Страдание святого мученика Акакия

Saint Akakios suffered for confessing the name of Christ during the reign of Maximian 3002 and precisely during the third persecution of Christians, erected by this emperor at the instigation of the devil. Saint Acacius came from Cappadocia 3003, was a warrior with the rank of centurion and served in the Martisian regiment 3004 under the command of Colonel Firm. At that time, King Maximian ordered to look for Christians not only in cities, but also in the ranks of soldiers; and if among the soldiers there was anyone who believed in Christ, such a person was ordered to be brought to trial and torment; in the event that a Christian did not obey the royal decree, he was to be put to death. As a result of such an order, Colonel Firm called each soldier to himself one by one and asked everyone what his faith was: and if it turned out that one of his soldiers believed in Christ, then Firm in every possible way, both with caresses and threats, forced him to idolatry. Acting in this way, Firmus seduced many Christians, unsteady in faith and fearful, into paganism. When Firmus called the centurion Acacius to him, the latter said publicly: – I was born among Christians, and I will remain a Christian; Let the Lord Jesus Christ Himself be my witness in this; not only my father and mother, but also my grandfathers and great-grandfathers were Christians: therefore I will remain a Christian. After these words of the saint, Firmus began to persuade him to idolatry both with caresses and threats; he called him to himself three times and exhorted him to carry out the royal order. However, seeing that Akaki remained adamant, Firmus ordered him to be put in chains and sent to the military leader Vivian. While the military commander Vivian was sitting at the court and interrogating other confessors of Christ, the commentator 3005 Antoninus approached him and said: – Yesterday, Colonel of the Martisian regiment Firmus imprisoned his centurion Akakios; Now he sends him to you because Akaki does not obey the royal decree and professes the Christian faith. Akakiy was immediately presented to the military commander for questioning. Looking at him, the commander asked: - The desired name for me and for all my relatives is that name that comes from the glorious name of Christ - I am called a Christian, but in human terms I am called Akaki. The military commander said to this: - By your name and your character, for you are evil, because you do not obey the royal order! - Oh, governor! You are telling lies and misinterpreting the meaning of my name, because Akaki means: “kindly” 3006. I am rightly called by this name, since I do not want to be an accomplice of the devil’s malice, drinking human blood. -Where did you get such unreasonable speeches? – I come from Cappadocia; from here there were many martyrs for the name of Christ, and I myself saw the miracles that were performed after the death of the saints by grace and power given from the Lord; I myself saw how the coffins and their honest relics exuded healing to many sick people. That is why I want to be an imitator of these holy martyrs, and not of you, and therefore I do not obey your wicked laws, which will perish with you. Then the governor said to the saint: - Do not think that you will be given over to minor torments. For your arrogance and vanity, you deserve a great execution; but, if you want to get rid of it, renounce the Christian faith and fulfill the royal order, bow to the gods, by whose grace emperors reign and win victories over their enemies; be ashamed of me, who sits on this judgment seat; do not consider yourself smarter than all people and do not rely on the man called Christ, who, as they say, was given over to torture and legally condemned to death. “You are mistaken, judge, when you say this, and you sin greatly, being blinded by Satan, because kings reign and win victories not by the grace of your gods, but by the providence and permission of our all-good God. And regarding the fact that you say that I trust in a person given over to torment and condemned to death, know that this is our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who for the salvation of us, sinful people, came to earth and became a man, continuing to be the true God; Our Lord Jesus Christ in some wondrous and indescribable way took upon Himself our nature; How it happened - you not only will not understand, but you will not hear it unless you first become a Christian. Christ the Lord, being the true God, as I said, being the Word (John 1:1), co-abiding with the Father and co-eternal with Him, at a time pleasing to Him, completed the work of our salvation and thus delivered us from slavery to the enemy the devil, who had envied us from the beginning of time. To these words of the saint, the military leader said: - If kings are contrary to your Christ, then why does He not kill them, being God Almighty, as you say? “That is why you must know His infinite mercy and boundless power, because He, mocked by you, does not kill you, patiently waiting for you, the Greeks, to repent and give the honor due to God to Him, and not to the demons.” Then, He endures for a long time so that His chosen servants, His beloved ones, would demonstrate their glorious feat before the eyes of all people. If our God had destroyed you quickly, then you would have perished forever, and His servants would not have been revealed to the world; The power of His grace would not have been revealed to people. How would our Master be glorified if He had not shown His long-suffering towards our great sins? That is why He now leaves you without punishment, however, you, who despise His long-suffering, remain