March: Day 31: Teaching 1: Hieromartyr Hypatios, Bishop of Gangra

March: Day 31: Teaching 1:
Hieromartyr Hypatios, Bishop of Gangra
 
(On Love For Enemies)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. The Holy Hieromartyr Hypatios, celebrated today, was Bishop of the city of Gangra, in Paphlagonia of Asia, and lived in the 4th century. He was present at the First Ecumenical Synod. For his God-pleasing life he was granted the gift of healing illnesses and casting out demons from people. The heretics destroyed him because he greatly affected them. Once, when the Saint was returning from Constantinople, they rushed at him from a hidden place with sticks and beat him to death. The Saint, like the Lord Himself and the Holy Archdeacon Stephen, prayed for his enemies. The murderers were not discovered and punished by human judgment, but the Lord Himself discovered and punished them with a grave illness, so that they repented and received healing at the grave of the Saint.

II. The Holy Hieromartyr Hypatios, who prayed for the forgiveness of the sins of his murderers, gives us, brethren, today a living lesson in love for our enemies.

Our heart readily agrees to love those people who have done us no harm. We love even more readily those who love us, who do us good, who console us. There is no need to convince us to repay love for love. Nature itself teaches us this. But what should we do with enemies – with people who are unpleasant to us, with people who do us harm? Should we love them too? Yes, we should. Let us discuss this.

a) "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44). Prudence says: try to make your enemies your friends. This is necessary for the lasting peace of your life.

The best means for this is love for enemies and repaying them with good for evil. Fire can be extinguished with water, and malice can be stopped, or at least diminished, by love, respect, goodwill, and philanthropy. The hardest stone is softened and loosened by fire; our most malicious enemy, from the love we constantly show him, must feel a softening and a change of malice to goodwill. This is proven by the example of Esau and Jacob, the children of the Patriarch Isaac. Esau burned with malice and anger towards Jacob. But when Jacob began to show Esau signs after signs of his love, a wonderful change followed in the heart of the evil Esau. He felt love for Jacob and acted very mercifully towards him.

b) We must also love our enemies for the benefit they bring us. Our enemies are our benefactors. They make us more careful. We are people, we have our passions, our weaknesses. We are prone to vices. We often do evil against our will. We must be stopped from evil by an outside hand. In such a case, enemies have a great and beneficial effect on our soul. By the inclination of our will, we are on the side of evil; but, having in mind our enemies, we stop, restrain ourselves from evil, fearing that our enemies will notice our evil deed, bring it to light, and subject us to unpleasant consequences that may occur from the discovery of the evil we intended. In this way, our enemies become greater benefactors to us than we are to ourselves. We decided to do evil, decided to subject ourselves to misfortune, both temporary and eternal, but, thanks be to our enemies, they did not allow us to do so. After this, why should we not love our enemies who benefit us, why should we not do good to them, why should we not pray for them? Let us be just. Let us love our enemies – our benefactors – they do not favor our passions, but they help our spiritual salvation.

c) But the main reason that prompts us to love our enemies is the will of our Lord Jesus Christ. He said, commanded us thus: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you." We must fulfill the law of the Heavenly King with even greater precision than we try to fulfill the laws of the earthly king. Do not say that it is difficult to fulfill the commandment that commands us to love our enemies. He who commanded you to do this will help you fulfill what He commanded. Just decide, just force yourself to love your enemy, sigh to God for the bestowal of well-being on your ill-wisher, make a prayerful bow in humility of spirit for the forgiveness of your enemy's sins, for the non-imputation to him of the evil he has done to you, and you will see, you will feel that God is your helper in loving your enemies.

III. Let us love our enemies. By this we can soften them, prove the correct view of the significance of enemies, and imitate and obey our Savior Jesus Christ, who prayed for His enemies and commanded us to love our enemies. Amen. 

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