February: Day 19:
Holy Apostle Philemon*
(On the Attitude of Servants to Masters)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
Holy Apostle Philemon*
(On the Attitude of Servants to Masters)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
I. The Holy Apostle Paul in his epistle to Philemon, a rich and dignified man who lived in Asia Minor, in the region of Phrygia, whose memory is celebrated today, asks him to accept his slave Onesimus, who had fled from him, as a beloved brother (Phil. 1:16). Without any hesitation, Philemon fulfilled the request of the Apostle Paul. Philemon not only forgave his slave for his unauthorized flight, but even granted him freedom. Philemon did such a magnanimous deed without a doubt because he was a true Christian. It is known about him that he himself preached the Christian doctrine and was numbered among the Seventy Apostles.
II. On the day of remembrance of the Holy Apostle Philemon, who treated his slave meekly and humanely, on the day of remembrance of this magnanimous master, which coincides with the significant day of February 19 – the liberation of the peasants in Russia from serfdom by the Tsar-Liberator and Martyr Alexander Nikolaevich, to whom may there be eternal gratitude and to whom may the Lord grant eternal blessedness - let us talk about the attitude of servants to their masters.
Speaking of servants, we consider it necessary to note the following about their service:
a) The Apostles taught the slaves of their time to seek a way out of their humiliated and burdensome situation not in changing their external calling, but in the diligent fulfillment of their service. "Serve," they commanded them, "not in the sight of your masters only, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God, and whatever you do, do it from the heart, as to the Lord, and not to men" (Col. 3:22-23). In the person of your masters, serve the Lord of all, and your behavior will be an adornment of the teaching of the Savior (Titus 2:9-10).
Thus, the lowest service in appearance may be exalted by the diligence of those who are devoted to their work and to the Lord in serving those they are destined to serve.
Meanwhile, people who freely enter into the service of others often consider it as humiliating for themselves to serve with obedience and devotion, forgetting that he is not a slave of men, but a servant of God and a slave of God, who does what is due to them willingly, sincerely, from the heart; because such a servant is guided not by the desire to please someone's whims or passions, but by the consciousness of his duty and goodwill to others, to whom he wants to be useful. On the contrary, a servant who performs his service without any zeal for his master and for the benefit and honor of the house in which he serves, considering his actions only with his own personal benefits, necessarily becomes a people-pleaser and a slave in the worst sense of the word.
A servant must know that Christ is always close to him: as close as it is possible to be. Christ is before him – when he serves a master, a master who is not only kind and faithful, but also obstinate and unenlightened. Thus, serving according to the appearance of a person, the servant must look at himself as a servant of Christ, the most good, strong and magnanimous Master. Let him not think that his hard labors, that the years of his life, the years of bitter work – have been wasted for him. That which people have refused him, that which they have taken from him, that which they have not given him back, that which they can no longer reward him, Christ, the all-good Lord and Master, will not forget. Thus a servant must believe, but this faith must be expressed in him in voluntary obedience and faithful devotion.
b) A servant who has no Christian spirit considers the master's interest to be hostile to his own interest, and this thought serves him as a constant stumbling-block and temptation. Even if he does not allow himself to openly disobey and contradict, it turns out to be even worse: the matter is done only for show and in the eyes of the master, and under the hypocritical appearance of devotion there is hidden a spirit of the lowest lie and infidelity.
On the contrary, a Christian servant does not see a contradiction between his own good and the benefit of his master. For him, the highest thing is to do the will of Christ, and he sees this will in the will of his master. He is reassured by the thought that he serves Christ: from this comes a feeling of moral dignity in him that is alien to any flattery, and he knows how to maintain this feeling in all his relations with his master. Such a servant is, without a doubt, one of the highest and noblest phenomena of the moral world.
III. May God, through the prayers of the Holy Apostle Philemon, grant both masters and servants their gracious help for the preservation of mutual relations in constant Christian love.
Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
* Translator's note: Saint Philemon is commemorated today only in the Slavic calendar, with a second feast day on November 22nd, while the Greek calendar only commemorates him on November 22nd. Both the Greek calendar and the Slavic calendar celebrate Saint Archippus on February 19th and November 22nd. On November 22nd the Orthodox Church commemorates all those Saints who are mentioned in the Apostle Paul's Epistle to Philemon; the Greeks have it as the primary feast day of Saint Philemon and his wife Saint Apphia. The commemoration by the Slavic Churches of Saint Philemon on February 19th may perhaps be due to the fact that on this day not only is Saint Archippus celebrated, but it coincides with the emancipation of the peasants in Russia from serfdom on February 19, 1861, when over 23 million people received their liberty.