in your wickedness and are angry with us, the innocent, - if you do not repent, then prepare your own destruction and plunge into it because of your iniquities; We, who know the strength and might of our God, patiently enduring suffering for His name, will receive eternally blessed life from Him; His glory will also be revealed to those people who, having recognized their error, will repent and correct their lives. Surprised at such a prudent answer from the martyr, the military commander Vivian asked him: “Have you not been taught by books, since you answered me wisely; you rightly say that human life is in the power of God, in His providence and long-suffering. “From the fact that I, who was not trained in book wisdom, answered you this way, you should have known the power and grace of our God, who rules over the whole world; for God Himself speaks through the mouth of His servants, at which you, who consider yourself wise, are amazed. And from the beginning, when our Lord wanted to proclaim the Gospel to the whole universe, He chose for preaching not noble and rich people, not wise philosophers and sweet-tongued rhetoricians, but fishermen and tax collectors, the simple and the poor. The Lord did this so that His incomprehensible power and wisdom, surpassing all understanding, would be known in those whom the Holy Spirit Himself invisibly taught and instructed. After this, the military leader said to the saint: - Stop your verbosity and answer me this question: do you know the royal decree commanding you, Christians, to either make a sacrifice to the gods or accept severe torment? Tell me: will you obey the royal order; will you make a sacrifice to the gods or not? “I also told Colonel Firm, who interrogated me earlier, and more than once, that I was a Christian; what I told Firm, I say to you: I am a Christian and I will not sacrifice to your nasty demons. Then the commander said: - Sparing your youth, since you have no more than twenty-five years, and respecting your title of centurion, I would not at all want to torment you. However, if you continue again in your wickedness, then you will force me to betray you to the most severe torment. The saint answered this: - This is not madness, but the most prudent and most godly thing is not to abandon faith in the One true God, my Creator, by whose will I exist to this day. The commander said to the saint: - How do you say that God is One? After all, only now have you confessed Christ, the Son of God. But if your God has a Son equal to Himself, then you must recognize two gods: one God the Father, and the other God the Son. And if you have two gods, then why did you now confess to me only one God? I see now that you are mistaken and lying to me, because you contradict yourself in words. Saint Akakios answered this: – I believe and hope in my Lord Jesus Christ, crucified under Pontius Pilate, that He will enlighten me with the Holy Spirit and teach me to answer your question, because your question about why we, calling two, recognize only One God, is a difficult question and not easily resolved. But I tell you that we Christians confess not only the Father and the Son, but also the Holy Spirit as the true God. In these three names there are three Persons, but one Divinity and power. We recognize One God, together with the Word and the Holy Spirit, because it is not fitting for God to be without the Word and the Life-giving Spirit. To explain my words, I will give you a similarity: here is the king, whom you call a ruler, and I call a man, called Maximian; he has a son, Maxentius. Here are two of them, however, they have one nature - human nature, and their kingdom is inseparable; the son is honored for the sake of the father, the father is glorified for the sake of the son; Likewise, we think about God, because the Divine essence of the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit is one and the same, and never changes, since the God we worship is One. “More than once I have told you that you only talk to me about business; With all these vain speeches you are only deviating from the subject of our speech. For the last time I tell you: make sacrifices to our gods, by whose will the world exists; If you do not fulfill this order of mine, then I will no longer tolerate your disobedience. “Don’t think of frightening me with torment; now my body is ready to accept wounds; torture him as much as you want. But neither you, nor the king, nor your demons whom you worship, nor anyone else will ever change my thoughts and my heartfelt convictions and direct them to evil. Then the military leader, angry, ordered the naked saint to be tied to four pillars and six soldiers to beat him with harsh sinews without mercy, first on the back and then on the stomach. At the same time, the hegemon said: “Let's see if his God will help him?” The holy martyr was tormented in this way for a long time, so that the soldiers who beat him changed several times; the earth is already stained with his blood. But the sufferer said nothing else except: “Christ, my Savior! Help me, Your humble servant! Lord my God! Don't leave me! When the military commander saw that the holy martyr was all ulcerated and bloody, he said to him: “Perhaps you will now make a sacrifice to the gods?” – I will not sacrifice to demons, because I believe in my Lord Jesus Christ, who helps me; Now, amidst the torment, I feel even more courageous and firm than before; Until then, the expectation of torment had partly embarrassed me; but as soon as I began to suffer, the power of Christ strengthened me and I felt ready for torment, even greater and more severe, since I firmly believe and hope in the Lord and my God. But