cause, grew within his heart, and nourished within that greatest love which is even prepared to lay down its life for the Beloved One.

The Venerable Mothers Cuthburga and Quenburga of Wimborne (31st August / 13th September) were sisters and daughters of King Ina of the West Saxons. Cuthburga was espoused to the son of King Oswy of Northumbria, but when he learned that she desired to take up the monastic life he allowed her to separate and follow her vocation. She joined the monastic house at Barking in Essex, and placed herself under obedience to St Hildelith, its second Abbess. Here she trained in the monastic life, and when she had gained some experience and proficiency, she founded a Convent at Wimborne in Dorset. Here she was joined by her sister, Quenburga, and like many of the monastic houses of that period in England the house was a double one, with both a men’s community and a woman’s one under the rule of the saint. However, St Cuthburga was strict in keeping the two communities completely separate; no woman was permitted to enter the men’s monastery, and no man, not even the Bishop, was permitted by her to enter the woman’s community. From this foundation Saint Boniface drew Sts Lioba and Tecla to aid him in his missionary endeavours in Germany, and their spiritual excellence testifies to the reputation of St Cuthburga foundation. Before her death,St Cuthburga instructed her sisters on the perfection of the monastic life, and she reposed on 31st August although the exact year of her death is not recorded; it was probably in the mid 720s. Neither do we know if her sister survived her, but the two of them, daughters of the Royal House of Wessex, are numbered among the saints in the Heavenly Kingdom.