Light of Christianity 2010c

A C O R P U S D E S I G N E D F O R T H E FA I T H F U L
LIGHT OF CHRISTIANITY
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Christian Church, is the period of 40 days from Ash Wednesday to the day before
Pascha, during which some Christians give up some type of food or activity that they
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The Holy Lent
Great Lent is the period that comes before the Feast of Pascha and lasts forty days and begins on
the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee (the tenth one before Pascha) and concludes with
Great Sunday. Called according to the book where the liturgical services performed at that time are
described in detail, the Triodion period is distinguished through the deep spiritual and repentant
specific character of the liturgical content, all of them preparing Christians for the Passions of the
Saviour Christ, but especially for His Resurrection. It is also a time for repentance pre-eminently
and coming back to God, which reminds Christians firstly of the forty days spent by the Saviour in
the desert of Caranthania, immediately after His Baptism. It is the period in which catechumens
spent the last forty days of their proper preparation for receiving Baptism on Pascha. Catechumens
are adult people prepared for receiving Baptism in early Christianity. The forty-day period of Great
Lent relies on a tradition in the Old Testament, documented several times. According to the East-
ern tradition, fasting always had a deeply spiritual character, aiming especially at what the Holy
Fathers would call “metanoia”, namely the deep inner change of man. Therefore, fasting, in gener-
al, but especially Great Lent, requests a special skill. The genuine spirit of Great Lent is however
found at the time of the repentance established by the Church for all its sons, whatever their spir-
itual level, for a forty-day period. A fast is one of the church orders through whose agency the
Church guides the life of its believers to the ways of real experience, virtues and honouring God.
Christianity conferred on fasting a special meaning in religious life, especially in monastic life, mak-
ing an action of virtue and worship, a mean of progress in spiritual life, fight against passions and
desires of it. However, fasting itself is the most obvious sign of the respect and sacrifice towards
God. According to the Christian conception, fasting is the effort made pre-eminently by Christians
for mending their life, through restoring the supremacy of their soul over their body. Their effort
relies on an unchangeable fight, which consists in strengthening their will and sound good sense,
disciplining their instincts, restraining their soul, aiming at fulfilling the inner balance in which the
spirit, namely the superior and noble part of the human being, must prevail.
The term “Triodion” firstly designates the period during the
ecclesiastical year when Christians make themselves ready
spiritually for entering the Holy Lent and the Feast of the Re-
surrection of the Lord. On the other hand, the term is used to
call the liturgical book used at that time, namely “the Triodion”.
The origin of the term can be deduced from the fact that dur-
ing the Matins canons, only three hymns are sung at that time,
in contrast with the other periods of the ecclesiastical year,
when nine hymns are sung. The other hymns are replaced with
six biblical hymns. Precise rules related to the duration and
forms of practising the fast in early Christianity are not men-
tioned. The first Christians did probably fast according to the
Jewish tradition, although the Christian Church did not any
fast of the Old Law. It seems to explain masterly the influence
had by the Jewish ritual on the Christian one. As concerns the
Christian fast, its origin, structure and spiritual meaning, it is
entirely the creation of the Christian genius, being cultivated
and improved in the monastic tradition, and then accepted by the entire Church. After Christi-
Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 3

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ans practised fasting as an act of personal piety, which relied on the religious freedom and zeal
of every Christian, in the beginning, in time, the Church authority formulated rules and guid-
ances, more or less precise, thus establishing the time, duration and kind of fasting. Those
rules would appear after the 4th century, simultaneously with the regulation of the discipline
of catechumens and repentance, but especially with improving the Church organisation. Great
Lent, namely the fast before the Resurrection of the Lord, is the most difficult and long one
among the four fasts of the Orthodox Church. It is also one of the most intense liturgical times
of the Eastern Church, as well as of other Christian Churches. It is generally called by the
people “Great Lent”, and the name “Forty Days remembrance” (“Tessarakoste” in Greek and
“Quadragesima” in Latin), which was met for the first time in the 5 th canon of the First Ecu-
menical Council held in Nicaea in 325, would be perfectly justified for the six weeks that rep-
resented the Holy Lent in olden times, but it was considered ended on Lazarus' Friday (the Fri-
day before Palm Sunday), while Lazarus' Saturday and Palm Sunday were considered different
feasts. At the end of the 4th century, the Holy Lent, which began on Sundays (one day) and las-
ted five whole weeks, ended on Holy Thursday (other four days). The rule is also met today in
