March: Day 15: Teaching 2:
Holy Martyr Agapios of Caesarea and Seven Others With Him
(It Was Not Fanaticism, But Zeal for the Faith That Forced the Holy Martyrs to Suffer for Christ)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
Holy Martyr Agapios of Caesarea and Seven Others With Him
(It Was Not Fanaticism, But Zeal for the Faith That Forced the Holy Martyrs to Suffer for Christ)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
I. In Rome and other large cities of the Roman Empire, bloody spectacles were often given, in which people fought with wild animals, and the people were very fond of such spectacles. Christians were often their victims, led out to be torn apart by wild animals. The Holy Martyrs whose memory the Holy Church celebrates today, suffered during one of these bloody battles, under the following circumstances. During the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, in the 3rd century, a festival in honor of the pagan gods was once held in Caesarea in Palestine, with a large gathering of people from the surrounding area. Many Christians were supposed to be among the victims at the baiting, and they were all torn apart.
The Christians who were among the spectators: Plesios, Timolaos, Romulus, Dionysios and two Alexanders could not watch indifferently as the blood of innocent sufferers flowed. They bound their own hands as a sign that they wished to suffer for Christ, appeared before the governor of the city and fearlessly confessed themselves Christians. The governor, seeing their youth and pitying them, at first gently persuaded the Holy Confessors to renounce this confession and worship idols. When all exhortations proved futile, he ordered the Christians to be locked up in prison, where they languished for a long time and finally, after many tortures, were deprived of life by beheading. Agapius, brought from Gaza, and his servant, the Egyptian Dionysios, shared the feat of martyrdom with them.
II. Listeners! Let us bow down with reverence before these suffering martyrs, before their firmness and steadfastness in confessing the name of Christ, before their death, which served as a transition to a blessed life with the Lord, and let us ask them to strengthen us in the faith and Christian patience.
But where did the holy martyrs draw their strength of steadfastness and patience? What was the reason for their invincible courage in enduring suffering? In the clear, conscious and complete conviction that they were suffering and dying for the truth, for Christ the Savior, in order to be united with Him through death, to be with Him according to His word: "Where I am, there will my servant also be" (John 14:2). This firm confidence in the immutability of the Lord's promise, combined with ardent love for Him, served as the reason for the martyrs' steadfastness in the most terrible torments.
a) It was not fanaticism that guided the sufferers for Christ, as those who do not understand suffering for true convictions think, but zeal for the faith, based on a clear understanding of Christianity, on a correct concept of the meaning of life, temporal and eternal. Can one call those fanatics who, recognizing the truth themselves, defended it against all attacks on it, exposed the lies of their tormentors fearlessly, and irrefutably demonstrated the vanity of idolatry and neo-Judaism? On the contrary, in all fairness, the persecutors and tormentors of Christians should be called fanatics; because at the basis of their religious beliefs lay a lie, which those who fundamentally recognized it as the truth could not defend, and by their stubbornness they proved their ignorance and hard-heartedness. To persist in a lie, in false beliefs, when there is a full opportunity to be dissuaded from them, and even more so to force those who reject it to suffer and be tormented - is this not the height of blind fanaticism? To think that by killing Christians you are serving God - is this not the height of madness? However, even in our times such madness appears, as we see from the still fresh examples in the actions of the Mohammedans, for whom to kill a Christian infidel means to show the valor of a true believer.
b) How can we explain the origin and manifestation of religious fanaticism? By ignorance and lack of love for one’s neighbor. The more faithfully and clearly someone understands the truth, the more reasonable he is. But the truth is only in Christianity. Christ the Savior is the light of the world (John 8:12); He enlightens every man (John 1:9) who follows Him (John 8:12). Outside the teaching of Christ, for which all the Old Testament writings prepared, there is no pure and holy truth of religion: for Christ, as God, is its original source (John 1:17; 14:6). And whoever actively believes in Christ will understand that His teaching is divine (John 7:17). A person imbued with this teaching will convince other erring ones with the word of love, and not with torture and killing in case of obstinacy. On the contrary, one-sidedness of conviction, deep-rooted error, unwilling to fully delve into the proposed truly divine teaching, will certainly be reflected in cruelty to those who hold opposing opinions, due to the very narrowness of the view on the subject, not illuminated from above by the spiritual light - from God. Christianity teaches us to look at all people as neighbors, as our brothers by nature; but all false religions limit love only to immediate relatives or, at most, to co-religionists. In such concepts, can one expect an impartial, truly human attitude of people alien to the Christian teaching, to people similar to themselves by nature, but differing essentially in their faith? Grapes are not gathered from thorns, nor figs from thistles (Matthew 7:16).
III. Brethren! It is our duty, the duty of all believing Christians, not only to be faithful to the point of self-denial, children of the Holy Church, confessors of the faith, but also to admonish the disorderly (1 Thess. 5:14), to denounce those who resist the truth and to guide them to the path of truth. By fulfilling this duty, we shall show ourselves worthy of our name as followers of Christ the Savior, imitators of the holy confessors and martyrs, faithful servants of the King of heaven and the King of the earth, co-workers in the public good, with which our private good is inseparably united. Amen.
Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