know that the more torment you cause me, the more benefit you will bring me; The more torment you give me over, the more grace you seek from God for me. The military commander, enraged by these words of the saint, ordered to beat him on the mouth with tin boards. When the saint’s beautiful cheeks were disfigured by the torturers, the military leader said to the martyr: - Make a sacrifice to the gods and then you will get rid of even more severe torments prepared for you. The saint answered him: “I think just as little about the upcoming torment as I think about the torment that has already happened.” - How do you, being a warrior and, moreover, not trained in books, answer me so intelligently? – The Holy Spirit gives His servants patience and helps them respond in judgment, because our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, said to His disciples: “When they hand you over to princes and rulers, do not worry about how or what to say: for in that hour... you will not speak, but the Spirit of your Father will speak in you” (Matthew 10:19-20). Then the commentator Antoninus said to the saint: - What benefit will you, damned one, have from your many words, since you resist the royal order, for which you accept torment? But now they will torture you even more; then you will certainly fulfill the king’s order. - Get away from me and better admonish yourself. If I did not listen to the commander, despite the fact that I was subjected to many tortures, then will I listen to you? After this, the military commander ordered the martyr to be imprisoned in the city of Perinthos, in Thrace 3007. Here the holy martyr stayed for seven days. While Saint Akakios was in prison, joyfully rejoicing in the Lord and thanking Him for having made him worthy to suffer for His holy name, a message came to the military leader Vivian from the Thracian hegemon Flakkin; in this message, Vavian was ordered to go to Byzantium, along with all the prisoners he had. The military leader Vivian immediately set off, and Saint Akakios, who went with several other prisoners who had been imprisoned for certain crimes, went with him to Byzantium. The holy martyr was greatly exhausted on the way from wounds, from iron shackles, from hunger, from thirst, and also from the long and hasty journey in general, especially since the soldiers accompanying the saint were merciless and often beat him, urging the saint to go faster. With all such suffering, the saint did not hope to stay alive and thought that he would soon die; therefore, for a long time he asked the soldiers leading him to stop for a while so that he could pray to God, however, the saint’s request was not fulfilled. When everyone stopped in a certain place for the night, then the saint, raising his eyes to heaven, immediately began to pray like this: “Glory to Thee, O God, who through Thy compassion shows Thy mercy to all who love Thee! Glory to You, who called me, a sinner, to this feat! Glory to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ, who knows the weakness of our flesh and who has given me strength to endure torment! Now, Master, seeing that I am surrounded on all sides by so many sufferings, so that my soul itself, as it seems to me, wants to be freed from union with the flesh, send Your holy Angel so that he may heal my wounds and ease my suffering; or command the tormentors to put me to death as quickly as possible, so that I can quickly pass over to You, my Lord.” While the saint was praying to God in such words, suddenly a cloud appeared in that place, and from the cloud a voice was heard saying: “Akaky! Take heart and be strong!” This voice was heard by everyone who was there - both soldiers and prisoners; surprised, they said to each other: – Can clouds really speak the same way as people? When did anyone hear what we have heard today? And everyone marveled at the former. Many of the prisoners, having heard that voice, believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and, falling at the feet of Saint Akaki, earnestly asked him to teach them the truths of the Christian faith. The holy martyr of Christ Akakios, walking with them, talked, saying this: - Although until now I have not trained in books, but in the duties of a military rank, however, I was raised in a priestly house, because I come from a priestly family. I remember what I heard from the priests, namely, that God, wanting to save man expelled from heaven and free him from hell, sent His co-eternal Word, His Son, into the world; The Son of God, having come into the world, took flesh from the Most Holy and Most Pure Virgin Mary, becoming like a man; then he suffered death on the cross in order to correct Adam’s sin of disobedience to the commandment of God with the wood of the cross; in order to grant salvation to a condemned person, He Himself paid our debt to God’s justice with His free suffering on the cross. Being nailed to the cross, the Son of God thereby destroyed the handwriting of our sins, defeated our death with His death, captured hell and put all the power of the devil to shame and made it insignificant. When the Son of God defeated all the demons and smashed the copper gates and destroyed the iron chains 3008, he rose from the dead on the third day and through this gave the human race the opportunity to resurrect everyone and live forever in the coming century. This visible world is insignificant and will exist for a short time. Listening to these and similar words of the martyr, the prisoners accompanying the saint joyfully turned to the Christian faith. When night fell, the travelers stopped for the night in a nearby village. Here the prisoners at midnight had a wondrous vision, namely, they