Keeping the Fasts and The Martyrdom of the Holy Neo-Martyr John
Dear Parishioners and Friends of St. Spyridon,
Great Lent is coming early this year, because of the early date of Pascha, which will be on 11 April, NS. Already, the first Sunday of (new style) February is the first Sunday of the Triodion, the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee! Clean Monday, the first day of Great Lent, will be on (ns) Monday, February 23rd. We may feel reluctant to begin fasting again so soon after the Nativity and Theophany, but we should always remember that we do not struggle for the Faith in any way approaching the sufferings many of our ancestors endured. In place of my own message this month, I want to pass on to you the account of a brave young Greek man from the days of the Turkish domination, who was killed by the Moslems precisely because he insisted on keeping the fasts.
The Martyrdom of the Holy Neo-Martyr John (+October 21, 1773)
St. John was the son of the priest for the village of Geraki in the Monemvasia region of the Peloponnesos. When John was fifteen years’ old, Albanian Moslems raided that part of Greece. They killed the father, and took the boy and his mother prisoner. Later, the Moslems sold their prisoners as slaves. St. John was bought by a Moslem couple from Thessaloniki. This couple had no children of their own, and since John was very intelligent and handsome, they decided to adopt him. First, however, they had to get him to renounce Christ and take up the false religion of the Moslems.
Every day, this couple talked to John: they flattered him, promised him wealth and honor and an important position in life, if only he would renounce Christ. When this failed, they began to threaten him with punishment and tortures. Finally, the master flew into a rage. He dragged the boy into the courtyard of the mosque. There, several Moslems gathered around. They began to kick and beat the boy, demanding that he renounce Christ. One of them even put a pistol to John’s head and shouted, “Accept the faith of Mohammed, or I will shoot you!” St. John boldly replied, “I will not become a Moslem; I am a Christian, and I shall die a Christian.”
When all this failed, the old women began to try every charm and evil spell which their superstition thought was magic.
In the meantime, the “fifteen-in-August” arrived. Since John refused to break this fast and eat non-lenten food, his master became enraged. He threw the young Saint into a cellar, and each day during the fast he tortured the boy. At times, the fanatical torturer would hang John from a rafter and burn straw beneath him, or beat him with the flat of his sword until his body was bruised and bleeding. All this cruel torment the master did in order to force the boy to break God’s holy fast. But, like the three children in the furnace, St. John was protected by the Grace of God. He called upon the Holy Virgin Theotokos for help, and she strengthened him.
St. John was ready to die rather than disobey the Holy Church by breaking the fast. As a final attempt, the youth’s own mother was brought to him. When she saw her son all wounded and suffering, she began to weep and beg him to eat the Moslem’s meat. But the young martyr strengthened his mother, telling her, “Why are you doing this, mother? Why don’t you be like Abraham, who, out of love for the Creator, was willing to sacrifice his only son? ...if we do not keep the lesser commandments, how can we keep the greater?”
Finally, his master, seeing that he could not prevail upon John to abandon the Faith of Christ or to break his fast, was greatly enraged and dealt him a fatal stab to the heart. While dying, the Martyr directed his mother to exhume his relics and take them back to their village, which his mother did. And now his fragrant relics are found in his village, firstly to support piety and faith, and secondly to shame and censure those Christians who are slaves to their bellies and who do not keep the fasts handed down by the Church of Christ, to Whom be glory and power unto the ages. Amen.
Five Paths to Repentance
Would you like me to list also the paths of repentance? They are numerous and quite varied, and all lead to heaven.
A first path of repentance is the condemnation of your own sins. For this reason, too, the prophet wrote: “ I said, I will accuse myself of my sins to the Lord, and You forgave the wickedness of my heart.” Therefore, you too should condemn your own sins; that will be enough reason for the Lord to forgive you, for a man who condemns his own sins is slower to commit them again. Rouse your conscience to accuse yourself within your own house, lest your conscience become your accuser before the judgment seat of the Lord.
That, then, is one path of repentance. Another and no less valuable one is to put out of our minds the harm done us by our enemies, in order to master our anger, and to forgive our fellow servants’ sins against us. Then our own sins against the Lord will be forgiven us.
Do you want to know of a third path? It consists of prayer that is fervent and careful and comes from the heart.
If you want to hear of a fourth, I will mention almsgiving, whose power is great and far-reaching.
If, moreover, a man lives a modest, humble life, that, no less than the other things I have mentioned, takes sin away. Proof of this is the taxcollector who had no good deeds to mention, but offered his humility instead and was relieved of a heavy burden of sins.
Thus, I have shown you five paths of repentance: condemnation of your own sins, forgiveness of our neighbor’s sins against us, prayer, almsgiving, and humility.
- from a homily by St. John Chrysostom