Prologue in Sermons: December 11

 

When Judging Others, the Court Must Be Impartial

December 11
 
(A Sermon From the Life of Epiphanios, that one should rightly judge in court and not be partial in court to either the rich or the poor.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Some people who are appointed judges over others make mistakes in the following case. For example, a rich and a poor person come to court. The former is right, and the latter is wrong, which clearly means that the former should be considered right, and not the second. Meanwhile, another simple-minded judge thinks: “How then shall I judge the poor? For it is written: ‘You shall justify the widow, judge for the fatherless, give to the poor’” (3 Esdras 2:20). And, based on this reasoning, he justifies the poor man who is wrong, but condemns the rich man who is right, and thinks that he has done a good deed. No, brethren, this is not so. If you are a judge, do not judge as man judges, but as the Lord judges; and with the Lord there is no injustice, nor respect of person (2 Chronicles 19:7). Judge impartially, otherwise no good will come from your judgment.

Sermon 4 on the Fast of Advent (St. Leo the Great)

By St. Leo the Great

(Sermon 15: On the Fast of The Tenth Month, IV)

CHAPTER I - The threefold remedy of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving against the temptations of the devil and the wounds of sin.

We confidently exhort you, beloved, to works of piety, because experience has taught us that you willingly embrace what we urge. For you know, and by God’s instruction you understand, that the observance of the divine commandments will bring you profit toward eternal joy. Yet in fulfilling them, human frailty often grows weary, and in many ways, through the slippery weakness of our nature, it falls. Therefore the merciful and compassionate Lord has given us remedies and aids by which we may obtain pardon.

For who could escape so many enticements of the world, so many snares of the devil, and finally so many dangers arising from his own instability, unless the mercy of the eternal King preferred to restore us rather than to lose us? Even those who have already been redeemed, already reborn, and made sons of light, so long as they are detained in this world — which lies entirely in the power of the evil one (1 John 5:19) — and so long as corruptible and temporal things entice the weakness of the flesh, cannot pass these days without temptation. Nor does anyone easily attain such a bloodless victory that amid many enemies and frequent conflicts he is free not only from death but also from wounds.

Holy Martyrs Menas the Kallikelados, Hermogenes and Eugraphos in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

According to Saint Joseph the Hymnographer, the Saints we celebrate today are “multi-luminous stars” for the Church. Stars that illumine all creation, first with the light of their wondrous struggles, and then with the radiance of their miracles:

“As multi-luminous stars…you illumine all creation, victorious martyrs, with the light of your contests and the radiance of your miracles.”

What raised these Saints to such heights, according to our Church, and enabled them to extinguish the fire of atheism, was the flame of their God-inspired zeal:

“Burning with divine zeal, they extinguished the fire of atheism.”

Synaxarion of our Venerable Father Thomas Dephourkinos

St. Thomas Dephourkinos (Feast Day - December 10)

Verses

Thomas has shown himself to be an unshakable foundation of God,
Stronger than the machinations of the demons.

He had as his homeland the region lying at the foot of Mount Kyminas; and his parents were simple folk, living in self-sufficiency. Having despised all worldly things while still vigorous and in the prime of life, he aspired to the monastic life. For from childhood he was accustomed to accompany his father to the monasteries, and, being placed with a teacher in one of the holy institutions, he was given over to the training of learning. In a short time he mastered the Psalter, the words of the Apostles, and the rest of the ecclesiastical services. Such, then, were the beginnings of his life, and from this point the first fruits of the life of virtue began to appear.

The Sacred Skull of Saint Menas the Kallikelados

1734 reliquary

The silver reliquary for the Sacred Skull of Saint Menas the Athenian, also known as Kallikelados, has a dated inscription from 1734, and is from the Monastery of Dryanou in Zervati of Northern Epirus. It was kept at the Benaki Museum in Athens, where today only the outer casing remains. 

 

The Metropolis of Fthiotida, through the coordinated efforts of the late Metropolitan Nikolaos towards the administration of the Benaki Museum and the Holy Synod, received in 2006 a fragment of the Sacred Skull of the Holy Martyr Menas Kallikelados. It is kept in the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Theotokos in Lamia.