The Shepherd, October 2007
THE COMING MONTH
OCTOBER opens with the beautiful feast of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos, which this year also falls on a Sunday. The feast derives from a miraculous event in the life of the Blessed Andrew the Fool for Christ. At that time, the Imperial City, Constantinople, was besieged by enemies, and the people resorted to the Church of the Mother of God at Blachernae to pray for deliverance. Saint Andrew was among the congregation keeping Vigil there, along with his disciple, Epiphanius, then a young lad. In the fourth watch of the night, the saint looked up and beheld a vision of the Theotokos, standing in the air above the people, holding her veil over them, as if protecting them. She was accompanied by St John the Forerunner and St John the Theologian and a host of the Saints. Blessed Andrew pointed out the vision to Epiphanius. Seeing this vision, St Andrew hastened to the sanctuary, where the actual veil of the Mother of God was treasured as a precious relic. He took this and standing before the Royal Gates, he blessed the faithful with it and assured them that the city would be delivered through the prayers of the All-pure One, as indeed it was. In thanksgiving for that deliverance, the present feast was inaugurated. Over the centuries, the feast has taken on a wider significance, and now the faithful celebrate it as a thanksgiving for all those many occasions when they have been delivered from dangers through the mediation of the Mother of God. In many churches in Greece, the feast is kept on 28th October, because on that day in 1940, with the aid of the Panagia, Greek forces on the Albanian front withstood an Italian invasion. The feast is also particularly beloved of the Orthodox Cossacks.
Among the Slavic peoples, the Blessed Andrew the Fool is commemorated on the second of the month as a kind of Synaxis of the Protection, although anciently his feast was kept on 28th May.
On 2nd/15th October, all Orthodox Christians keep the feast of the Holy Hieromartyr Cyprian and the Virgin Martyr Justina, who are the heavenly protectors of the monastery of that name at Fili, Attica in Greece, where the first hierarch of the Synod in Resistance, Metropolitan Cyprian, resides. This St Cyprian has often been confused with St Cyprian of Carthage (feast day: 16th September). Although they bore the same name and were very near contemporaries, they are two completely different persons and lived at opposite ends of the Roman Empire. The St Cyprian, whom we celebrate today, was a citizen of Antioch and involved in the magical arts. In the same city there lived a young maiden, Justa, whose father was a priest of the idols. Justa heard the preaching of a Christian deacon, Praulius, and was converted. She in turn converted her mother, and the two of them brought her father to the Christian faith. All three of them were instructed by the Bishop Optatus and were baptized. Justa resolved to consecrate her virginity to the Lord and take up the ascetical life. However, a young man, Aglaidas, who was a pagan, was stricken with her beauty and desired to marry her. When his advances were rejected by the righteous one, Aglaidas went to Cyprian and commissioned him to use his diabolical charms to win Justa’s love for him. Several times he sent demons against the maiden so that she might be deluded into responding to Aglaidas’ advances. Each time Justa prayed and made the sign of the Cross, and the demons could not approach her. Cyprian saw that the faith of this young Christian girl was more potent than all his diabolical skills, and so he came to believe, repented of his former manner of life, and after publicly burning all his occult books, he sought Baptism. Later Cyprian was consecrated to the episcopate, and he ordained Justa a deaconess, renaming her Justina. Under the persecution raised by the Emperor Decius (249-51 A.D.), both Cyprian and Justina were arrested and tortured. They were eventually taken to Nicomedia, where they were brought before the Emperor himself. Seeing that they were unshaken in their Christian Faith, he ordered that they be beheaded and so they received the crowns of martyrdom. The saints are quite naturally called upon in prayer to protect the faithful from demonic and other occult influences.
Saint Jonas of Manchuria (7th / 20th) was one of the Godfearing hierarchs of the Russian Church who lived in exile. He was born in Kaluga in 1888 and named Vladimir. When he was eight years old, he was orphaned and taken in by a village deacon, who later arranged for him to entered the seminary. From there he graduated to the Kazan Theological Academy, where, in obedience to his spiritual father the Elder Gabriel, he later taught New Testament studies. He was tonsured and renamed Jonas, and was subsequently ordained priest. With the Bolshevik seizure of power he was forced to leave Kazan. He was arrested and beaten, but managed to escape the hands of the Reds and eventually joined the White volunteers, whom he served as a chaplain. Eventually he escaped from Russia, travelling through Turkestan and the Gobi Desert into China, where he joined the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission. He was consecrated as Bishop and served the destitute Russian refugee flock in Manchuria. He was a great man of prayer, but he also spent himself tirelessly in trying to alleviate the lot of his people. He opened a library and a soup-kitchen, established a clinic and a school, collected funds for his charitable work and himself instructed both the children and their parents. One priest who was dying of typhoid fever he personally nursed, and soon thereafter he himself became ill. Although he was still young, he realized that his end was near, and so composed a testament for his flock which he asked to be distributed at his funeral. He began it with these words: “I begin here with the words of the Apostle of Love, Children, love one another….” Knowing of his imminent end, he retired to his cell, put on his priestly stole and cuffs (which had belonged to the great Elder, St Ambrose of Optina), and began to read the canon on the departure of the soul (see article above); he recited it loudly and making prostrations to the ground. Then having finished, he lay down on his bed, saying, “God’s will be done; now I shall die.” And within minutes he gave up his holy soul to the Lord, Whom he loved. He was synodically glorified in 1996.
St Theophanes the Branded (11th / 24th) was born in Palestine in A.D. 778. His parents were devout and Theophanes had an elder brother, Theodore, who is also commemorated among the saints. The brothers entered the Lavra of St Sabbas the Sanctified and there became monks. Both brothers were learned and extremely gifted, and both were in time ordained priests. Theophanes had a special gift of composing hymns, many of which are chanted in the Orthodox Church to this day. In A.D. 813, Leo the Armenian ascended the imperial throne and launched a wave of persecution against the Orthodox, being himself a fanatical iconoclast. Palestine was protected from this persecution, because it had been conquered by the Muslims, and so was beyond the Emperor’s reach. Observing that Theodore and Theophanes were learned and erudite, the Patriarch Thomas of Jerusalem appointed them to travel with their spiritual father, Michael the Syncellus, to Rome and to Constantinople to bear witness to the Orthodoxy of the Church in the Holy Land. They gained an audience with the Emperor Leo, but when he realized that he could not persuade them to accept his heretical teaching he ordered that they be tortured and sent into exile. Soon thereafter Leo was assassinated, and was succeeded by Michael II, during whose reign the persecution eased a little. However, nine years later, his son Theophilus succeeded him, and the persecution was rekindled with unprecedented ferocity. The two brothers were again put to torture; they were even tortured in the presence of the Emperor himself. When they remained steadfast in their Orthodoxy, Theophilus ordered that verses mocking their Faith be branded on their foreheads, which is the reason why the saints are known as “the Branded.” They were then exiled to Apamea. There, as a consequence of his sufferings, Theodore died as a martyr. Theophanes was transferred to Thessalonica, and there he remained until the pious Empress Theodora took the reigns of government after the death of her impious husband. Along with other confessors, Theophanes was recalled from exile, and he was subsequently consecrated as the Metropolitan of Nicaea in A.D. 842. There he spent the last five years of his life, tending his flock with great spiritual wisdom and tender love.
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