November: Day 11: Teaching 2: Venerable Theodore the Studite

November: Day 11: Teaching 2:
Venerable Theodore the Studite
 
(Precious in the Sight of the Lord is the Death of His Saints)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Venerable Theodore the Studite, whose memory is now celebrated, lived in the eighth century, when a persecution of venerators of holy icons, instigated by the Emperor Constantine Kopronymos, prevailed in the Greek Empire. As soon as iconoclasm began, Theodore's parents distributed their property to the poor and took monastic vows; Theodore soon followed their example. Venerable Theodore led the strictest way of life. Although he was brought up amidst all the comforts of life, since his parents were rich people, he found in himself enough fortitude to subject himself to all the privations that other monks experienced. He prayed constantly, worked for the brethren, and observed strict fasts. Patriarch Tarasios of Constantinople ordained Theodore a priest, and in 794 the brethren begged him to govern the monastery where he lived. In 789, Constantine VI began to reign. The new emperor wished to dissolve his marriage and marry his relative Theodota. Since such an act was not permitted by the statutes of the Church, Patriarch Tarasios refused to give his blessing for the wedding. When the wedding took place, Tarasios first tried to dissolve the marriage, but due to the emperor’s threats to begin iconoclasm again, he did not dare to do anything. Theodore did not act in this way. He excommunicated the emperor. Constantine, thinking to win Theodore over to his side, sent him rich gifts, but Theodore did not accept them. Constantine, irritated by this, sent Theodore and ten monks with him to Thessaloniki. However, Theodore’s firmness found many imitators among the clergy, and even Pope Leo III in a letter to Theodore approved of his courage and patience.

After the death of Constantine, Theodore was returned from Thessaloniki, to the general joy of both the laity and the monks, and at the request of the Empress Irene, he accepted the rank of abbot of the Studite Monastery near Constantinople (hence the name of Theodore the "Studite"). Theodore lived in the Studite Monastery until 809, when the Emperor Nikephoros returned the patriarchate to the priest Joseph, who had been excommunicated from the Church for having married the Emperor Constantine to Theodota. The Venerable Theodore denounced the emperor, saying that without repentance it was not necessary to forgive the criminal, and then the emperor sent Theodore and many other Studite monks into exile.

Released from imprisonment for two years, Theodore was again persecuted during the reign of Leo the Armenian. The new emperor wanted first of all to eradicate icon veneration in the state and invited the patriarch and the clergy to announce his intention to them. In vain did Theodore and other defenders of the holy icons object: the emperor remained adamant. The patriarch was deposed and sent into exile; many bishops followed him. The Orthodox were subjected to persecution and disasters, the holy icons were desecrated and destroyed. In order to inspire the persecuted, Theodore held a religious procession with icons around the Studion Monastery on Palm Sunday, singing: “We venerate Your most pure image, O Good One.” Upon learning of this, the emperor subjected Theodore to cruel tortures and exiled him first to Metopa, then to Smyrna.

The exile of Theodore ended with the death of Leo the Armenian. The new Emperor Michael, although also an iconoclast, did not approve of the persecution and freed the imprisoned and exiled. Saint Theodore and the Patriarch urged the Emperor to renounce the heresy; but the Emperor declared that he would not allow icons in his capital, although he did not persecute anyone for their beliefs and faith. Therefore, Theodore never returned to the Studion Monastery. He withdrew with his disciples to Chersonesos, where he died at the age of 57. While reading the Psalm: “Blessed are the blameless who walk in the way of the law of the Lord,” his soul departed to the Lord. This was in the year 826.

Tradition relates that on that very day and hour, Saint Hilarion of Dalmatia, while working in his garden, suddenly heard wondrous singing. He looked up to heaven and saw a great multitude of angelic orders in white shining robes and with shining faces. It seemed that they were meeting someone. The terrified Saint fell to the ground and heard a voice: “Behold, the soul of Theodore, the abbot of Studion, who suffered much for the truth, triumphantly ascends to heaven, met by the heavenly powers.” Hilarion then recounted the vision; and only then did they learn of the death of Saint Theodore.

II. Thus, in truth, the friends of God, beloved by Him in life, become all the more desirable, putting off the garment of the mortal flesh, passing from temporal life to eternal. The revelation of this favor of God to the righteous in their death cannot but be edifying for us, Christians, today on the day of remembrance of the great Saint of God, who suffered much for the truth of Orthodoxy.

a) How, first of all, is God’s favor towards the death of the righteous signified?

By their peaceful and painless end. The death of holy men is a testimony to their unwavering fulfillment of the will of the heavenly Father, the abundant return of the talents received to their Master of the House, the valiant completion of the course set before each. Being strangers in this world, they constantly strove for their heavenly fatherland, did not seek lasting blessings here, and secretly sighed about when they would come and appear before the face of God. If carnal fathers wish to arrange the fate of children obedient to them, then does not the heavenly Father care even more to unite with Himself a righteous man, who with the unconditional obedience of a son fulfilled His will? Heavenly goodness is incomparably more loving than any earthly householder, who sets up a good and faithful servant in a few things over many, leads him into his joy: it precedes those who labor for his salvation; gives them help to fight courageously, unrelentingly, to the point of shelter on the field of spiritual battle; and when the soul is released from the body, it consoles us with the hope of a worthy reward, driving away the fear of death, which consumes the soul of the sinner.

He who preserves His chosen ones in life, when He takes their life from the world, the Lord, finding them worthy of Himself, pours into the heart a sweet hope for unparalleled mercy; He receives their souls into His hands, that is, into the closest communion with Himself; He delivers them from every torment (Wis. 3:1). Before the opening of the kingdom of glory, He enlightens them with the unapproachable light of His face; He clothes them in the garment of immortality; He adorns them with the crown of life; He places among the angels, in the triumph of the Church, the firstborn, surrounding the throne of the Lamb.

b) The death of His saints is precious before the Lord in the glorification of their very bodies. The common lot of all the sons of Adam is decay, the dissolution of the body into its constituent elemental principles, as a tribute to original sin: "Dust you are, and to dust you shall return" (Gen. 3:20). And the more the body serves as an instrument of sin, the sooner it approaches its destruction.

But even this law does not apply to the righteous: they overcome the very laws of nature. While the bodily temple of a sinner often, by an unlawful, bestial life, calls to itself corruption even before the soul is released from the body, and dies spiritually and bodily while still living in the world, the very bones of the righteous are not broken, the Lord does not allow corruption to be seen not only by the head, in which the mind of Christ dwells, not only by the eyes, which openly contemplate here the glory of the Invisible, not only by the lips, which proclaimed the words of the spirit and life, not only by the ears, which were always open to hear and fulfill the law of Christ, not only by the heart, which was the temple of the Holy Spirit, but by the hands, which were extended to prayer and thanksgiving, by the legs, which did not weaken in bending the knee, walking uprightly in all the ways and justifications of the Lord, not only by the entire bodily structure does He grant strength over corruption, but also by the very clothes He assimilates the strength of incorruptibility, and the gift of healing spiritual and bodily ailments. How wonderful is the Lord in glorifying His righteous ones!

c) Finally, the death of the righteous is precious before the Lord, as evidence of the triumph of the militant Church of Christ. The Lord, who founded His Church on the rock of faith, deigned to adorn His visible building both with internal splendor – the confession of His thrice-holy name – and with material fortifications, created on the incorruptible remains of the bodies of the righteous. For what was said to the invisible Christian Church: “On this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it,” can, in all fairness, be understood of the visible church, made by hand, which has as an inalienable sign of its holiness and immovability incorruptible relics, placed under the altar and kept in antimensions. Who taught the shepherds and first planters of the church to pay such respect to the bodies of the martyrs and other saints, who adorn the church from the beginning of the world and to this day? Without a doubt, the Lord alone preserves their bones, glorifying His own name by their praise. For if every place marked by the exploits of the saints is venerable, then the Church of Christ, which lays the remains of incorruptible relics as the foundation of visible temples, should all the more fill the soul of the believer with reverent fear in the house of the Lord, which has a visible sign of the miraculous power of God in the relics of the saints. In order to ask for help from above, one does not need to ascend to heaven and descend to the abyss: whoever believes with his heart and believing calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. So help from His saints is not limited by place or space. Those who offer prayer to them about spiritual and physical sorrows always and everywhere find the fulfillment of their heart's desire in good, as from those who are worthy to stand before the throne of the Lord, to be mediators for believers of every gift perfected from above, as friends and chosen of God.

III. So, if the end of the life of the righteous is so precious before the Most Holy One, then shall we close our sinful eyes so as not to see the greatness of heavenly favor towards them, shall we block for ourselves the life-giving source of grace, shall we remain careless in the creation of our salvation? Let us glorify the honorable memory of His saints before the Lord by imitating their exploits, by reverence for their relics, by the decorous glorification of their name. Amen.

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