Страдание святого великомученика Иоанна Нового

There are few holy men who, with their godly, virtuous lives, have given us an example to follow; Among them is a true saint of God, no less than the first, although the last in time. The Lord Christ honored with crowns not only the martyrs of the first centuries, but now, in recent times, he opens the door (of His Kingdom) to those who seek it, honoring them with the same glory and gifts. So, let's begin the story about Saint John, the valiant warrior of Christ, filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit - who he was, where he came from and how he was honored with the face and crown of martyrdom. The birthplace of this husband was Trebizond, a glorious and great city located in the eastern countries, near Assyria and the border of great Armenia. Abundant with everything necessary, this city serves as a convenient haven for ships sailing to it from everywhere; Its inhabitants, having their residence at the sea, are engaged in trade and navigation, from where they acquire their means of subsistence. Likewise, Blessed John was engaged in trade, making frequent trips by sea to different cities. One day, with a significant supply of goods, he had to enter the ship of a foreign husband, who was a Fryag by birth 3593, whose faith was not of the Eastern confession, his disposition was rude, unmerciful and inhuman. During the saint’s voyage with that husband, the enemy the devil began to envy John’s immaculate life: he could hardly bear the virtuous life of the blessed one, often seeing him in prayer and fasting, well-behaved and accessible to everyone, merciful to those in need on the ship and to those who had to be sick. The servant of Christ consoled such people, giving them what they needed from his wealth, extending a generous hand to them with help; with eyes full of tears, he said to himself: - If you show mercy to a suffering brother, you yourself will be pardoned; and if you comfort the grieving, you yourself will be worthy of consolation from God. The invisible enemy saw this, was jealous and tried to hinder the saint on the path to salvation. First of all, he intended to tear him away from the pious faith and armed him with a visible enemy, the captain of the ship, who adhered to a different confession of faith, who began to annoy the faithful servant of Christ with disputes about Eastern (Orthodox) piety. In the numerous verbal debates about faith that took place between them during the sea voyage, Saint John, as a very wise man and skilled in book learning, always prevailed over the friag and exposed his wrong-headedness; and he was angry with the irresistible warrior of Christ, became irritated, annoyed him with many reproaches and, out of a feeling of enmity, planned evil against him. When such enmity flared up in him, the ship landed on the shore near Belgrade, near the Bosphorus 3594. There the evil shipbuilder went to the local mayor, a Persian by birth and faith 3595, a zealous guardian of his fatherly traditions, and brought up before him the following slander against Saint John: - Boss! A husband came here with me on the ship, who wants, having renounced the Christian faith, betrayed by the fathers, to begin your faith and be a fellow member of your traditions; During the sea voyage, he informed me about this and confirmed with many oaths that he would not change his intentions. If you take care to quickly bring him to the same faith with you, then you will receive great praise from your people, for this man is very skilled in words and is not the least among the noblest nobles of the city of Trebizond. Hearing this, the wicked chief was filled with joy; sitting down in the usual judicial place, he ordered Blessed John to be brought to him with honor and said to him: “I have heard a lot about you, venerable husband, - I heard that you loved our faith and want to begin it. Our faith is the subject of honest reflection and kindles with love the hearts of those who understand it; to those who accept it with joy, it gives prosperous life and longevity; Christian faith is worthy of ridicule. Honorable friend! Do not hesitate to put it aside further and publicly blaspheme Christian traditions and laws before this national assembly; That’s why we all came here together, not excluding our wives and children, because we heard about your desire to confess our bright and glorious faith. Come, O wonderful man, stand with us, glorify the luminous sun with the clearest voice, give honor to the star that precedes the sun, and make sacrifices to the heavenly bodies that illuminate the universe; then you will receive many honors and a great rank from our king, and you will be a sincere brother to us and enjoy a life pleasant to all people. While the ruler, with a mixture of malice and deceit, spoke these flattering words, Saint John, lifting up his mental eyes, called on the Master for help, who said: when they bring you before kings and princes for My name’s sake, do not worry in advance what to say, or what to answer at that hour: for a word will be given to you, which all who oppose you will not be able to resist (cf. Mark 13:11). Then, looking at the tormentor with sensual eyes and fearlessly extending his hand, he said in response: - I think that you are clearly lying, O chief! I did not say that I wanted to renounce my Christ; may this not happen to me, may my Lord Jesus Christ never allow even the thought of this in me; This is the intention of the enemy of truth, your father, Satan. Having entered into you, as into his true vessel, he talks to me through you, hoping to draw me to destruction, and forces me to retreat from the true God, the Creator of both all other visible and invisible creatures, and this sun itself, which you honor as God, seduced by the power of darkness, and in madness you give to creatures the honor that should be given to God Himself. Do not tempt me to lean towards lies, but, on the contrary, having learned from me the mystery of truth, put aside, I ask you, the darkness of wickedness that lies on your soul and be worthy to be a son of light, shining brighter than the sun at the dawn of Divine baptism. And do not consider the sun visible in the sky to be God, but know that it is a luminary of a fiery nature, appointed by the Creator to serve people and created on the fourth day. Can a creature be God? Having said this, Saint John raised his hands and raised his eyes to heaven, and exclaimed loudly: - May I not deny You, Christ my Savior, with Your beginningless Father and with the Most Holy Spirit of the glorified God! I will not worship the sun, I will not serve the fire, I will not make a sacrifice to the star, which pagan fables call Venus, the same name as prodigal passion! Thus spoke the martyr in a firm voice and with a joyful face. Inflamed by the fire of inner anger, the tormentor often changed his face and could not endure for too long the words of a man who spoke contrary to him, for Saint John, among the numerous people, glorified that Christ, Whom the ruler blasphemed, confessed Him to be the true God, and completely humiliated and overthrew the impious faith, or, more accurately, the seduction of the ruler. Then the tormentor ordered the soldiers to tear off the martyr’s clothes, which the soldiers immediately did as soon as he said: and the saint stood naked, clothed in Christ. Then the chief ordered to place many sticks before the martyr and said to him: “You promised not to tell tales, but to renounce your useless faith, and earnestly wished to join our bright faith and be adorned with our laws. Leave your continued slander and fulfill what you promised - join our glorious faith and bow to the radiant sun: if you do not do this, then for our faith, outstanding for its goodness, I will not only crush your body with these rods, but also with other cruel torments, unbearable for a person, I will torture you and, finally, I will deliver you to the bitterest death. The holy martyr said in response: - O tormentor, full of all filth! I am not a fabulist, but a servant and preacher of the true, glorified God in the Trinity, in whom I learned to believe from my ancestors and parents; Now I worship Him alone, I offer a sacrifice of praise to Him, I recognize and confess Him as the Creator of everything, I await Him as the Judge of the living and the dead; He will come to reward everyone according to their deeds at the time when, by His command, this visible sun, assigned to serve people, will be darkened. Therefore, do not expect to hear anything different from me - what I said at first, I still say: as long as I have intelligence and control my intellect, until then I will not honor the creature instead of the Creator and will not worship the creature instead of the Creator. And then, do not hesitate, doer of untruth, to clearly discover the dogish and inhumane disposition hidden in you, and free yourself from worries about inventing torment for me - by any means of torment and death, send me to the Lord God, to Whom I myself strive. Whatever you want to do, do it quickly, so that my ears will not be heard for too long by your wicked speeches, about which the prophet said: “They think evil in their hearts, every day they take up arms in battle” (Psalm 139:3), and my eyes will not look any longer at your all-bad face. Here is my naked flesh ready for your torment. Beat with rods, burn with fire, drown in water or cut with a sword, and if you have other, more severe torments, do not be lazy to inflict them on me: I am ready to joyfully accept everything for the sake of love for my Christ. These speeches of the martyr inflamed the fierce tormentor with anger; He immediately ordered the blessed one to be stretched out on the ground and mercilessly beaten with knotted sticks. The servants beat the passion-bearer of Christ so cruelly that many parts of his crushed flesh, along with sticks, rose into the air, and the entire place where they tortured the saint was stained with blood. The valiant sufferer bravely endured this torment and, raising his intelligent eyes to heaven, said: “I thank You, Master God, for having made me worthy by my blood to be cleansed from my sins, into which, through human weakness, I fell after holy baptism.” The sons of perdition, hearing the martyr’s prayer to God, were filled with even greater rage and brutally beat him until his voice fell silent. When evening came, the governor ordered the barely breathing martyr to be tied with two chains, thrown into prison and guarded until the morning for severe torture. And since the martyr could not walk on his own due to severe wounds, he was dragged away like some kind of corpse and thrown into prison. The next morning, the bestial torturer, sitting down at the usual place of justice, ordered the holy martyr John to be brought. The Passion-Bearer of Christ appeared with a bright face and a joyful soul. Looking at the martyr and seeing his bright and joyful face, the wicked judge was very surprised how, after such fierce torment, his soul was found in him, and he was having fun - as if he had not suffered any suffering. “You see, John,” he said, “to what dishonor has your disobedience brought you?” You have almost lost a sweet life that is more dear to all people than anything else that exists. However, if you obey my reasonable admonitions, then your health is ready: within a few days your wounded flesh will be healed, for we have very skillful doctors who came from India and Persia; If you want to continue to remain in Christianity, then know that even greater evil awaits you. “I don’t care at all about my wounded flesh, O judge!” Since our outer man decays, the inner man is renewed, as the great Apostle of the Lord says (2 Cor. 4:16). I have one concern: to endure to the end the torments inflicted on me by you, about Christ who strengthens me, Who said: “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Mark 13:13). If you have invented any other torments for me, inflict them on me: for the first wounds you inflicted on me were counted as nothing to me. Shamed by these wise words of the saint, the insane tormentor shook with anger and, letting out a roar like a beast, ordered to stretch the martyr again on the ground and beat him even more cruelly, and for a long time the servants beat the passion-bearer mercilessly, replacing each other, so that the insides of the martyr were wounded; He, whispering with his lips, said a prayer to God. When the warriors were exhausted, beating the members of the body that clothed the adamantine soul, and people of all ages, who had gathered to watch the torture, began to shout at the nasty judge, condemning his merciless and harsh disposition, then the tormentor ordered to bring a wild and ferocious horse, tightly tie the martyr’s legs to its tail, and one of the soldiers, mounting the horse, drove him through the city streets and dragged Christ sufferer until the horse is able to run. Thus they dragged the saint throughout the city, and it was sad for pious eyes to see this. When the horseman dragging the saint reached the dwellings of the Jews and galloped through their streets, crowds of Jews cursed at the dragged martyr; these evil people, changing their faces, with shouts, threw at him whatever they had in their hands, creating disorderly and absurd laughter. Finally, one of the Jews ran into the house, grabbed a naked sword, overtook the dragged saint and cut off his honest head. So the valiant warrior of Jesus Christ ended his suffering feat, betraying his holy soul into the hands of his Lord 3596. The warrior untied his honest body from the horse's tail and threw it in the same place, and it lay with its head cut off without burial or care, and none of the Christians dared to touch it, fearing the wrath of the wicked. When night fell, one could clearly see a wondrous miracle over the body of the martyr: many lamps burned brightly, and three luminous men chanted ineffable sacred chants, and performed incense, and a pillar of fire established itself over the body of the saint: many saw this miracle. One Jew, whose house was near the place where the long-suffering body lay, thought that Christian priests had come to raise him and give him a normal burial; he took a bow and arrow, approached there and, wanting to shoot one of those visible (imaginary) priests, laid down the arrow, then pulled the bow as hard as he could. When he wanted to shoot an arrow, the arrow and string stuck to the fingers of his right hand, and the bow to his left hand, and he could neither shoot the arrow nor free his hands from the bow and arrow; and so this Jew, the fiend of the serpent, suffered all night. At dawn, the wonderful men became invisible, the pillar of fire and the lamps disappeared, and people of all ages, coming to this place, saw the accursed archer in the same position - as he pulled his bow and arrow, he remained bound by the invisible power of God, as if with iron shackles. Against his will, this Jew was forced to tell in detail both about everything he saw over the body of the martyr, and about the retribution he received from God for his daring attempt at an evil deed. After sufficient publicity about this miracle, his arms straightened and he was freed from punishment. The ruler, having learned about this, was very frightened and ordered the Christians to bury the body of the martyr: the Christians took him and buried him with honor at their church. A few days later, the fryag, who betrayed the saint to torture, wanted to steal his honest body and take it to himself (to his homeland): he had already repented of his malice. One night, having chosen a convenient time, he and his comrades came to the tomb of the martyr, dug up the place, opened the coffin and wanted to take the honest remains. But at that time the warrior of Christ appeared in a dream to the presbyter of that church and said: “Get up and quickly go to the church, because they want to steal me.” The presbyter immediately got up, hurriedly went to the place, found the coffin dug up and open, and the body of the saint was almost taken away. Having called the pious people, he told them about what had happened, and everyone glorified God, who glorifies His saints; Taking the honorable relics of the holy martyr, they brought them into the church and placed them in the altar near the holy altar. The holy relics remained there for more than seventy years, and various miraculous phenomena often occurred over them at night and during the day: sometimes a wonderful light appeared, sometimes a pillar of fire, sometimes an indescribable fragrance emanated from the tomb, and healing powers also appeared. The rumor about this reached the pious and Christ-loving great commander Alexander, who ruled Moldovalachia and Pomorie at that time, a man who adorned himself with many virtues and loved martyrs; and he greatly desired to have a very rich treasure - the honest relics of the holy martyr of Christ John. On the advice of the most sacred Archbishop Joseph 3597, he sent several of his nobles to Belgrade with a sufficient number of troops, and they did not hesitate to bring the relics of the martyr from there. The great governor with all the nobles, the most sacred archbishop with the spiritual rank and all the people came out to meet him, joyfully welcoming the arrival of the martyr with candles, censers and fragrant myrrh. The great commander, falling to the saint’s shrine, embraced his long-suffering relics, touched the martyr’s honest hands with his eyes and lips and, shedding joyful and abundant tears, begged the saint to be the guardian of his power. With great honor they placed the venerable relics of the martyr in the most holy metropolis, in the capital city of the Moldovan state of Sochava 3598. About the healings that happened then and subsequently, which were given and are given from the relics of the martyr to those possessed by various ailments, we leave, the describer notes, to speak to those who were blessed, and preach about the benefits received from him. Here it was enough to report what kind of torment Saint John endured, how he put the wicked mayor to shame, how he accomplished the feat and received the crown from the hand of the heroic Christ. Such was the good acquisition of Saint John: he gave little, but gained much, leaving his body as a burden to the treacherous tormentor, he rushed not to the Trapezon, but to the highest Jerusalem - to the martyr's face as a martyr, to the bosom of Abraham, to the village of saints, to good havens, to imperishable palaces, where he appeared to the Trisagion and Most Divine Trinity, to Whom be glory, power, honor, praise and worship now and forever, amen. By nurturing life on earth for the good of those who suffered, with alms and frequent prayers and tears, and having courageously rushed towards suffering, you denounced the Persian wickedness, and you were the same for the church and the praise of Christians, John of Everlasting Memory. You bought the sea floating deep, from the east to the north: but I called you to God, like Matthew, the tollhouse, but you left the purchase, and you followed him with the blood of torment, redeeming the impenetrable temporary, and you received an invincible crown. In the old days in Russia, mainly the Genoese were called fryags, then Western Europeans in general. According to the famous church historian E.E. Golubinsky, the Belgrade indicated here is the current Bessarabian Balti. Others mean Ackerman by Belgrade. According to the life of St. John, compiled by the presbyter of the Moldovan Church (since 1416, the South Russian metropolitan 1419), as well as in his service, the martyr suffered from fire worshipers, and according to the Greek martyrology from the Mohammedans. But from history we do not see that these fire worshipers were Persians or Mohammedans: in the middle of the 14th century, when the Great Martyr John approximately died, Akkerman was owned by the Polovtsy, who, like the Tatars during Batu’s time, could have worshiped fire. The holy martyr died, probably no later than 1340. Made Metropolitan of Moldova in 1401 or 1402. The current, as some believe, Zhurzha is a city in Romania, on the left bank of the Danube, opposite Ruschuk. You might be interested in: