October: Day 31: Teaching 1: Venerables Spyridon and Nikodemos

October: Day 31: Teaching 1:
Venerables Spyridon and Nikodemos
 
(Lessons From Their Lives:
a. One Must Combine Work With Prayer;
b. Avoid Idleness; and
c. Fold Three Fingers When Making the Sign of the Cross)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Venerables Spyridon and Nikodemos, whose memory is celebrated today, were prosphora makers at the Kiev Caves Lavra and lived in the 12th century. Both of them came from the common people and were illiterate. In his youth, Spyridon entered the monastery. For his highly virtuous life, the abbot appointed him to work in the prosphora bakery to prepare prosphora. Spyridon liked this obedience very much, because the prosphora he prepared were used for the great Mystery of Holy Communion. Saint Spyridon always combined his work with prayer and reading or singing Psalms from the Psalter. Saint Nikodemos was Spyridon’s co-worker and was distinguished by the same piety as Spyridon. The Saints spent 30 years together. Their relics rest in the Cave of Saint Anthony. Regarding Saint Spyridon, the fingers of the right hand are folded as they are folded during prayer: the first three fingers are joined together, and the middle and little fingers are placed on the palm. This is a lesson for our Old Believers, who usually advocate so much for the two-fingered fold!

II. The lives of Venerables Spyridon and Nikodemos offer us many lessons.

a) Firstly, they teach us to combine work with prayer.

Work disposes to prayer and is supported by it, and prayer disposes to work and is stimulated by it. Once Saint Anthony the Great, struggling in the desert with his thoughts, asked the Lord from the depths of his heart: "Lord, show me the way to salvation!" By some involuntary impulse he came out of his cave and saw someone like himself, who was sitting and working, then got up from his work and began to pray; then he sat down again and twisted a rope; and having worked, he again got up to pray. This was an angel of the Lord, sent to instruct and strengthen Anthony. This angel of God said to him out loud: "If you do this, you also will be saved." “Work, supported by prayer, and prayer accompanied by good work, can lead to the salvation of the soul, to which workers should strive first and foremost.”

b) Secondly, the lives of Venerables Spyridon and Nikodemos, alien to idleness, teach us to avoid idleness as the most dangerous state for a Christian.

“Idleness or laziness is a sin in itself, for it is contrary to the commandment of God," teaches Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk. Even to our forefather Adam it was said by God: “In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread, until you return to the ground from which you were taken” (Gen. 3:10). This commandment also concerns us, the sons of Adam. And the Holy Apostle forbids to eat anyone who does not want to work. Therefore, those who live in idleness and feed on the labor of others sin incessantly, and will not stop sinning until they devote themselves to blessed labors. The infirm and the elderly are excluded from this, who, although they would like to work, cannot. The human heart can never be idle, but is always occupied with some thoughts. And therefore the enemy of the soul, the devil, easily approaches the idle heart, which is not occupied with any useful work, as if it were an idle house, and fills it with evil thoughts, like harmful tares, and teaches them to produce them in action. Therefore, idleness gives birth to much lawlessness: hence drunkenness; hence all kinds of fornication; hence evil conversations, gossip, mockery; hence frequent feasts, theft, robbery, perjury; hence card games and the inseparable deceptions, disorderly conduct, quarrels, fights and other lawlessness. Idleness teaches to steal, lie, flatter, deceive, for the idle, having nothing to feed on, rushes to steal other people's labors, either openly, or secretly, or by deception. Thus, “idleness teaches much evil,” according to the words of the wise Sirach (Sir. 33:28). (From the works of Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk).

c) Finally, the third lesson that can be drawn for our edification from the lives of the Venerables Spyridon and Nikodemos is that the three-fingered sign of the cross, accepted as a rule of the Church, is very ancient. We have already said that Saint Spyridon rests in the position of a person praying and has the first three fingers of his right hand joined perfectly evenly, and the middle and little fingers bent toward the palm.

This is living proof of the antiquity and correctness of the three-fingered sign of the cross.

But if anyone would like us to point out an even greater antiquity of the three-fingered sign of the cross, we would be happy to cite the following story of a Russian traveler to holy places.

This traveler visited the holy Mount Athos in 1887 and this is what he reports (about what he saw there):

“From the Panteleimon Monastery we, accompanied by the guide Hieromonk Augustine, went to the very top of Athos, to the Greek Monastery of Dionysiou. The Greeks exhibited the holy relics, which we began to venerate. When we reached the relics of the Holy Martyr Blaise, Bishop of Sebaste, our guide, Father Augustine, took the Saint’s right hand out of the silver reliquary, which was folded for the sign of the cross in this way: the first three fingers of the right hand are joined, and the nameless and little fingers are bent to the palm. The Holy Martyr Blaise was beheaded with a sword during the reign of Licinius (in 316 A.D.). After this, Father Augustine took the right hand of Saint John the Silent out of the silver reliquary. Here, too, the first three fingers of the right hand are joined, and the nameless and little fingers are placed on the palm, but less than in Saint Blaise. Saint John reposed in 558” (see the brochure: “On the Sign of the Cross” by His Grace Alexander, Bishop of Mozhaisk).

III. So, beloved brethren, let us learn from our Venerable Fathers Nikodemos and Spyridon their love for work and withdrawal from idleness, their zeal in prayer during work, let us especially love to sing sacred hymns instead of the vain, miserable and immoral songs of the world, and finally let us learn their faithfulness in observing the rules of the finger-folding prescribed by the church.

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