saw several young men dressed in light clothes (these were holy Angels), as if of military rank, talking with Saint Akakios. The prisoners, seeing this, thought that Akaki’s relatives and friends had come to visit him at night (fearing the tormentor). The next morning everyone hit the road. On this day everyone walked very quickly, so that by evening they arrived in Byzantium; At night they all stopped to spend the night in one house. And that night the prisoners saw the same young men talking with Saint Akakios, as on the previous night; At the same time, the prisoners noticed that these bright young men washed the wounds of the martyr with warm water and healed them. Looking at this, the prisoners thought to themselves: “Truly, this vision is from God, because not people, but Angels came to the saint last night; and that night the holy angels visited him.” When morning came, they were all taken to prison. Saint Akakios was imprisoned, by order of the military commander, separately from the others, in the inner compartment of the prison; he was shackled with iron bonds, hammered into a block; They didn’t let anyone in to talk to him, they didn’t even give him anything to drink or eat, since the tormentors wanted to use hunger, thirst and severe suffering to force him to renounce Christ and fulfill their order - to worship idols; however, the other prisoners were placed in the outer compartment of the dungeon. Before night fell, the prisoners were privileged to see the same wondrous phenomenon again - it was they who saw that a bright light shone in the inner compartment of the prison; going up to the windows to see what it was, they saw several bright men; who, having freed the martyr from his shackles, healed his wounds and offered him wonderful food, white as snow, and also drink. Since this continued every night, the prisoners reported this to the prison guard. This last one, approaching the window at night, saw the same thing. But when the watchman entered the inner compartment of the prison, he found no one except the holy martyr, who was in chains. All this brought the prison guard into great fear. When seven days had passed since the arrival of the prisoners in Byzantium, the military commander Vivian sat down at the trial seat and called the holy martyr Acacius to him for interrogation. Seeing that the martyr of Christ was healthy in body and joyful in face, Vivian came into great surprise, because he thought to see the martyr sick, exhausted from wounds and shackles, from hunger and thirst and from a long journey. Vivian thought that it was the soldiers who eased the suffering of the saint; Therefore, being very angry with them, he said to them: “Didn’t I order you to imprison this man in the inner compartment of the dungeon, put him in stocks and iron shackles and give him absolutely no food or drink?” But you kept him free and helped him recover from his wounds. And now I see him with an even more healthy and flourishing face than before. Commentary Antonin said to this: “As you ordered, military leader, that’s how everything was done.” From Perinthos to this city we led him in heavy iron fetters; you can hang them yourself and find out how much they weigh. In this city we imprisoned him in the innermost and narrowest compartment of the prison, and none of the soldiers gave him anything to eat or drink. Ask the prison guard and you will find out whether everything was as you ordered or not. The military commander immediately ordered the prison guard to be called. When the watchman came to the military leader, the latter angrily said to him: “Why, you damned one, did not fulfill my order, but allowed Akaki to eat and heal his wounds, so that now he is so strong in body that he is quite fit for war.” Saint Akakios remarked to this: “Strength and strength were given to me from heaven by the hero Jesus Christ, who healed me from my wounds and made me healthy. The commander said with anger: “Strike him in the face and crush his lips, so that he does not speak when he is not asked a question.” After this, the servants began to beat the saint. Then the commander said to the prison guard: - What will you, damned one, answer me? “I swear by your power that everything you ordered me to do, I did.” I held him very strictly and constrained him in every possible way; but there were some who fed and healed him, as everyone in prison knows about this. Question them, and if you hear anything different, here is my head before you, do with me what you want. It often seemed to us that some soldiers came to him, and some of them freed him from his shackles, others washed his sores and healed them, and, finally, others brought food and drink to him and talked with him in a friendly manner. The prisoners who were brought here with him from Perinthos told me all this; they said that it happened both on the way and here in prison. But I didn’t believe their words, which is why I wanted to see those bright men; and indeed I myself, with my own eyes, saw everything that they conveyed to me. And when I suddenly opened the door and entered the inner compartment of the dungeon to ask Akakios who they were who came to him, where they came from and how they got through the locked doors, I found no one there except the prisoner himself, chained in a block and iron shackles; sometimes I found him praying to God, sometimes sleeping. After listening to the prison guard, the military commander said to him: “You, damned one, probably accepted gold from Akaki’s relatives and let them in with food, drink and medicine. And immediately, having said this, the military commander ordered the guard to be beaten severely with iron rods. The watchman, taking