Слово в пяток недели 1-й Великого поста, пред освящением колива в память святого великомученика Феодора Тирона

Who would say why the holy kolivo is now placed among the church and songs of praise are sung over it in honor of the holy great martyr Theodore Tiron? His annual memory is not on this day: it either precedes him, as it has already passed, or will follow him. Moreover, out of respect for the silence of these days of fasting, from them, according to the Charter of the Church, the very holidays in honor of the saints are transferred to other days, so that the voice of joy does not discourage the sighs and tears of repentance. But for the memory of Saint Theodore this law does not exist: for him, exactly the opposite of that is done. Apparently, the memory of this great martyr is so connected with the coming days that it could not be separated from them. What is this connection and what is it? Not many are probably able to give an answer to this, although everyone, more than once in the course of their lives, has been to church on this day and seen what is happening in it now. And if now we were to ask why this or that is done in the theater or at balls, then, I think, many of those same ignorant people would turn out to be very knowledgeable and able to answer all the questions. We care so little about having a clear understanding of what happens in the Church of God! And is it only in this case that we are so unskillful? You can be sure that many also do not know why on the next day of the week the anathema will be proclaimed in the church, why during the Great Lent the veneration of the Cross of the Lord is performed, why in the first days of Holy Week all four Evangelists are read, why on Holy Saturday after the liturgy the consecration of the loaves is performed? And what can we say about the peculiarities in the Charter of the Church? We do not even try to know that in rituals it concerns us directly. On the fortieth day, for example, after our birth, we were brought to the church to be dedicated to the Lord; We did not feel then that something very important and instructive was being said and done for the rest of our lives. How many, having come of age, were curious to know this and read the rite of bringing babies to the church? The same carelessness applies to our future. The church prayer book contains “The Sequence on the Exodus of the Soul from the Body,” that study which, if we do not lose grace, will be read over us at the hour of our death. It can very easily happen that we will not then be able to hear well and remember the prayers said at our deathbed. How could one not read these prayers in advance, albeit out of curiosity, and find out their content? But ask anyone standing around you, and he will tell you that he does not know them and, perhaps, is only hearing about them for the first time. This is how we treat our souls! We have time for everything, we love to do everything, even things that don’t concern us at all and about which we are not able to judge; but we have neither time nor curiosity for what is beneficial for the soul, what is shameful for a Christian not to know. After this, look for reasons why the good institutions and Statutes of the Church do not have any effect on us! Ask after this why we are present during the performance of the most sacred and touching church rites with absentmindedness, without feeling, drooping in body and soul! How can you be edified by something you know neither the purpose, nor the reason, nor the spirit, nor the power! But let's return to where we started. So, now, one might say, contrary to the very law of the Church on real days of fasting, it celebrates the celebratory memory of the Holy Great Martyr Theodore Tiron. The reason for this is important and very instructive for us. Don’t be bored if, therefore, we will go into some detail for you to explain it. After the death of the holy and Equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine the Great, who, as is known, stopped all persecution of Christians and brought with him the faith in Jesus Crucified to the throne of the Caesars, the Roman Empire, through several short successions, went to one of his relatives, Julian. Just as blessed Constantine was a chosen vessel of grace, so unfortunate Julian turned out to be a clear vessel of destruction and rejection. One of the first acts of his dark reign was that he rejected Christ and the Gospel, and turned to the overthrown idols of the pagans. He did not openly persecute Christians, not out of pity for them, but out of confidence in his failure; instead, an evil, cunning, secret persecution immediately began. The apostate then deposed Christians from honors and virtues that were supposedly contrary to their humility; then he deprived them of wealth and property, supposedly incompatible with the poverty of the Gospel; either he forbade the study of science, under the pretext that everything necessary for Christians was contained in their Gospel, or he called heretics out of prison in order to confuse the Church of Christ with their machinations. Between these evil means, Julian also conceived the following. The Christian Pentecost was approaching. Knowing in what purity and abstinence Christians spend it, the Apostate calls on the city governor of Constantinople and orders him to secretly remove all ordinary food from the marketplace over the next few days, and offer only what had already been sacrificed to idols, and therefore was considered defiled by Christians. No one knew the plan, therefore many thousands of souls on the most holy days would have been defiled by eating what was dissolved (as Julian commanded) with the blood sacrificed to idols. This would be a matter of regret for them for the rest of their lives, but for Julian, or more precisely, Satan, who moved him, it would be a great joy and triumph. The same apostate, having fulfilled his plan, would not have failed to divulge to the ears of the whole world that the followers of Jesus of Nazareth (as he called the Lord) during the very fast they ate food sacrificed to idols. But the One who, like the apple of his eye, guards simple and humble souls and always stumbles the wise in their deceit, did not allow the enemy’s plot to take place now. In the middle of the night, but not in a dream, a certain luminous warrior suddenly appears to the then Bishop of Constantinople and tells him to immediately gather his spiritual flock and let him know about the threatening danger, with the command not to buy anything in the marketplace in the next days. “What are so many people feeding on these days,” asked the saint, “for many have nothing in their homes?” - “Koliv or boiled wheat,” answered the one who appeared, “which you, having found from some, must distribute to everyone.” “Who are you,” asked the patriarch, “who knows everything and cares in this way about his brethren?” “Theodore, the martyr of Christ,” answered the one who appeared. That is, it was that holy ascetic of Christ who, being a warrior many years earlier, during the reign of the evil Maximian, endured many terrible torments for the name of Christ and thereby earned himself the name of a great martyr in the Church of Christ. The saint immediately fulfilled what was commanded from above; and the Christians of Constantinople were preserved from desecration, and the evil Julian, seeing that his plan was destroyed, ordered that the former freedom be granted to the market places. You see now what the current ritual over the koliv means! They preserve in the Church for all centuries the memory of the good deed and bring gratitude to Saint Theodore, who, being a confessor of the name of Christ during his life, and after death does not cease to be a helper for those who, for confessing this name, are exposed to any dangers. Let us thank the Lord Jesus, who never leaves His faithful servants without help and puts to shame the insane opponents of the Gospel and the Holy Church. Let us glorify the memory of the holy great martyr, who with his miraculous appearance turned away temptation and sorrow from the Church of Constantinople. Meanwhile, let us take from here a lesson for ourselves, befitting these days. What lesson? The fact that observing Holy Fasting is a very important thing. For if fasting could be neglected as an indifferent or unimportant thing, then it would not be practiced like that in heaven, and the holy great martyr would not have left the bright abodes of the Heavenly Father only to point out to his earthly brethren a means of avoiding breaking fast. Such appearances of saints in our world do not occur except for the most important reasons. How, after this, do some dare to think and say that it makes no difference whether to fast or not to fast? No, fasting means being a humble and obedient son of the Holy Church; and not to fast means to be infected with free-thinking, arbitrariness and the spirit of contempt. To fast means to be able to curb your sensuality, to control your desires; and not to fast means to be a slave of the flesh, to be in captivity in one’s womb, to be blown by the wind of superstition. To fast means to care about the salvation of your soul, to seek freedom for your spirit, to strive in the footsteps of the Angels; and not to fast means to be like the dumb, who do not know fasting, to be cold to prayer and to cleansing your soul from carnal lusts. To fast means to repent of sins, to despise worldly pleasures, to prepare for eternity; and not to fast means to wallow in earthly things, to indulge in perishable things, to follow the broad path that leads to destruction. A young, elderly, infirm traveler, or warrior may still have reasons to apologize when they do not fast, because there is more or less need and necessity; and we, as the apostle says, are “called to freedom,” if only this freedom were not through guilt or indulgence of the flesh (Gal. 5:13). And whoever can abstain from foods prohibited by fasting, and does not abstain, sins both against the Church and against himself, and even more against himself than the Church; for the fast established by her is needed not for her, but for us: since it is one of the most powerful means to curb our sensuality, from the predominance of which over us everything pure and holy in us perishes. In fact, who hasn’t experienced what a difference it makes to get up in the morning with a stomach aggravated by food, and with it, relieved and purified by fasting? In the first case, it tends to make you sleepy, and in the latter case, you are alert and able to pray. And isn’t it we ourselves, when we want to do something important and requiring reflection, then we choose for this the morning hours, when the body is not burdened with food; and after the table we say that now we are not capable of mental work? And for repentance and reflection on our sins, will we burden ourselves with food? What is this if not obvious disregard for the work of one’s salvation? And whoever thinks otherwise is miserably deceiving himself. If, behind all this, the evil flesh came to you with an offer to give up the Holy Fast, under some pretext, then remember Saint Theodore and the miracle he performed, and tell her: go, ask permission from the Great Martyr; and without this I cannot break the Holy Fast. Amen. You might be interested in: