March: Day 28: Teaching 2: Venerable Martyr Eustratius the Faster of the Kiev Caves

March: Day 28: Teaching 2:
Venerable Martyr Eustratius the Faster of the Kiev Caves
 
(How Can We Be Crucified With Christ?)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Venerable Eustratius, commemorated today by the Church, a wealthy resident of the city of Kiev, distributed his property to the poor and entered the Monastery of Saint Anthony. For his great abstinence he was called "the Faster." In 1096 the Polovtsians attacked Kiev and destroyed the Caves Monastery, burned the church, plundered the monastery property and took many monks captive; Eustratius was among the latter. The Polovtsians sold him along with fifty other Christian captives to a Jew in Korsun. The Jew began to incite the captives to renounce Christ, threatening to starve them to death if they did not. The courageous Eustratius encouraged and strengthened his companions, saying: "Do not be apostates from the faith, brothers; through death we will receive eternal life." Encouraged by the words of Eustratius, the Christians resolutely declared to the Jew that they would rather die than renounce Christ. The Jew did not hesitate to carry out his threat, and they all died of starvation, some after three days, some after seven, and others after nine days. Eustratius, accustomed to prolonged fasting and abstinence, spent fourteen days without food and remained alive. On the day of the Jewish Passover, he was crucified by his master; the Jews, having nailed him to the cross, continued to mock him until one of them pierced the Holy Martyr with a spear; his body was thrown into the sea. Christians took the body from the water and brought it to Kiev, where they buried it in the caves of Saint Anthony.

II. Thus Venerable Eustratius visibly became like the crucified Lord, leaving us an example, that we may be crucified with Him and be mortified for His sake by worldly pleasures (according to the expression of the Church hymns).

a) “But where is Golgotha and the cross, necessary for such a crucifixion?” – Everywhere where you and I are, listener.

Indeed, brethren, there can be no lack of material crosses in this world. How many of Christ's followers, at different times and in different countries, ended their lives, like their Savior, on the cross? And now these cases can be repeated; for a significant part of the human race to this day considers faith in the Crucified One impious, and is ready to persecute His cross with new crosses. A Christian is not obliged to seek these crosses; but when they meet them, he must go to them without hesitation.

But these crosses are for a few: there are others, absolutely inevitable for everyone, the avoidance of which is always a crime; for crucifixion on them constitutes the essence of Christianity.

And first, brethren, the whole external world, in which we live and move, is so arranged that in it everything can become a cross for us. In the world, as the great cross-bearer Paul noted, there are troubles in the rivers, troubles in the cities, troubles in the desert, troubles in the sea (2 Cor. 11:26).

Secondly, every human society, to which we necessarily belong as members, is such that in it each one is met with many crosses, and here, as the same Apostle notes, there are troubles from robbers, troubles from relatives, troubles from false brethren, troubles from the Gentiles (2 Cor. 11:26).

Finally, the most multi-part composition of our humiliated nature, transformed by sin, forms for each one a terrible multi-cross. What a heavy cross, never removed for the spirit, is our already mortal and sinful flesh. Its very outward appearance clearly shows this: for one has only to stretch out one's hands to see in oneself a complete cross. All the more will you see it when you stretch them out in constant prayer; all the more will you see it when you stretch them out to help your neighbors, to defend persecuted innocence, to defeat strong and triumphant vice; all the more will you see it if these hands, which you decided to stretch out for good, loved and were accustomed to stretch out for evil. Paul was already crucified to the world, had long since lived a new life in Christ; and yet at times he felt the weight of the cross of the flesh so much that he cried out: "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death" (Rom. 7:24)?

Therefore, he who desires to be crucified with Christ, do not fear the lack of crosses.

b) Do you want to know, beloved, what our crucifixion itself should consist of? To understand this, imagine that you are actually on the cross. What would happen to you then? You would cease to have free movement in your arms and legs; the whole world would lose its value for you; all its blessings would become alien to you, as if non-existent; you would have only one thing left on your mind and heart: how to quickly be released from the earth and the flesh, and give up your spirit to God. Put yourself in such a state of spirit voluntarily, by the power of faith and love for Christ, and you will be crucified with Christ. The one crucified with Christ has no movements of his own free will, but everything according to the will of God; his arms and legs are also motionless to evil and untruth, like those of the one crucified on the cross; the world with its blessings and temptations is not attractive to him; the thought of the end of his earthly pilgrimage is his favorite thought; he has already been lifted up in spirit from earth to heaven, and his life is hidden in God. Be such, and you will be crucified with Christ.

c) But how can one hold on in this extremely difficult state of spirit for the flesh? And how, beloved, do those crucified hold on to the cross? With nails. Nail yourself to the cross of self-denial, first of all, with the fear of God and the thought of God. This fear casts away all sins (Sirach. 1:21) and temptations, makes a person immobile to evil and firm in good. Nail yourself to the cross with the memory of death. He who has his death before his eyes will not stretch out his hands to the forbidden fruit. Nail yourself with the hope of eternal blessings, which are promised to all who fight to the point of blood. Nail yourself finally to the cross with love for your Savior, crucified on it. This love, by its very nature, endures all things, hopes for all things, and never fails (1 Cor. 13:7). And these four nails are enough to hold the heaviest flesh on the cross of self-denial.

This cross of Christ is terrible only from the front, and behind it is paradise, not only in heaven, but on earth. An ordinary cross takes away all life from the one crucified, but the cross of Christ, taking away worldly, sinful life, gives in its place a new one, in God and Christ. As much as the outer man decays on this cross, testifies one who has experienced almost all the crosses in the world, so much the inner one is renewed every day (2 Cor. 4:16). As much as the sorrows abound for the one crucified with Christ, he says, so much more do the consolations of the Holy Spirit abound.

Indeed, can anything be more joyful for a man than to rise from the grave? But the same thing happens to him who crucifies himself with Christ to the world and sin; after the death of the flesh follows the spiritual resurrection, which, by its very nature, is the most blessed state.

III. And so, brethren, putting aside all doubt and fear, let us follow our Lord to the cross of self-denial. Seeing our faith and love, He, the Almighty and All-Good, will Himself hasten to strengthen our wavering feet in this holy and necessary feat. Amen. 

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