Слово на память четыредесяти мучеников

People sometimes complain about the lack of preachers in the church; but it seems to me that we have fewer listeners than preachers. For, it is true, there are many churches in which there are not even ten listeners, and now there are forty preachers in each church. This is what I call the holy Martyrs now celebrated; and, truly, no one will deprive them of this sacred title. For if, according to the word of Scripture, he who proclaims the truth by word and mouth is no longer small; even more so, the one who preaches through his deeds and life, then to what height should one be placed who shed his blood and suffered martyrdom for the truth of the preaching of the Gospel? Before such a sermon, all our words and all our flourishes are like the weak babbling of a baby before the majestic speech of a husband and an elder. Wasn’t it such a sermon that crushed idols and attracted the universe to Christ? Primitive Christians, persecuted by the Caesars and philosophers, not only did not have preaching pulpits below the churches; Divine services and the Sacraments themselves were performed occasionally, secretly, underground, in the silence of midnight. But the voice of the Gospel preaching thundered incessantly to all ends of the earth: it gave no rest to either the Caesars or the philosophers, drawing everyone and everyone to Christ. Where did it come from? From dark dungeons filled with Christians; from the red-hot furnaces and konobs (cauldrons) into which they were thrown; from blazing bonfires and crosses, drenched in the blood of witnesses to the truth. The confessor of Christ appears in disgrace in the middle of town or village - and the sermon begins! They offer him forgiveness and freedom, riches and honors, sometimes a bride blooming with beauty, so that he can worship idols; but he lifts up his eyes to grief - and instead of answering, he marks himself with a cross! He is handed over to be torn to pieces by fierce beasts, or nailed to a cross, or thrown with a stone onto his neck into the sea - he meets death with such a bright face with which rare people walk down the wedding aisle. Is it surprising after this that the rudest crowds of people, struck by the greatness of the soul of the sufferer, themselves coming into tenderness and a kind of holy delight, exclaimed: “Great is the Christian God! Holy is the faith that gives such courage and contempt for life!” By this preaching, my brethren, the world has been conquered; not with weapons, not with eloquence, not with earthly wisdom! And so, such preachers now appear before us, not one, not two, not ten, but forty, as if according to the number of days of Holy and Great Lent. What are they preaching to us? They preach to love Christ to death, to fear nothing on earth except God; to neglect all the blessings of the world as if they were rotten, to believe in the future life as if it were before our eyes. For what could have disposed them to reject all the kindnesses and promises of the judge, to despise all the threats and cruelty of the tormentor, if not a living faith in Christ and the hope of eternal life? What made you endure the rigors of an all-night stay in the winter lake, the crushing of your legs and legs with milk, if not the enduring and never-falling love for Christ? “Not just military honor, but take our very bodies from us: there is nothing more precious to us, nothing more honorable than Christ our God,” - this is how the martyrs responded to the threats of the hegemon. What about the tormentor? Seething with anger and taking advantage of the time of year, he commands them, bound and naked, to be thrown into the lake, so that they will perish from the filth; and at the same time, the evil and cunning one orders to build a bathhouse on the shore, so that those who want to avoid death will find life for themselves in it. Thus, both filth and warmth equally serve the malice of the tormentor and the temptation of ascetics. But who and what can separate true believers from the love of Christ? Paul long ago gave the answer for all of them that “neither death nor life... neither this present nor the one to come” can do this (Rom. 8:38). How would you imagine, my brothers, the holy ascetics will spend the night in the lake? Will they sigh, cry, wish, at least, rather death and call for it? No, they will celebrate the all-night service there. Do you hear how the psalms of David begin to be heard through the air? Do you hear a whole choir of voices calling on heaven and earth, scum, snow and stormy spirit to praise the name of the Lord? These are the voices of holy sufferers. Their body becomes covered with ice, and their heart flares up with the love of Christ; the mouth becomes numb from the filth, and the spirit soars like a flame, grief, to the mighty and living God. O lake, filled not with waters, but with prayers! Not by the wind, but by the Spirit of God! Not dumb inhabitants, but as if containing disembodied Angels! If somewhere, then above this holy place and in the midst of this all-night vigil one could expect a special sign from heaven; and it followed! In the darkness of midnight, the heavens suddenly open, heavenly crowns appear and descend on the heads of the passion-bearers. But what does it mean that these crowns are thirty-nine? Where is the fourtieth? Alas, he is not in heaven, because he is not on earth! One of the sufferers, unable to bear the torment, turned to the bathhouse arranged by the tormentor; but where the unfortunate man thought he would find salvation, there he suddenly gave up the ghost. But the place of one who did not resist in battle will not remain idle, and the holy number of passion-bearers will not be violated. The one who was called turned back, and it is not the invited one who will appear, but the chosen one. In fact, who is it that, without judges and tormentors, flows to the lake, throws off his clothes, and with the cry: “I am a Christian,” stands in the land of the holy Martyrs? This is one of their own guards who did not indulge in sleep, like his brothers; stood vigil like a good warrior on guard; I saw all the patience and all the faith of the servants of Christ; saw the crowns coming down from heaven on them; and, realizing the missing number of them, due to the cowardice of one, hastens to fill the gap and accept the crown from which their brother of little faith has shied away. Again a full face, again a complete triumph, again a complete victory over the devil! Forty entered the lake, forty will come out, so there will not be the slightest joy for the enemy of God! Do you see how rightly we have said that every martyr is a preacher? What attracted this new ascetic? Not a sermon from the church pulpit, but the crown of the holy Confessors who stood for Christ all night in the cold lake. Perhaps he heard the sermons of Christian teachers a hundred times, but remained in the darkness of idolatry; when I saw the suffering and courage of the Confessors; when, without words or preaching, he understood the truth and was moved in his soul: he neglected his title, his life itself, and in one minute ascended from a pagan to the heights of a martyr. This is how the example of the holy Martyrs once worked! Above us, it seems, he has lost all his strength. Their holy deeds, celebrated by the Church, have become for us like those hosts of stars, which, in the distance, merge for our eyes into foggy light spots. When a telescope is aimed at these spots, they separate into bright stars, and we marvel at their greatness; and at all other times we do not pay any attention to them, we do not even know about their existence. So, when a preacher or some book tells us about the exploits of the martyrs, we are amazed at the greatness of their souls, without, however, thinking at all about taking an example from them for our actions, illuminating faith in our hearts from their heavenly fire, rushing in the footsteps of their love for God. And without books and a preacher, the deeds of the Martyrs for us, due to our lack of attention to them, seem to not exist. Even those of us who bear the names of holy Martyrs often do not know at all who was the one by whose name they were distinguished from the day of their birth. But let's turn to our Preachers. So the lake did not drown them; The winter scum did not extinguish the flame of faith and love in them: they entered the lake as simple soldiers of Christ, and came out with crowns of victory: they overthrew the entire army of the devil, but they themselves did not lose a single warrior, for a new one immediately appeared in the place of the one taken captive. What does the torturer do? He condemns them to have their legs broken, and thus, without knowing it himself, prepares for them a new crown in heaven, and even a new joy in the very torment on earth. For with this kind of torment and death they, like the Apostle Paul, filled in themselves “the deprivation of the sorrows of Christ” (Col. 1:24). Could after this leave them without reinforcement for this feat, He Who Himself in the helicopter city of Gethsemane deigned to be strengthened by the Angel? - And behold, at the hour of midnight, which the holy Martyrs spent in prayer and song, expecting death on the morning, their prison is filled with heavenly light, and they hear a voice saying: “Believe in Me, even if he dies, he will live” (John 11:25)! Be bold, take courage, stand firm: he who overcomes will receive the crown of life! Encouraged by this voice, the Passion-Bearers went to their deaths the next morning, just as we return to our father’s home after a long absence. So, their soul had already soared into heaven, but the holy bodies remained in the power of the tormentors. What are the servants of Satan doing (for he alone was the true enemy of Christ and the persecutor of Christians: the pagan judges and tormentors were only his blind tools, jealous of the honor of their imaginary gods)? Knowing that Christians value the remains of the holy Martyrs and honor them with reverence as a shrine, they plan to deprive them of this treasure: for this purpose they betray the bodies to the flame, and then the very remains, after burning, are poured into the river, so that not a trace of the witnesses of the truth will remain on earth. But what can all the efforts of the gates of hell do against the Kingdom of Christ? It is not in vain that it is written: “The Lord guards all their bones, not one of them will be broken” (Ps. 33:21). In shame of the malice and deceit of Satan. The martyrs appear in a dream to the bishop of the city and command him in the name of God to take from the river what is left of their bodies. The command is joyful; but how to fulfill it? How to approach the river before the eyes of the tormentors? And, having begun, how to find what is absorbed by the water and mixed with the river streams? But for faith and hope, nothing is impossible. The saint with a small number of believers goes to the river at night, without any lamps, not knowing how the treasure will be found. And behold, the bones of the martyrs appear immediately, like stars, at the bottom of a stream, shining with heavenly radiance, and believers, without any effort, collect them, like a precious treasure, like encouragement for themselves for the feat of martyrdom. Yes, my brothers, for a similar feat of martyrdom. Then it was not like now: it was impossible, like us, to be Christians by one name. To confess Christ at that time meant to be ready for anything: today to lose property, tomorrow to be exiled, the day after tomorrow to go to the stake, or to fight lions and tigers. And some still doubt, finding in the lives of the Martyrs extraordinary signs and heavenly revelations, with which the Lord sometimes consoled and encouraged them! But could it have been otherwise? When the faithful servants of the Lord constantly sacrificed everything, even life itself, for the glory of His name, could His love remain cold towards those who died for Him, and not reveal Himself to His beloved with His special signs; when we, who do not endure any difficulties for the Lord, do not shed, one might say, a single hair from our heads; when, I say, the great-gifted Lord does so much for us: leaves so many holy Sacraments, preserves the Church inviolably, does not take away the Gospel and His Cross, nor the grace of the Holy Spirit? The Almighty could not help but show miracles when a weak man, with all his weakness, showed for his part, one might say, miracles of faith and patience. Therefore, I am more surprised when I encounter the life of the Martyr and do not see miracles than when I find them in abundance. Let us take another look at the luminous face of our current Preachers. Ours, I say, because in the thing itself it is very possible that they are now in this church not only in spirit, but also in their incorruptible bodies. In every church, as you probably know, there are relics of the holy Martyrs; but which ones exactly, the church servants themselves do not know. For these relics successively pass from church to church, starting from the primitive times of the Church. since the current face of Martyrs is one of the most numerous; then it is not surprising if in our church there is at least one of those holy bones, which, as we saw, like stars shone among the stream in the darkness of the night. What do the holy Martyrs tell us, being present with us in their holy bodies, or even in spirit? Everyone speaks, as we noticed at the beginning of the word, one and the same, that is, to love the Lord Jesus to death, not to change His commandments for anything in the world, to endure and endure everything to preserve the precious deposit of faith and love, not to consider anything terrible except the judgment and wrath of God, to live on earth for heaven and eternity, and to despise, completely despise and impute to nothing, where necessary, not only the earth and everything earthly, but the very body, your very life. Amen. You might be interested in: