September: Day 28: Teaching 1: Saint Chariton the Confessor

September: Day 28: Teaching 1:
Saint Chariton the Confessor
 
(Lessons From His Life:
a. The Ways of God's Providence, Preserving His Faithful Servants;
b. Man is Great and Beloved in the Eyes of God)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Confessor Chariton, whose memory is celebrated today, lived during the reign of the emperor Aurelian in the city of Iconium. When a persecution of Christians was declared, he was brought to trial. The commander asked him why he did not worship the gods before whom the emperor and all nations humble themselves. The Saint answered: "The pagan gods are demons, who were once cast out of heaven for pride, but are now revered as gods by mad and deluded people." They began to torture Chariton, then threw the tortured man into prison, where the Lord healed him. The new emperor, who ascended the throne of Aurelian, who had been murdered by his confidants, was afraid to persecute the Christians and set Christ's prisoners free. Then Chariton went to Jerusalem to venerate the Lord's tomb, but on the road, near Jericho, he was seized by robbers who wanted to kill him. Having tied him up and thrown him into the recesses of their cave, the robbers went off to do their vile work. It happened, by the providence of God, that a snake crawled into a vessel of wine standing in their cave and poisoned the wine. The robbers, having drunk the poisoned wine, perished. Saint Chariton remained in the robbers' cave and began to lead an ascetic life. Having heard about the ascetic in the dark cave, many flocked to him, and thus the first, most famous Lavra in Palestine was established - Pharan, with a strict ascetic life. The Saint himself wrote the rules for the Lavra. Seeking silence, Chariton withdrew from the Lavra into the desert, but here too zealots of the ascetic life came to him, and a new Lavra was formed - Douka in Jericho. In a similar way, he also established the third Lavra - Souka. Before his death, about which the Lord informed him, having gathered the brethren of the three monasteries and given them instructions, according to the general desire of the brethren, the Saint commanded that his body be buried in the first Lavra, in the cave where the robbers wanted to kill him. Saint Chariton died in 350.

II. When reading the life of Saint Chariton the Confessor, namely the story of his rescue from robbers in a cave, two great and comforting truths involuntarily come to mind, inseparably connected with each other: the first is that Christians faithful to God, who hope in Him and resort to Him, are very often saved by God's Providence in the midst of the greatest dangers; the second is that a man worthy of this great name, namely a Christian man, is great and beloved in the eyes of God.

Let us unfold these thoughts through the works of Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk , who wisely and edifyingly discussed these truths, and add to them several biblical and ecclesiastical-historical examples.

a) “Divine Providence”, especially concerning man, is touchingly revealed by St. Tikhon in his “Spiritual Treasure” (Part 12), delving into the simple words: “Do not be afraid, I am with you.” In his Zadonsk solitude Saint Tikhon taught the following: "It happens that a mother, seeing her child grieving and crying, consoles him and says to him: 'Do not be afraid, I am with you.' Thus the merciful and compassionate God says to the faithful soul, which is in temptations and misfortunes, grieving and lamenting and afraid: 'Do not be afraid, I am with you.' I am your Creator, I am your Provider, I am your Savior, I am your helper and intercessor; I, who hold all things in My hand, 'am with you' (Ex. 49:14, 15, 43:23). So the Lord was with His faithful Noah, and saved him from the flood. He was with His faithful Lot, and saved the righteous man from the destruction of Sodom. He was with His servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and saved them in the land of their sojourn (Psalm 104:14). He was with Joseph, and in the misfortunes and temptations that befell him He saved him and glorified him. He was with Israel in Egypt and in their exodus from Egypt, and divided the Red Sea for them, and in the desert He fed them with miraculous manna and smote their enemies before their face. He was with David, His anointed, in various temptations and persecutions. He was with Jonah in the depths of the sea, with the Three Youths in the Babylonian furnace, with Daniel in the pit, etc. He was with the apostles, He was with the martyrs and saved them in the midst of terrible torments; He was with the hermits who lived in caves, holes and abysses of the earth, and saved them from the wiles of the enemy; He was, is and will be until the end of the age with His faithful servants, according to the true promise: 'Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age' (Matt. 28:20). The Lord of hosts be with us!”

Let us now give several biblical and ecclesiastical-historical examples of God’s providential care for people.

1) The Lord often gives miraculous help to His true servants. The Prophet Elijah had no food for himself in the desert and would not have found it anywhere because there was famine. And so the ravens brought him bread and meat every day, and at certain hours, morning and evening! How could the birds know about the prophet’s hunger and how did they understand human hours for eating, which they themselves do not observe? One explanation of the question: “God commanded them to feed the righteous” (3 Kings 17:4, 6). And how many such miraculous examples are there in the lives of the saints!

Martyr Basiliskos was led to trial before his torturers: they put boots with nails inside him and an iron chain around his neck. In one place the soldiers who accompanied him, in the middle of a sultry day, tied him to a dry oak tree at the gate, while they themselves were dining and drinking wine in the house. People gathered and watched. The appearance of the holy martyr was extremely pitiful, when he, so exhausted and scorched by the sun, stood by the oak. He loudly asked God for help. And then suddenly there was an earthquake; the chain and copper boots fell off him; finally the oak to which he was tied turned green, covered with broad branches, which provided him with coolness from the heat, and under his feet a stream of water opened up to quench his thirst (May 22).

Before each war, Saint Alexander Nevsky asked God for help, calling for help from the Mother of God and the Holy Martyrs Boris and Gleb. And what happened? Boris and Gleb visibly appeared to his soldiers, encouraging them with victory. After that, he took victory after victory. But the Lord helps only the right side in war, as the same Alexander Nevsky says: “The enemy is strong; but God is not in strength, but in truth” (August 30).

2) God's Providence often punishes sinners. When impudent children mocked the Prophet Elisha, at that very moment two she-bears ran out from the desert and tore the impudent children to pieces (4 Kings 2).

In the history of the sufferings of the Great Martyr Barbara we read: when everyone had already gone home after her execution, murmuring against the inhumanity of her father, Dioscorus, and her torturer Martian, suddenly a thunderstorm arose and these two villains were killed by lightning. The lightning burned them, so that even their bones were not found (December 4)

In a similar way, after the Great Martyr Euphemia was given to be eaten by beasts at the spectacle, a terrible storm with an earthquake arose, and everyone fled (September 16).

It was not in vain that the prophets of God called upon heaven and earth to be witnesses of the evil deeds of people. They said: "The heavens were terrified at this" (Jer. 2:12). Thus we hear in the ecclesiastical hymn: "Be terrified, be afraid, heaven! All creation trembled with fear, seeing You crucified on the cross!"

3) When God prepares one of the pious people, who at the same time possess natural intelligence, special knowledge and experience in life, to place him in a high place of service, church or civil, then he leads this person through trials; for example, He allows him to suffer hardships in service from envious people and slanderers. Joseph went through such a path of life before the time of his exaltation in Egypt; David was led by the same path by the will of God before his accession to the throne (Ps. 18:22, 26, 33, etc.); Mordecai achieved exaltation in no other way.

Why do the pious need this path beforehand? So that they may be more restrained from self-confidence and learn to surrender themselves to the will of God; so that they may develop in themselves the feelings of justice and mercy towards others; so that they may acquire more experience in life, etc. For the longer this probationary state continues for any of them, the less he sins and the more successfully he acts in the high place that will be entrusted to him.

4) God brings pious people out of the most extreme circumstances in their lives safely, gives them unexpected help when they are completely exhausted by their sufferings: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous (it is said), but the Lord delivers them out of them all” (Ps. 33:20). Thus, the Prophet Daniel was thrown into a pit to be eaten by seven hungry lions, but there another prophet, Habakkuk, brings him food, whom an angel carries to him from a distant place (Dan. 24:31-39).

The Holy Martyr Polycarp spent the night in an inn. Suddenly an angel awakens him and tells him to leave the inn. But as soon as he leaves, the inn collapses and crushes everyone in it (February 23).

The Great Martyr Theodore Stratelates, crucified on the cross, deprived of his eyes by the torturers, struck in the face with arrows from a bow and all covered with wounds, was exhausted in spirit and already uttered a complaint against Providence. But at night after this, an angel of God took him down from the cross, healed him of all his wounds and said to him: "Why did you say that God has abandoned you!" (February 8).

5) God's Providence does not leave pious people without punishment for their sins. Thus, the Holy King David suffered a visitation from God for each of his grave sins (2 Kings 12:14, 24, 13), while many of his contemporaries and for many of their sins remained unpunished; the God-fearing king Joasaph fell under the wrath of God for one inappropriate friendship with the vicious Ahab (2 Chronicles 19:2, 3).

What, then, is God less merciful to the righteous than to sinners? No! But those who deeply believe in God's Providence and, like strict Christians, are accustomed to deprivations in life, are more capable of enduring punishment than the unbelieving and the effeminate: the latter would sooner than they come from punishment to cowardice. By punishments of one kind or another, pious people, like gold in fire, are purified for the kingdom of heaven.

6) How the Lord fatherly cares for orphans and how often from among them He raises up useful figures of the church and society, this is evident from many historical examples.

Who does not know the Ecumenical Saint John Chrysostom ? He lost his father in infancy and was left in the arms of his mother. The Lord preserved young John from the temptations of worldly life, with which he was surrounded, as the son and heir of a rich father who occupied a prominent social position. From early youth, an inclination for ascetic and desert life awakened in him. Only the tearful requests of his mother convinced him to remain with her until her death, and as soon as she died, he hastened to sell his estate, distributed the money to the poor, freed his slaves and became a monk. Through monastic life he was prepared to serve the Church in the rank of presbyter and then bishop - a service in which he appeared as a lamp of the Church not only for the current generation, but also for all future generations.

We would tire ourselves and our listeners by listing such striking examples of God’s all-good and all-wise care for people.

b) Discussing how great and beloved man is in the eyes of God, about whom the Lord thinks this way, Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk writes: “'Lord, what is man, that you are mindful of him? Or the son of man, that you visit him' (Ps. 143:3)? Truly a wondrous creation of God is man! Wonderful is God’s providence for him: he was not created like other creatures, he was created by the special counsel of the Holy Trinity: 'Let us make man' (Gen. 1:26) and man was created 'in the image and likeness of God' (Gen. 1:27). All created things are evidence of the omnipotence, goodness and wisdom of God; but man, moreover, bears the image of God within himself. Truly the most beautiful goodness, the most gracious beauty, the highest dignity, the most honorable nobility! The lowest of God, but the highest of all visible creatures is man.

Man is honored in the image of God. Beautiful are the heavens, the sun, the moon, and the stars, and all of God’s creation, but more beautiful than them is man, for he bears within himself the goodness created in the image of God. Reflect and ponder how glorious is God, the uncreated and everlasting goodness. “O Lord my God, You have become exceedingly great, You have clothed Yourself in glory and majesty, You are clothed with light as with a garment” (Ps. 103:1, 2).

From this you will understand a little,” teaches Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk, “how beautiful is the human soul, created in the image of God. For the image must be like the prototype. Heaven and earth with their fullness serve and work for man. But when man fell and perished: in a miraculous and incomprehensible way he was raised up and sought after. God Himself, who surpasses all reason and wonder, God Himself for the sake of man came into this very poor world, and appeared as a man; He lived on earth, labored, was ill, suffered and died in His most holy flesh for man. He did not send either an angel or an intercessor, but He Himself 'came to seek and save the lost' (Luke 19:10). Thus man, merciful, philanthropic and wondrous in God's providence, found out what mercy is vouchsafed from God! He was defiled, dishonored, sinful, lawless, the son of wrath; but 'washed, justified in the name of our Lord' (1 Cor. 6:11), becomes a spiritual member of the super-heavenly head - Jesus Christ; partakes of His mysterious life-giving body and divine blood; is deemed worthy to be the dwelling place of God and the temple of the Holy Spirit; is deemed worthy to have communion with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, to be a child of God by faith in Christ Jesus, an heir to God, and an heir to Jesus Christ. Read the apostolic epistles, and you will see that all this and more is ascribed by the Holy Spirit to man - a true Christian. What else does man lack? Man has been deemed worthy of great mercy, love for mankind, honor and blessedness from God!

This is what man is and how honorable he is with God! Oh! if only man would remember and value this, and would honor God as he is honored by God. If God has honored man so, then who can be against man? The whole world, all hell, and all the devils can do nothing against man. God is in man and for man. 'If God is for us, who can be against us?' dares and cries the holy Paul (Rom. 8:31).

But what will happen to man in the future life, according to the true promise of God! What good, what blessedness, what honor, what glory! Like a river, his eternal blessedness, incomprehensible to the mind and inexpressible to the tongue, will flow ceaselessly. 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him' (1 Cor. 2:9). The people of God will shine like the sun in the kingdom of the heavenly Father; they will be like angels; they will be like second gods; they will be kings and lords; they will reign forever and ever. For all this, may glory be to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who has so exalted our race!"

III. “You see human blessedness,” Saint Tikhon exhorts the Christian, “but know firmly, beloved, that man destroys all this blessedness when he shows himself ungrateful to God and commits iniquity; and becomes the lowest and poorest of all creatures. So beware of sin, as of a poisonous snake, lest it deprive you of Christian blessedness and plunge you into the poorest state.”

Knowing how touchingly the Lord cares for man and how beloved he is in the eyes of God, let us strive, beloved brethren, to be at least somewhat worthy of such great love of God for us by fulfilling the will of God and walking in all the paths of the Lord's commandments.

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