the beating, exclaimed: - I ask you, military leader, first carefully examine how the matter happened; if it turns out that it was not as I told you, then kill me. - So that person is a sorcerer and sorcerer. “I told you only what I saw myself; Whether that person is a sorcerer or not, I don’t know. After this, the military commander ordered the prison guard to be beaten even harder. Thus, this watchman suffered innocently for the sake of the martyr of Christ. The holy martyr Akakios, seeing this, laughed at the foolishness of the military leader, although the lips and cheeks of the holy martyr were crushed. Seeing this, the commander became even more angry and said to the martyr with rage: “Have you come to mock us, hoping to be saved by your magic?” “Don’t think that I’m laughing at you and rejoicing at your death; no, I am sick and heartbroken over your eternal destruction; You yourself laugh and mock us, because, having abandoned the true God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Creator of everything that exists, you worship and pay divine veneration to stone and wood. After these words, the military commander ordered ten soldiers to beat the martyr on the back and stomach with oak sticks. The martyr, patiently enduring the beatings, said: “Lord Jesus Christ! Help me, Your servant!” And a voice was heard from heaven, strengthening the saint; at the same time, the soldiers who struck the blows seemed to be numb and could not raise their hands against the martyr. The military leader, not knowing what to do, decided to send the saint to the hegemon, who had arrived by that time in Byzantium, and the military leader wrote the following message to the hegemon: “To the dear and illustrious judge Flakkin, hegemon of Thracia, from Vivian the military leader - rejoice. I subjected Acacius, the defender of the wicked Christian faith, to various kinds of torment; he was sent to me twenty days ago by Firmus, the commander of the Martisian regiment, because he did not obey the king’s orders. I could not force him to obey the imperial decree; since you can punish this man even more severely, I am sending him to you, along with a record of his deeds made by a commentary.” The hegemon, having read Vivian's message, ordered the martyr to be imprisoned, but without shackles and without strong guards; He did this because he had a Christian wife, who, after many tearful requests, convinced him not to torture the Christians brought to him for questioning for too long, but to quickly put them to death if they could not be freed. Five days after this, the hegemon summoned the martyr to him for interrogation, and ordered to first read the description of all the affairs of the martyr - the history of his suffering, a record of which was sent to him by the military leader Vivian. The hegemon was very surprised at both the cruelty of the torment and the courage of Saint Acacius, and strongly reproached Vivian for tormenting a man for so long with the title of warrior, and not soon putting him to death. Realizing that Saint Akakios could in no way be turned away from confessing the name of Christ, the hegemon ordered his head to be cut off outside the city (Byzantium). When the holy martyr was led to torture, he cried out to God like this: - How I would like to praise You, Source of life, Christ, Son of God, for You were so good and merciful to me, a sinner, that You made me worthy of the feat of martyrdom! When the saint reached the very place of the beheading and asked the soldiers for time to pray, he knelt down and said: – Glory to You, God! We must give constant praise to You, since You are glorified in us, people burdened with sins; and the more You show us Your mercies, the more You forgive our sins, the stronger and brighter the glory of Your compassion and ineffable mercy shines. Blessed be Thy holy name, O God, because Thou hast vouchsafed me, unworthy, such a great honor - the right to be called a martyr of Christ. And You bestowed this great honor on me not because of any merit of mine, but solely because of Your ineffable goodness and Your ineffable mercy. I glorify and praise You, O Lord God the Holy One of Israel, with Your Only Begotten Son and Your Holy Spirit, because You must be given glory, honor and worship, now and always and unto the ages of ages. Amen. Having said this, the saint bowed his head under the sword and was beheaded 3009. This is how the holy martyr Akaki ended his suffering for Christ. His honest body was buried with honor by Christians in the very place where he was beheaded; this place was called “Stavrion”. All this happened, as we said, during the reign of Maximian among the pagans, and during the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ among Christians, to whom glory, honor and worship are given forever. Amen. Maximian ruled the western half of the Roman Empire from 284 to 305. Martisian regiment - detachment of Mars (i.e. brave) Commentary - the head of prisons. Akaki (from the Greek Αχαχιος from χαχος - bad, evil, and the negation of a) really means “kindly.” Thrace was a region of the Roman Empire that lay northeast of Macedonia. Currently, Thrace, under the name of Rumelia, is part of European Turkey. Expression of a church song. The death of the holy martyr followed in 303. His relics were kept for a long time in the church named after him, created by Emperor Constantine the Great at the place of his burial, in Stavrion or Stavrodrome. Here the relics of Saint Akakios were kept until the time of the iconoclasts, when Christians, saving them from the persecution of wicked persecutors, transferred them to the southern Italian city of Scylax. You might be interested in: