Память иже во святых отца нашего Софрония Премудрого, патриарха Иерусалимского

Saint Sophronius, whose very name means chastity 1823, was born in Damascus 1824 from pious and chaste parents; they were eminent citizens, and their names were Plinthos and Mira. From his youth, blessed Sophronius began to live according to his name, loving spiritual wisdom and preserving external and virgin purity from his mother’s womb; both of these virtues: spiritual wisdom and virgin purity are called chastity; Thus, according to Saint John Climacus 1825, chastity is a common name for all virtues; and the chaste Sophrony carefully assimilated all of them. First of all, he studied external philosophy, for which he was nicknamed a sophist, i.e. wise; this title “sophist” was very honorable in those days, and it was received by outstanding philosophers, for example, Livanius the sophist, an acquaintance of St. Basil the Great. Wishing to acquire spiritual wisdom after external philosophy, Blessed Sophronius visited monasteries and hermitages and received benefits for his soul from the godly fathers. He also came to the holy city of Jerusalem and, visiting nearby monasteries, entered the monastery of the great Theodosius, where he found the monk John, nicknamed Moskh and Evirat, with the rank of presbyter, a virtuous man, moreover, very skilled in both external and internal wisdom. Sophrony became attached to him with all his heart, like a son to his father, like a student to a teacher, and followed him everywhere until his very death, walking with him through monasteries and deserts, visiting the holy fathers and writing down their lives for his own benefit, as evidenced by the book written by both of them, called “Limonar”, or “Flower Garden”, and approved at the VII Ecumenical Council of 1827. In this book, the teacher of Saint Sophronius often calls him a sophist, as his equal in philosophical education; but Saint John calls blessed Sophronius not only a sophist and his master, but even a father; he did not look at him as a student, but as his friend, companion and collaborator, as a man of outstanding life, and, moreover, he foresaw in spirit that Sophronius would be a great shepherd and an unshakable pillar of the Church of Christ. With this venerable John, Saint Sophronius, even before his tonsure, lived for quite a long time, first in Palestine, in the same monastery of the great Theodosius, and in the Jordanian desert, and in the so-called New Monastery, built by Saint Savva, and then both, John and Sophronius, left Palestine out of fear of the invasion of the Persians and went to the region of Antioch the Great. At this time, the Persian king Khosroes the Younger went to war on Greek soil for the following reason. The tormentor Phocas (as the Greek historian Nikephoros writes about this in detail) killed the Greek king of Mauritius and seized the royal throne. And King Mauritius once showed great benefit to Khosroes of Persia: when Khosroes was expelled from the Persian kingdom and fled to Greece, Mauritius was his father and helped him with his wealth and military strength to regain his throne in Persia; Thus a lasting peace was established between the Greeks and Persians. When Khosroes heard about the murder of his benefactor, the Greek king Mauritius, he greatly regretted him and, violating the peace treaty with the Greeks, went to take revenge for the murder of Mauritius. Persian troops entered and conquered many Greek possessions, mainly Syria, Phenicia and Palestine. Then the holy fathers, who lived a fasting life in those countries, left their monasteries and desert dwellings and fled wherever they could. At this very time, Saints John and Sophronius left Palestine; and after their departure the holy city of Jerusalem was taken by the Persians, and the holy tree of the Life-giving Cross of Christ, together with His Holiness Patriarch Zacharias, was captured; it remained in captivity in Persia for fourteen years, to the great sorrow and regret of all Christians. Before the captivity of Jerusalem, Saints John and Sophronius, as was said, entered the region of Antioch and, according to their custom, like bees flying through flowers and collecting honey, they went around all the places where they heard about virtuous fathers, and, collecting a spiritual honeycomb, sweeter than honey, they wrote down their lives in the above-mentioned book “Lemonar”. When Persian troops began to approach there too, they sailed to Egypt, to Alexandria in 1828, where they did the same. They brought great benefit to all Christian posterity, describing the acts and teachings of many holy fathers, which they saw with their own eyes and heard with their own ears. Saint Sophronius, when he arrived in Alexandria, had not yet been tonsured as a monk, as can be seen from the sixty-ninth chapter of their Lemonar, where Sophronius’ teacher, John Evirates, says the following: “We came to Alexandria, I and Cyrus 1829 Sophronius, my brother, before his tonsure, and went to Abba 1830 Palladius, a virtuous man and God’s servant. And in chapter one hundred and ten he says: “I and my master Sophrony went to the Lavra, eighteen miles away from Alexandria, 1831, to one old man, very virtuous, a native of Egypt, and said to him: - Master and father, tell us a word about how we should live with each other; Cyrus Sophist (Sophrony) wants to retire from the world and become a monk. “You are doing well, children, that you leave the world for the sake of saving your soul, sit in silence in your cell, guard your thoughts and pray incessantly with hope in God - He will give you His reason and enlighten your mind.” This shows the amazing virtue of the holy, chaste Sophrony: he, being a layman, worked so hard, visiting monasteries and deserts at different times and with such zeal sought spiritual benefit for himself, how to take the path of salvation, so that before he was tonsured as a monk, he was already just like a monk, leading a virtuous monastic life. Then he was tonsured by his teacher during an illness that befell him, from which he thought he would die, and he had a vision; about this, his teacher writes the following in the hundred and second chapter: “When my brother Sophrony the Wise was dying, we stood near him with Abba John Scholastic, and Sophrony said to us: “It seemed to me that I was walking along some road and I saw a whole choir of girls who said with joy: “Sophrony has come, Sophrony has been married!” That’s why the girls rejoiced before him because his very name means chastity.” This is what his teacher wrote about him. Having recovered from his illness and already being a monk, he worked even more and cared about his own salvation and the salvation of others. At that time, the Sevirov heresy of 1832 spread in Egypt, and both of them and their teacher fought a lot with heretics; wise and well-read in the Divine Scripture, they argued with heretics and defeated them. For this, the Most Holy Patriarch of Alexandria John the Merciful 1833 loved them very much and revered them as sincere friends who helped him against the heretics and consoled him in sorrow. In his life, written by Leontius, Bishop of Naples, it is said that Saint John the Merciful had the custom of sitting at the entrance to the church on Wednesdays and Fridays, allowing anyone to freely come to him, and listened to the needs of everyone, helped, settled discord and disputes; This is how he created peace among people. If it happened that no one came to him while he was sitting like that, and no one asked him for anything, then he got up sad and went into his house with tears, saying: “Today the humble John found nothing, brought nothing to God for his sins. Blessed Sophronius (the one in question), his friend, consoled him and said to him: “Really, father, you need to have fun today, because your sheep live peacefully without strife and quarrels, like the Angels of God.” From this it is clear in what respect and love this most holy patriarch had Saint Sophronius and his teacher. Both of these saints usually tried to learn something new every day, seeing or hearing something useful for themselves. And the following happened to them, as John tells about it. My master Sophronius the Wise and I went to the house of Stephen the Philosopher, who lived on the road to the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos, built by Patriarch Eulogius to the east of the great Tetraphilos; was a day. When we arrived at the philosopher’s house and knocked on the gate, the gatekeeper told us: “My lord is still sleeping, wait a little.” Then I said to my master Sophrony: - Let's go to Tetraphilus and stay there. This place is respected by the inhabitants of Alexandria: they say that King Alexander the Great brought the relics of the holy prophet Jeremiah from Egypt and placed them there when he founded this city in honor of himself. Arriving there, we found no one there except three blind men, and silently sat down next to them with our books. While talking to each other, one blind man said to the other: – I was a shipbuilder in my youth; when we sailed from Africa, I had to look at the sea a lot; My eyes became thorns and I became blind. Then another, when asked how he became blind, answered: – I worked at a glass factory and one day, carelessly making glass, I burned myself; So I lost my sight from the fire. Having told the reason for their blindness, two blind men asked the third how he became blind. – When I was young, I didn’t like to work and work, but I liked to be lazy; Being power-hungry and not having anything to eat, I began to steal and do a lot of evil. One day I saw a dead man dressed in expensive clothes being carried to be buried; I followed the porters to see where they would lay him; the dead man was buried at St. John's Church; when night fell, I opened the crypt, went in and took everything off the dead man, leaving only his shirt on. I leave the crypt, and evil thoughts speak inside me: “Come back, take the shirt too, because it’s very good.” And I returned, damned, to take off my shirt and leave the dead man naked. And then the dead man stood up, sat down in front of me, raised his hands and with his fingers tore off my face and scratched out both my eyes. Then I, damned, from such misfortune and pain, barely left the crypt. That's how blind I am! Hearing this, my master Sophrony beckoned to me, and we left the blind. And Sophrony said to me: “It’s true, Father John, there is nothing more to learn today; we learned enough useful things that no one, doing evil, can hide from God.” From here it is clear how both of these saints, John and Sophronius, cared about their daily benefit. With the words “today there is nothing more to learn, we have learned enough useful things today,” he shows that every day they tried to gain some benefit for themselves. During his stay there, in Alexandria, Blessed Sophronius described the miracles of the holy martyrs Cyrus and John in gratitude for the healing of his eyes, because when his eyes hurt and he resorted with prayer and faith to those holy unmercenary doctors, he received from them the healing he asked for in their church, which was located in Alexandria; therefore he zealously honored them. A few years later, Egypt, where Alexandria is located, began to be threatened by the Persian invasion, and the blessed fathers John and Sophronius had to flee from there; and His Holiness Patriarch John the Merciful, out of fear of the barbarians, fled. Together with him they went to Constantinople and boarded a ship, wanting to be with the one who did not want to be separated from them. On the way, His Holiness the Patriarch fell ill and reposed in his hometown of Alsafunte; The wise Sophronius honored his wonderful life and countless mercies with a laudable funeral oration; after the burial of the patriarch, he went to ancient Rome together with his teacher John and with the brethren who had gathered around them, up to twelve people; Having lived for several years in Rome, the Monk John, the teacher of Sophronius, already an old man, departed to the Lord. Dying, he bequeathed to his beloved disciple and spiritual son Sophronius the Blessed not to bury his body in Rome, but to put it in a wooden shrine and take it to Mount Sinai; if it is impossible to reach Mount Sinai for fear of an attack by barbarians, then bury his relics in the monastery of St. Theodosius the Great 1834, where the Monk John was first a monk. So he did. Like the Old Testament Joseph, who carried the body of Jacob from Egypt to the burial place of his fathers (Gen. 50:12–13), he took the body of St. John, his spiritual father, from Rome in 1835, and sailed with his brethren to the Greek lands. Having sailed to Ascalon in 1836 and having learned that it was impossible to reach Mount Sinai from the barbarians in 1837, he came to Jerusalem, occupied by the Persians, and buried the body of his spiritual father in the Feodosian cinnovia and he himself remained to live with his brethren in Jerusalem; the patriarchal throne there was then occupied by Modest, instead of Patriarch Zechariah, who was in captivity in Persia along with the Honorable Cross. A short time after the arrival of Saint Sophronius from Rome to Palestine, God deigned to return the Holy Tree of the Cross and Patriarch Zechariah from captivity to Jerusalem. It happened like this. Voivode Heraclius, having killed the tormenting king Phocas in 1838 and took the Greek throne itself in 1839, began a war with Persia and, having won many victories over the troops of Khosroes, ruled its cities for seven years. Then Syroes, the son of Khosroes, having killed his father and himself becoming the Persian king, tried to reconcile with the Greek king Heraclius; and King Heraclius set the first condition for peace that the Persian king would cede Jerusalem to the Greeks and return the Honorable Tree of the Holy Cross and with it Patriarch Zechariah. This was fulfilled: with great honor, after fourteen years of captivity, the Tree of the Cross was returned from Persia, which King Heraclius himself carried on his shoulders to the holy city (as written about on September 14); His Holiness Patriarch Zacharias again took his throne. A few years later, the Honorable Tree of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord was transferred by the same King Heraclius from Jerusalem to Constantinople, so that such a great Christian treasure would not be captured again by any enemies: indeed, then Jerusalem was again taken by enemies, as will be discussed below. Patriarch Zacharias did not remain on the throne for long after his return from captivity and went to the Lord, and his successor on the throne was again Modest, but he lived only two years; After the death of Modest, Saint Sophronius was elected to the patriarchate in Jerusalem. At this time, the heresy of the Monothelites arose, in other words, the monothelites, who recognize in the person of Christ, in His two natures, Divine and human, one will and one action, as if each nature did not have its own special action and desire characteristic of it; those who profess such a doctrine blaspheme Christ, recognizing Him as imperfect in both natures. This heresy is written in more detail in the life of Maximus the Confessor, January 21. The Patriarch of Alexandria especially supported and spread this heresy, convening a Local Council and commanding that this be believed; Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople followed him, and after him Pyrros and others; many then suffered by not accepting this heresy. The Most Holy Patriarch of Jerusalem, Saint Sophronius, was very opposed to this heresy and, having convened a Local Council, cursed this heresy of the one-willed people and sent out everywhere lists of the resolutions of his council, which were later read at the VI Ecumenical Council, approved by the holy fathers and accepted as true believers. Saint Sophronius wrote many other words, teachings and hymns and lives of some saints, useful to the Church of Christ, for example, Saint Mary of Egypt, who lived, like the Angels in the desert, longer than the average human life of 1840. He shepherded God's Church well, stopping the mouths of heretics and driving them far away, like wolves, from the verbal herd. Then again, by God's permission, there was an invasion of barbarians into Syria and Palestine, but not by the Persians, but by the Mohammedans, 1841 who first took the city of Damascus, and then besieged the city of God Jerusalem and two years later occupied it. When the Greek army in Syria was defeated by them and the governor Sergius was killed, His Holiness Patriarch Sophronius locked himself in the holy city with Palestinian Christians. His word spoken to the people on the day of the Nativity of Christ during the siege has been preserved; in it, like the new Jeremiah, he mourns the destruction and desolation of holy places, allowed by God for human sins. In particular, he regrets that it was impossible to celebrate the Nativity of Christ according to custom in Bethlehem, since Bethlehem was already in the hands of the Hagarians. At the end of the second year of the siege, the Christians, driven to extremes, were forced to surrender to the enemies and open the city to them. But first, His Holiness Patriarch Sophronius sent peace terms to the Prince of Hagar Omar, in which the first was not to cause any violence or offense to the Christian faith and the Holy Church of God. Omar promised to fulfill this and other conditions. When the agreement took place, the Christians opened the city gates to the Hagaryan prince; he, hypocritical and crafty, pretended to be meek and humble, like a sheep, being inside a predatory wolf, dressed in torn clothes made of camel's hair, entered the city on foot and asked where Solomon's church was, wanting to perform his ungodly prayers there. His Holiness Sophronius came out to meet him and, seeing him in such a hypocritical form, said: - Behold, there will be an abomination of desolation in the holy place, predicted by the prophet David! And he cried a lot with all the Christians and persuaded the prince to take off his rags and dress in the princely clothes that befitted him. So the holy city was taken by the Hagarians and Christianity was oppressed by heavy slavery. But this wicked Hagaran prince did not preserve the terms of peace that he promised to His Holiness Patriarch Sophronius, and began to cause many troubles to the Jerusalem Christians. At the sight of this, Saint Sophronius constantly wept and prayed to God to take his soul from the land of the living, so that he would no longer see the misfortunes of Christians and the abomination of desolation that desecrates holy places - and he was heard, soon ending his deplorable life, and moved 1842 from earthly tearful Jerusalem to heavenly joyful, to the abode of all who rejoice in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory forever. Amen. Damascus is the main, richest trading city of Syria, one of the oldest in the whole world, lies northeast of Palestine, with the Barada River flowing through it, in a beautiful and fertile plain, at the eastern foot of Anti-Lebanon. And currently Damascus, part of the Turkish empire, is one of the richest cities in Asia and has up to 150,000 inhabitants. In the history of the Church of Christ, Damascus is remarkable in that the first sermon of St. Ap. Paul's conversion to Christianity took place here (Acts 9:1–43). Rev. John Climacus accepted monasticism at the age of twenty and for the last four years of his life he was abbot of the Sinai monastery; he died as an 80-year-old old man around 606. His memory is celebrated on March 30. He is mainly known as the compiler of the famous guide to monastic life under the title: “The Ladder of Paradise” - Klimax tou paradeisou, hence he received the name Climacus; here monastic life appears to them as a path of continuous and difficult ascent up the ladder of spiritual self-improvement; this ascent is accomplished through the struggle with one’s own passions and vices, and the monk finds the main help in the constant thought of death. In 787 against the heresy of the iconoclasts, who rejected the veneration of icons. Alexandria is a famous city founded by Alexander the Great in 333 BC on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, in Lower (Northern) Egypt, at the mouth of the Nile River. Alexandria after Rome was the first city on the sea and served as a center of trade, industry and especially pagan education, in the first centuries of Christianity - a hotbed of Christian enlightenment. Christianity was brought here according to the legend of St. Mark ok. 59–60 Currently, Alexandria (in Turkish and Arabic - Iskander) is one of the most fortified port cities and the most important trading points on the Mediterranean Sea, with a population of more than 230,000 inhabitants. The field was equal to approximately 690 fathoms. Severus, Patriarch of Antioch, was one of the main defenders of the Monophysite heresy, which asserted that Christ, although born of two natures or natures, does not dwell in two, since during the incarnation of God the Word, the human nature he perceived lost all its own reality and can only be mentally distinguished from the Divine. John the Merciful († 617) - Patriarch of Alexandria, son of a dignitary on the island of Cyprus; Having lost his family, he devoted himself to an ascetic life and caring for the poor, and although he was neither a monk nor a cleric, he was elected, at the request of the people, as a patriarch. Having become a patriarch, he first of all counted all the poor in Alexandria and, having distributed all their property to them, sent generous alms to the Holy Sepulcher, gave shelter to the needy, and ransomed prisoners. When the inhabitants of Alexandria, fearing the Persian invasion, began to flee, John went to Constantinople to ask for troops to defend the city. But he died on the way (617); His memory is celebrated on November 12. Theodosius the Great was a Roman emperor from 379 to 395. During his reign, the Christian faith was finally established in the Roman Empire. Rome - the main city of the Roman state (now the Kingdom of Italy) lies in the middle part of Italy, on both sides of the Tiber River as it flows into the sea. Ascalon is one of the five main Philistine cities (Judges 1:18). Herod the Great beautifully decorated it like his homeland. Back in the Middle Ages, it was a military seaport and was destroyed during the Crusades (1191). Mount Sinai is actually a group of mountains consisting of granite rocks, cut through and surrounded by steep and rough valleys, among the Arabs now called Mount Tur or Jebel - Tur - Sina, lies almost in the middle of the famous branches of the Black Sea, forming the Sinai Peninsula. It consists of three mountain ranges. Mount Sinai itself, at which the Israelites entered into a Covenant with God and received from Him the commandments of the law, represents the highest southeastern peak of the middle ridge, while the lowest, northwestern peak is Mount Horeb. The Byzantine Emperor Phocas reigned from 602 to 610. Heraclius reigned from 610 to 641. A large number of works have been preserved from Saint Sophronius, and he is recognized as one of the first-class theologians - dogmatists. In addition to the conciliar message containing the doctrine of the Trinity, the incarnation of God the Word, and the unity of the hypostasis (against Nestorius) and the duality of natures (against Eutyches) is proven, his words are remarkable: 1) at the baptism of the Savior - the defense of two natures in Jesus Christ, and together the doctrine of two actions and wills; 2) about the cross, two words; the second of them sets out the teaching about fasting and about the holiday of veneration of the cross during our Great Lent; 3) an apology to Basil the Great regarding his interpretation of the words θυσις and ουσια 4) for the Presentation; 5) a word about John the Baptist; 6) a word in praise of St. Mary of Egypt, from which the original contains passages in the acts of the VII Ecumenical Council; 7) The story of the life of the martyrs Cyrus and John; 8) “Explanation of the Liturgy,” one of the remarkable works in theological terms; 9) “Three Songs,” beginning with the days of Lent and ending with the Feast of the Ascension; 10) troparia or self-concordant stichera of the hours of the celebration of the Nativity of Christ, with the full rite of the hours; 11) the order of the clock was kept. heel with stichera, not quite similar to the current one; 12) stichera for the blessing of water on the day of Epiphany; 13) some poetic works; 14) finally, in the rank of hieromonk, Saint Sophronius revised and corrected the “rules of the monastery of Sava the Sanctified.” Smyrna is a famous trading city in Ionia in ancient times, on the eastern shore of the Aegean Sea (or Archipelago). The church in Smyrna was founded by St. Apostle John the Theologian. Smyrna currently belongs to the Turks, but the Christian faith still survives and flourishes there. You might be interested in: