April: Day 3: Venerable Niketas the Confessor

April: Day 3:
Venerable Niketas the Confessor
 
(On Consolations Amidst Persecutions for the Truth)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Venerable Niketas, celebrated today, came from the city of Caesarea in Bithynia. After serving for a short time in one church as a clergyman, he went to the Medikion Monastery, where with ardent zeal he began to labor for the Lord and for his soul in fasting and prayer. In the entire monastery there was no one more zealous than Niketas. For his lofty ascetic life, he was soon chosen as the abbot of the monastery. God rewarded him with the gift of miracles. Word of him spread far and wide. Many began to come to be saved under his guidance. 100 monks gathered.

The life of Venerable Niketas was peaceful and quiet. But during his time the iconoclastic heresy spread. Emperor Leo the Armenian (813-820) raised a cruel persecution against all venerators of holy icons. For venerating holy icons, people were deprived of property, positions, imprisoned, sent into exile and subjected to all kinds of torture. The turn came to Venerable Niketas. Since he did not renounce the veneration of holy icons, he was first imprisoned, and then sent to exile on the island of the Holy Martyr Glykeria, where he languished for six whole years and endured many bitter insults. But here the Lord glorified him and Niketas, by the power of God, performed many miracles.

With the death of Emperor Leo the Armenian, the sufferings of Venerable Niketas ended. A new emperor, a venerator of icons, came into power, and all those exiled for icon veneration were returned to their places. Niketas was also returned from his place of exile. But he did not go to his monastery, and spent the last days of his life in silence in a secluded place near Constantinople, where soon after his life ended in 824. His body was solemnly transferred to the Medikion Monastery. After his death, the Lord glorified him with miracles, many of which occurred both during and after the burial.

II. We have seen that in his life Venerable Niketas grieved for a long time, suffered much, and suffered completely undeservedly, solely for the love of truth and justice. Hunger, thirst, insults, oppression, imprisonment, confinement - this was his lot, and this for several years, and this in the midst of the most ardent service to the Lord. But should we be surprised at this? This is the lot of all who want to live piously in Christ. All the apostles experienced this, He Himself, the Savior, experienced it and predicted it for His other followers. "If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you," said Jesus Christ. But, predicting a sorrowful fate for His followers on earth, the Savior did not call them unhappy, not pitiful, but blessed, happy. "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake." They are blessed because in the midst of persecution and harassment they have such consolations that even the bitterest cup of their sufferings becomes sweet and pleasant for them.

a) People who live freely according to the movement of their feelings, considering every sin to be of no consequence, are pursued; this only highlights the strictness of their rules and the purity of their conduct. The consciousness of their innocence manifests itself in them with great strength. As a result, it becomes bright and joyful for them in their souls. They do not consider themselves to be pitiful but rather their persecutors; they do not fear their own misfortunes but tremble for the fate awaiting their persecutors in the future. From the awareness of their innocence, even the gloomy walls of the prison and the very doors of the grave become bright for a Christian, for they know that these will not lead them to the depths of hell but to the abodes of peace. For those unjustly persecuted, the fear lies not in being in prison, not in being bound by iron chains, but in committing one sin or another, in offending God in any way, or in renouncing their faith.

But it is not only the consciousness of one's innocence that gives comfort to a Christian in the midst of unjust persecution by evil people. There are other reasons.

b) For whom does a Christian suffer persecution? For Jesus Christ – this is the second consolation in persecution for the truth! He who has a heart capable of love knows how pleasant it is to suffer for a person we love – he knows that it is much more pleasant to share the sorrows of a loved one than his pleasures. Everyone’s experience can convince us of this. Numerous examples in the history of human life clearly prove how pleasant it is for a lover to suffer and even die for his friend and benefactor. But what love can compare with the love of a Christian for Jesus Christ? His love for Him is strong as death. "Who shall separate us from the love of God?” – the Apostle cries out – “I am assured that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God” (Rom. 8:39). So high is the love of a Christian for Jesus Christ! In Christ everything is contained for him – with Christ for him both in the dungeon, and in chains, and in prison, and in the most difficult labors is much more pleasant than for the happy people of this world in the bright and magnificent chambers. And this is why we see that a Christian always goes to all sufferings for Jesus Christ with such joy, with which a bridegroom does not even go to his wedding. This is why in the early days of Christianity many of the Christians not only did not avoid persecution, but even sought them themselves, and hastened to death for the name of Christ. Thus, a Christian who is persecuted for the truth has a truly great consolation in the thought that he is suffering for his Christ, Who is for him life, and joy, and hope, and refuge.

III. Thus, this is where a Christian draws consolation from in the midst of persecution for the truth. Let none of us be frightened by the hatred and malice of people who persecute for the truth. Let us not be afraid to confess the truth before everyone, even before the powers that be, if our duty and conscience require it of us. Let us fear one thing, as the Apostle teaches, that none of us suffer, “as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer; but if he be a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this part” (I Peter 4:15). 

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.