the Ambrosian Rite. The forty days firstly symbolise the forty days spend by the Saviour in the
desert of Caranthania, immediately after His Baptism, namely before He began preaching. The
practice of “Forty Days remembrance” was adopted by the Christian Church as far back as be-
fore the 4th century, and it really represented the preparation time of catechumens for their
Baptism. Since the 4th century, however, the catechumenal character of “Forty Days remem-
brance” was increasingly replaced with the penitential one in order then the Church to take
“the garment of repentance” under the influence of monasticism. The Holy Fathers and church
writers consider the Holy Lent as an institution of apostolic origin. In the first three centuries,
the duration and kind of fasting were not uniform everywhere. The end of the 3rd century rep-
resents the moment when the Holy Lent would be divided into two different periods, with two
different names, namely “the Lent of Forty Days remembrance”, which lasted until Palm
Sunday, having a changeable duration, and “Great Lent”, which lasted one week, namely
between Palm Sunday and Great and Holy Pascha. The Eastern Church would definitively ad-
opt the old practice of Antiochian origin of the six-week fast only after standardising the day of
Pascha, decided at the First Ecumenical Council held in Nicaea in 325. According to the Ortho-
dox rule, the Sunday of the Expulsion of Adam from Paradise is the last meal before the begin-
ning of Great Lent and Christians fast until Holy Saturday inclusive.
In the Eastern tradition, fasting always had a deep spiritual character, aiming especially at
what the Holy Fathers would name “metanoia”, namely the deep inner change of man. Such an
understand of fasting, especially of the Holy Lent, is masterly represented by beautiful and im-
pressive Byzantine iconography. Unfortunately, today, very few people who still makes sensit-
ive the deep meaning of fasting in general, and especially Great Lent, reducing it to just some
rules more or less essential. The tragedy of misunderstanding the Holy Lent is caused by ig-
noring the Triodion because doing not know the Triodion deprives Christians of a true under-
standing of the Lent, its purposes and meanings, reducing it to a so-called legal obligation and
a set of dietary rules. The true discovery and concern of the Lent is almost lost today and there
is other way of rediscovering it only by carefully listening to the hymns of the Triodion. The
first four weeks of the Triodion period prepare Christians both spiritually and bodily for en-
tering the Holy Lent. Beginning with the first Sunday of the Triodion, called the Sunday of the
Publican and the Pharisee, the hymns specific to the period are sung at Matins. After the
second Sunday of the Triodion, called the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, another day specific to
the period is the Winter Saturday of remembrance of the souls on the Saturday preceding
4 The Holy Lent

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Judgement Sunday. Since then, Christians should not eat meat anymore and therefore it is also
called Meatfare Sunday. In the fourth week, the one called Cheesefare Week Christians get
started into the Holy Lent atmosphere in order they to no longer eat meat on Sunday of the Ex-
pulsion of Adam from Paradise.
The liturgical services of the
Holy Lent preserved their
catechetical and baptismal
character until today, being
not only ordinary vestiges
of the past at all, but the
clear source from which Or-
thodoxy borrows for dilut-
ing its thirst and need for
perfection, always present.
Every year, Great Lent and
Pascha are again the means
by which Christians redis-
cover and restore their ini-
tial state to which they were
raised through their own
death and resurrection
within the Holy Baptism.
The Holy Lent can be like-
wise understood as the time
for salvation, as a time for
repentance and return to
Christ, but the spiritual di-
mension of the Holy Lent is
the mood to carefully and
continuously obey the Word
of God since It enlightens
Christians and guides them
to firstly recognise their sins. Reconciliation with the neighbour, actually the fundamental idea
of genuine repentance with external values, really represents the return to the self, but espe-
cially welcoming the neighbour. While reconciliating with the neighbour represents the basic
idea of genuine repentance, forgiveness is the key that opens the path of Great Lent, some-
thing that the Church asks Christians for fulfilling it on the Sunday of the Expulsion of Adam
from Paradise, in the evening, during the Vespers called the service of forgiveness. Christians
enter the Holy Lent and pass through the stage of Great Lent, reconciliated with their neigh-
bour and God, always thinking of the conscience of their paltriness and not wronging their
neighbours to recover their genuine ascension to the Resurrection. The genuine spirit of the
Holy Lent is, therefore, found at the time of repentance established by the Church for its sons,
whatever their spiritual level, for forty days. Great Lent, the oldest fast of Christianity, occupies
the most time of the Triodion period. The liturgical services at that time are full of special
hymns, biblical readings, destined to prepare Christians and advise them to do penance and
spiritual chastity. It is also the only period in the ecclesiastical year when all the Holy Litur-
gies, namely the ones of Saint John Chrysostom, Basil the Great and Gregory the Dialogist, are

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officiated.
In the vision of the Church, the Holy Lent always represented the spiritual journey whose des-
tination is Pascha, “the feast of feasts”. The journey is deeply justified by that, between the
Holy Lent and Pascha, there is an indissoluble relation, which can be discovered by someone
by carefully understanding both of them. Because of the weakness of the human nature and
because people cannot live steadfastly, they scatter and forget too quickly that the Resurrec-
tion of Christ, which is a unique event, is actually the only thing through which life makes
sense and makes life beautiful. Therefore, through its solid and genuine liturgical traditions,
through its liturgical services and well-determined liturgical times, the Orthodox Church
wants to help Christians discover and sincerely wish the new and true life, which they easily
scatter and not notice it, namely Christ. The book called “the Triodion” contains hymns and
liturgical orders, composed by famous hymnographers over centuries of Christianity. In the
6th-7th centuries, Saint Romanos the Melodist and his disciples composed the first hymns, for
the liturgical services of the main feasts officiated at that time, inspired from biblical readings.
Until that time, the specific of the Triodin had consisted, besides reading some Psalms, in
singing a hymn at the Sunday liturgical service and at the service of Hours, every day. Based on
that foundation, Saint Romanos the Melodist composed the first hymns of the Triodion. In the
outlook of the Orthodox Church, the first man, Adam, would lose the habit of fasting as far
6 The Holy Lent

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back as Paradise. Therefore, the Holy Fathers, as some prophets of the divine signs, would fix
the rule of fasting, especially the one of Great Lent, which begins just since the Sunday of the
Expulsion of Adam from Paradise. In other words, the purpose of fasting in general, but espe-
cially the one of the Holy Lent, requests a special skill, being the time in and through which the
Church shows its sons the image of repentance, but also the means of fulfilling it, since the
path of the sin and paltriness is not easy to change at all. It needs, from time to time, days or
periods of fasting in which the spiritual fight with passions of the body and soul to be
strengthened and intensified through a conscious and more harsh restrain of the body in or-
der it to become an efficient way for fulfilling spiritual aspirations and ascend to God, the
source and perfect incarnation of the Good. The purpose of fasting is also the one of releasing
man from the majestic possession of meat and the spirit from the tyranny of the body and its
passions, the tragical result of the sin and the original fall of man. Man will discover that “man
shall not live by bread alone” only by making a continuous effort and will understand that he
will mend the superiority of the spirit only like that. The superiority of the spirit involves,
through its intimate structure, a continuous and unceasing effort. Time is important because
Christians need it to eradicate and heal the generalised sickness, which people started to con-
sider it as their default condition. The skill of fasting was continuously cultivated and im-
proved in the monastic tradition, being then accepted by the entire Church. It is the experi-
mentation by man of the words of Christ, Who says that the diabolical powers that enslaved
man can be defeated only by prayer and fasting. It comes from the example of Christ Himself,
Who fasted forty days, then met Satan in person. Providentially, that clash would change the
inclination of man “only by bread alone” and would mark his release. In the Christian Church
of the first centuries, the Feast of Pascha was anticipated by one or two days of fasting. Those
two days of fasting seem to have been founded not so much with a view to the Feast of the Re-
surrection of the Lord, as especially for receiving the Holy Baptism by catechumens, in the
night of Pascha. The practice of fasting was therefore reserved to catechumens, then extended
to the ceremonial of Baptism and, finally, to the whole Church. That incipient form of fasting
did have a penitential character by no means, but rather an ascetic-illuminating one. In the
period of the early Church, the Sunday before Pascha was also called “Passion Sunday” in
Rome, and on Passion Wednesday and Passion Friday, the Holy Liturgy was not officiated. The
extension of fasting to the whole week that went before the Feast of Pascha was initially a
liturgical practice specific only to the Alexandrian Church. Likewise, during the three weeks
preceding the Feast of Pascha, it was customary in the early Church pericopes in the Gospel ac-
cording to John to be read, since it was rich in passages related both to the approach of the
Feast of Pascha and to the activity of the Saviour Jesus Christ in Jerusalem. The continuous
preparation would be justified by the penitential practice in the beginning because penitent
people submitted to a period of intense preparation of forty days. The term of “Forty Days re-
membrance” undoubtedly comes from that practice. They passed through that stage of fasting
according to the rules of the Old Testament, namely by putting on clothes made from sacks
and covering their head with ashes, as a sign of deep penance and as a spiritual exercise. In the
life of the Church, during the first three centuries, there was not a preparation period for the
Feast of Pascha, since the Christian community experienced the Christian creed so intensely,
countless times even until the limit of martyrdom, that a need for a period necessary for re-
newing the promises from the Baptism was not felt. In the 4 th century, however, the only week
of fasting was the one that went before Pascha. The official orders that established the discip-
line of fasting would be standardised and definitively fixed everywhere only in the age that
went before the Great Schism (the 8th - 9th centuries), what led to the materialisation of the

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rule of fasts and fasting. The one that would record details related to the discipline of fasting in
the early Church would be church historian Socrates (380-450).
In the 6th century, Palestine became
the centre of iconographic creation.
The so-called poetical canon ap-
peared at that time, which was spe-
cific to daily liturgical services. The
hymnographers of the Palestinian
period concentrated especially on
composing the hymns in Holy Week.
Hymnographers such as Sophronius
of Jerusalem, Andrew of Crete, Saint
John of Damascus, Saint Cosmas of
Maiuma composed the hymns that
are also sung today in Passion
Week. Their followers, in the 7th
century, composed new hymns for
the other period of Great Lent, sim-
ultaneously paving the way for the
pedagogical, didactic form of the
liturgical hymn in the Triodion. In
the 9th century, after the uneasy
period in the life of the Church,
caused by iconoclasm,, the hymns of
the Triodion were improved at the Stoudios Monastery, under the guidance of Saint Theodore
the Studite. It is said that besides the canons and verses composed for Saturdays, Sundays and
festivals, he is the author of a complete series of three-ode canons (from which the term “Trio-
dion” comes), kathismas and verses for all ordinary days of Great Lent. A Kathisma, literally,
“seat”, is a division of the Psalter, used by Eastern Orthodox Christians and Eastern Catholics
who follow the Byzantine Rite. There, Saint Theodore the Studite, shows, on one hand, his rich
monastic teaching in a deeply faithful way towards the best tradition, and on the other hand,
he gives himself up to dotting the periods of Great Lent and the stages leading to Passion Week
rhythmically. The work of Saint Theodore the Studite was continued in the next centuries by
other two hymnographers. The last stage of the present-day structure of the Triodion was ma-
terialised in the 11th - 12th centuries, when the then hymnographers concerned themselves es-
pecially with filling the gaps and adapting the hymns to musical requirements. Called “meta-
phrastical”, the period was mainly authored by Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos,
Saint Simeon the Translator, and others. At that time, it was needed, once the cycle of liturgical
hymns ended, specific to the Triodion period, they to be systematised and recorded in one
worship book. The first collection gathered only the hymns of Passion Week. Immediately
after that, the collection was added the hymns of the other days in the Triodion period. Thus,
the first synthesised form of the Triodion appeared, which later also included the hymns of the
Resurrection, specific to the Pentecostarion. The Triodion was divided into “the Wailing Triod-
ion” (the present-day Triodion) and the Festal Triodion (the present-day Pentecostarion). It
was mainly possible because the hymns of the Resurrection were composed by the same hym-
nographers as the ones of the Triodion. It is not certainly known when the hymns of the two
periods were separated, but it is definitely sure that, in the 15th century, there was a final form
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of the present-day Triodion. In 1522, in Venice, Italy, the first original Greek “Triodion”, used as
a model until today, without many changes, was printed. The explanation is given by the treas-
ure inherited from the centuries when the Church took care of showing its teaching and estab-
lishing its liturgical order, which was also dynamically maintained in the liturgical and dog-
matical tradition.
The number 40, which appears
in the Old Testament several
times, might have played a major
part in determining and fixing
the duration of the Holy Lent.
The main event involving the
number 40 would be the forty
days of the Flood, the forty days
spent by Moses on Mount Sinai,
the forty days when the spies of
the Jews pried into the land of
Canaan, where they would enter,
the forty days through which Eli-
as the Prophet passed to get to
Mount Horeb, forty days God put
forth to the people of Nineveh, to
repent it. In the New Testament,
there are certain key-passages
where the number of forty days
is mentioned, namely the forty
days spent by the Saviour in the
desert of Caranthania, the forty
days passed from the Resurrec-
tion to the Ascension, a time
when the Saviour taught the
Holy Apostles the last teachings.
A last clue as important as the
other ones is the forty years
spent by the people of Israel in
the wilderness. The symbolism of that period is a strong one and it certainly represents the
time when God tests the faithfulness of the sons of Israel, for the renaissance of a new genera-
tion loyal to Him. Right from the start, the Church ordered liturgical services, which, officiated
in certain moments of a day, make sacrifice and praise God. Vespers, the evening service, was
and still is one of the most beautiful church worships that are officiated every day. The litur-
gical service opens the liturgical rule on every day and includes many divine signs. The term
“Vespers” comes both from Greek and Latin, meaning “evening”, in this case “evening service”.
Vespers is a liturgical service officiated in the evening. It opens the daily divine service, being
the first one of the seven Church Worships. In olden times, Vespers was officiated after sunset.
The church evening prayer was formulated and practised as a service when it is getting dark
and it consequently had to be fulfilled when lights were switched on. Today, it is officiated at
four o'clock in the afternoon or five o'clock in the afternoon in the winter. Vespers is also offici-
ated today after sunset, but only during the All-night vigil, when Vespers is united with other

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liturgical services. The tradition, observed especially at monasteries, but also parishes, on
dedication days, reminds Christians of the times when Christianity appeared, when a worship
was especially officiated in the evening or at night, in secret, to beware of the Roman authorit-
ies, who were pagan. Another reason for which liturgical services are officiated in the evening
or at night is the note of solemnity and the atmosphere of mystery that specially predispose
the religious soul to prayer. There are certain cases when the service of Vespers is officiated in
the morning, namely when Vespers is united with the Holy Liturgy. It is especially done during
the Holy Lent, when the Holy Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts is officiated on common days. Ves-
pers can be likewise united with the Holy Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great on four days during
the ecclesiastical year, namely on Christmas Eve and Theophany Eve, as well as on Holy
Thursday and Holy Saturday. When the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary is on one of the days
from Monday to Friday, the Vespers of that liturgical day is united with the Holy Liturgy of
Saint John Chrysostom, and on Pentecost Sunday, the Vespers of the next day is officiated im-
mediately after the Holy Liturgy. The service of Vespers is mainly intended to make a thanks-
giving sacrifice to God for the previous day. At the same time, because it is the service that
opens the liturgical order of a certain day, Christians ask the help of God through its agency.
From the viewpoint of the liturgical order, there are three kinds of Vespers, namely Vespers of
feasts or Great Vespers, Small Vespers and the one of common days. Great Vespers is officiated
in the evening before Sundays, royal feasts and on dedication days. It is the most known and
the most frequently used order. In some feasts, the rule of the evening Christian agapae is
done during Vespers. Small Vespers has a shorter rule, is an abbreviation of Great Vespers and
is found in Liturgy Book only at feast days with a vigil service. It is also officiated when a
church is dedicated, on dedication days, and monasteries officiate it at all feast days with a vi-
gil service and before the evening meal. The Vespers of common days is officiated only at mon-
asteries, with a rule similar to the one of Great Vespers.
Besides the well-known orders of Vespers, there are
also some liturgical services of Vespers, which have
a certain character. Thus, the Vespers officiated on
Holy Friday is known by all the Christians because
the Holy Ephitaphyon is taken out from the Holy Al-
tar and placed in the middle of the church during it.
It is also known the Vespers officiated on Holy
Monday, also called “the second Resurrection”,
which is officiated on Great and Holy Pascha, about
twelve o'clock. Another special rule of Vespers is of-
ficiated on Pentecost-Trinity Sunday, immediately
after the Holy Liturgy. During it, the seven prayers,
all of them related to the Descent of the Holy Spirit,
are read. One of the most beautiful prayers read by
the priest while officiating the liturgical service is
“the Preparatory Prayer”. It is uttered by the priest
during the Little Entrance, when he got to the
middle of the church. The prayer includes all the re-
quests addressed by Christians to God during the
evening liturgical service and shows the mysterious
meaning of Vespers. The Church kept the Jewish tradition for computing time, and a liturgical
day is considered the interval of time between two consecutive evenings. The worship of a
10 The Holy Lent

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liturgical day includes seven liturgical services, called church worships, among which the first
one is Vespers. It opens the series of liturgical services of a day. An evening is an important
moment of a day, a moment when it is proper Christians to thank God for everything
happened that day, begging Him, at the same time, to deliver them from the fear of the night
and everything is executed in the dark. Christians can thank God for everything in the church,
praising God at the same time and hallowing that moment of day through their presence there.
Christians are more and more interested in Vespers especially in the last years, when those
who attend the liturgical services are on the increase. It is true that unlike those who attend
the Holy Liturgy, their number is much lower or unlike those who come to other liturgical ser-
vices that are officiated, such as Holy Unction or Akathists, their number is again very low.
Holy Unction is the holy work officiated in the name of the Holy Trinity by the Church Servers,
through which the unseen grace of healing or comforting the sufferings of the body, strength-
ening of the soul and forgiveness of sins is shared to the sick. An akathist is a hymn dedicated
to a saint, holy event, or one of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. However, it is not important the
comparison because one cannot talk about competition among liturgical services within the
Orthodox Ritual. All liturgical services are useful, all of them were ordered by the Church for
Christians, all of them call them to gather together before God, but man unfortunately looks
for something that can ensure him an instant usefulness. He may feel more attracted by the
liturgical service of an akathist than by Vespers, but it does not mean that one is more import-
ant than another. Christians must understand and accept them openly alike. The little number
of Christians who attend Vespers is firstly caused by doing not know its importance within
church worships and preferring other liturgical services, which are closer to what Christians
expect from God. It is also caused by the hour when it is officiated, towards the evening, when
many Christians are tired after their daily activities or, in the case of grown-ups, can go harder
to church. However, it is not an argument justified enough to attend Vespers, especially on Sat-
urday in the evening, which comes after a free day. It is hoped that, in time, God will bring
more and more believers to Vespers and more and more Christians will understand that a
Sunday started with the Vespers on Saturday in the evening is more beautiful than one
without Vespers. The end of a day, when the sun sets over everything that happened, is an im-
portant moment in the life of every Christian, especially that the darkness of the night, which
reminds them of the end of their life, is going to seize him. There is a moment when Christians
must remember God and, if they do that in church, is much better. At the same time, Vespers,
through its prayers and hymns, help Christians not only pray to God, but also learn something.
There is not any text, uttered or sung, that plays a catechetical or educational part. Nothing
that happens in church is actually by chance, but everything has a purpose. It is important
Christians to strive after understanding what happens, being successful in getting over the
situation in which they attend the liturgical service and managing to attend it. To do that, mys-
tagogical catecheses, namely the ones of explaining the ritual, are very important, which are
observed by the Church Servers and are some of the priorities of the pastoral activity of today.
Beginning with the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, the Church records the entrance
of Christians into the period preceding the Holy Pascha. Called according to the book where
the liturgical services are officiated at that time and rendered in detail, the Triodion period is
distinguished through the deeply spiritual and penitential character of the liturgical content,
all of them preparing Christians for the Passions of the Saviour Jesus Christ, but especially for
His Resurrection.
The Holy Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts or the one of Saint Gregory the Dialogist is the third
liturgy of the Orthodox Church and is officiated on the Wednesdays and Fridays during the

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Holy Lent. Although the bloodless sacrifice is not offered and the gifts of bread and wine are
not blessed, it wears the name of Liturgy because the priest partakes Christians of the Holy
Sacraments during it. The Holy Liturgy or the Holy Sacraments of Eucharist is the centre of the
Orthodox Ritual, the target towards all the other liturgical services, weekly or daily, tend, the
peak towards which any Sacrament of the Church and any human endeavour in the world
tends. During the Holy Liturgy, the gifts of bread and wine, brought and offered by believers to
God, are made, through the work of the Holy Spirit, into the Body and Blood of the Saviour Je-
sus Christ, and then, by receiving the Resurrected Body and Blood of Christ, Who ascended
into Heaven and Sits at the right hand of the Father, the faithful attend the kingdom of God.
Knowing the festive and happy character of the Holy Liturgy, as far back as the first centuries
of Christianity, the Fathers of the Church decided the Holy Liturgy not to be officiated beyond
Saturdays and Sundays during the Holy Lent because Great Lent is pre-eminently a time for
ascetic life, moderation and repentance, which does not correspond to the joy of the Holy
Liturgy. However, because many believers wished for also receiving the Eucharist during a
week, keeping a part of the Gifts sanctified during the Liturgy of the previous Saturday, be-
came a habit with churches. Partaking the faithful of the Holy Sacraments took place in the
evening, after Vespers, when those who had fasted could eat. Thus, the liturgical service
known today as the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts, a combination of Vespers with the Liturgy,
originated. Although the Holy Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts can be officiated every day during
Great Lent (excepting Saturdays and Sundays, aliturgical days – on Mondays and Tuesdays of
the first week and on Friday in Passion Week, when no Holy Liturgy is officiated), it is used
today to be officiated only on Wednesdays and Fridays, on the Great Canon Thursday (in the
5th week), and on some important church feasts. In the beginning, the Holy Liturgy of Presanc-
tified Gifts was officiated in the evening, when Vespers was usually officiated. Thus, believers
fasted that day, and the Holy Liturgy was a vigil or night service, namely it began in the even-
ing and ended late, during the night. Today, in most of the churches, the Holy Liturgy of Pres-
anctified Gifts is however officiated in the morning, making Vespers be moved later.
The liturgical service begins with Great Vespers, al-
though the doxology in the beginning belongs to a Holy
Liturgy. A doxology is a short hymn of praises to God in
various Christian worship services, often added to the
end of canticles, psalms, and hymns. A canticle is a hymn
(strictly excluding the Psalms) taken from the Bible.
After the evening Psalm, the 18th kathisma of the Psalter,
divided into three parts, is read. A Kathisma, literally
“seat”, is a division of the Psalter, used by Eastern Ortho-
dox Christians and Eastern Catholics who follow the
Byzantine Rite. The word may also describe a hymn
sung at Matins, a seat used in monastic churches, or a
type of monastic establishment. The priest begins the
liturgical procession with the Holy Gospel and the hymn
“Gladsome Light” is sung. Afterwards, the priest pro-
ceeds to the proper service of the Holy Liturgy by read-
ing two fragments of Genesis and Proverbs. A special
ritual accompanies reading those fragments from the
Old Testament, namely the priest takes a candle and
censer and blesses all the Christians before the Holy Doors with them. A censer is a container
12 The Holy Lent

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for holding and burning incense (a substance that produces a pleasant smell), used especially
during religious ceremonies. Then, the priest incenses the Holy Table and Altar, during which
five verses of Psalm 140, beginning with the second one, are read. The Holy Altar is a holy
table in a church or temple. A very solemn moment takes place when the priest proceeds with
the Great Entry with the Holy Gifts. During the other Holy Liturgies, that solemn moment
means the procession with the entry with the Holy Gifts from the Proscomidiar, through the
middle of the church, and offering them to God as a sacrifice on the Holy Table. During the
Holy Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, the priest proceeds with Body and Blood of Christ Him-
self. As the Holy Gifts are carried solemnly through the Holy Doors, the assemble faithful con-
clude a Cherubic Hymn. The priest proceeds with the entry with the Holy Gifts in very deep si-
lence. After “the Lord's Prayer”, the faithful receive the Eucharist, while a hymn is sung at the
lectern. A lectern is a stand for holding a book, notes and so on when people are reading in
church, giving a talk and so forth. The last prayer of the Holy Liturgy shows its relationship to
the ascetic effort during Great Lent.
By tradition, the author of the Holy Liturgy of
Presanctified Gifts is considered Saint Gregory
the Dialogist, the bishop of Rome, although its
text is much older. Born around 540 into a Chris-
tian senatorial family, Gregory enjoyed a good
education, becoming a praefect of Rome in 570.
After short time, however, he left his dignity and
entered a monastery. He shared one half of his
fortune to the poor, and spent the other half for
founding seven monasteries. He was ordained
priest by Pope Pelagius II, who sent him as his
ambassador depending on the imperial court
between 579 and 585. In Constantinople, he con-
tributed to systematising the written Holy
Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts. Back to Rome, he
became Pope of the city in 589. The new bishop
inherited a difficult situation, namely plague,
famine, natural calamities and the seizure of
Rome by the Lombards. Saint Gregory fought
against all those hardships, namely concluded
peace with the Lombards, got food for hungry
and oppressed people, reformed monastic and
church life and warred with heresies. A heresy is a belief or an opinion that is against the prin-
ciples of a particular religion and the fact of holding such beliefs. He left a rich work. He re-
formed liturgical music, establishing the rules that led to the crystallisation of Gregorian mu-
sic, specific to the Roman Catholic Church. He passed on to the everlasting life on 12 th March,
604, , when he is also celebrated by the Orthodox Church. He is buried in Saint Peter's Basilica
of Rome. The reason for which the customary Liturgy is not officiated on the ordinary days of
Great Lent is the incompatibility between the festive and happy character of the Holy Liturgy
and the temperance involved by the harshness of fasting. If the Holy Eucharist is the fulfilment
of the pains of Christians, the target towards which they tend, the fundamental joy of their
Christian life, it is also necessarily the origin and beginning of their spiritual troubles, the di-
vine gift that help them know, want and strive after a perfect communion in the fine day of the

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Kingdom of God. Because the Kingdom of God, although it came, although it comes to the
Church, will be fulfilled at the end of time, when God will fill the whole creation with His Spirit.
Christians know that and attend in and taste it before it is done, and they are now participants
in the Kingdom of God that has to come. They see and taste its glory and blessing before it is
done, but they are still on earth and their entire earthly existence is, however, a long and often
painful journey to the Day of the Lord. During their journey, they need help and support,
strength and comfort because the swayer of this world did not give up fight yet, and during
their fight, their main help is just the Body and Blood of Christ, “the essential food” that keep
them alive spiritually, and despite all the temptations and dangers, make them follow Christ.
The Orthodox Church calendar informs Christians of the Cross, and celebrate it every year on
the 3rd Sunday of the Holy Lent. It is the Cross on which the Saviour Jesus Christ was crucified
and the cross the Church has it fresh in its memory as a divine sacrifice altar and blessed sign
through which the world is hallowed. In the middle of the way that leads to the Resurrection,
the faithful receive more power and are encouraged to face the effort of fasting. However, the
Cross is a part of the voice of the Christian faith, intimately implanted into the souls of Christi-
ans right from the start. The words of the Holy Gospel, the icons and the cross are the house-
hold of any Christian. The Seventh Ecumenical Council officially decided that they worth the
same degree of honour because they are actually ways of the presence of God, namely through
word, image, and the most living proof of love, specifically the sacrifice. For Christians, even
the ordinary shape of two perpendicular lines is the most obvious icon of the sacrifice of the
Saviour and the sign of the victory.
During the persecution period, until Emperor Con-
stantine the Great, there are generally no symbolisa-
tions of the Cross on monuments or graves in cata-
combs. Catacombs are a series of underground tun-
nels used for burying dead people, especially in an-
cient times. More often than not, the Cross appeared
under disguised shapes such as an anchor or a tri-
dent. A trident is a weapon used in the past that
looks like a long fork with three points. It also ap-
pears as the Greek letter x-shaped monogram, the
so-called Cross of Saint Andrew. Even the freedom
granted through the Edict of Milan, issued in 313, did
not mean an immediate provision for Christians to
show the Cross as a symbol of their faith. One of the
most clear representations of the Cross is found on
the sarcophagus of Sextus Claudius Petronius Probus
at Rome in 390. A sarcophagus is a stone coffin (that
is a box in which a dead person is buried), especially
one that is decorated, used in ancient times. Occa-
sionally, a sign of simple Cross (the one with all arms of equal length), engraved on tomb-
stones in catacombs of Jerusalem, Malta or Rome, can be also seen. The sign of the Cross came
into general use only at the beginning of the 5 th century. The few archaeological evidences do
not lead, however, to the conclusion that the first Christians neglected the sign of the Cross.
After Emperor Constantine the Great abolished crucifixion as a form of public punishment, the
artistic representation of the Crucifixion did not stand for showing the disgraceful punish any-
more, but it became the visible form of the redeeming action of the God in Whom the emperor
14 The Holy Lent

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also believed. Right from the start, the faith of Christians was one of the victory of Christ over
evil. The rise from the dead was the absolute form of His victory, but the representation of the
death of Christ on the Cross appeared later than the one of the Cross as a symbol. In the oldest
scenes of the Crucifixion that were kept, Jesus is represented alive on the Cross, being
rendered with His eyes open for dogmatic reasons. The Church showed that Christ is true God
and true man, although He remained one indivisible person. If He would have been represen-
ted dead or buried, people would have wondered what had happened to His divinity. There-
fore, it seems that since the 4th century to the 7th century, artists avoided representing Christ
dead on the Cross. He is represented with stretched hands, lifted head and open eyes, in a very
living attitude. Thus, the dogmatic truth that Christ was crucified as true man, because He is
lying on the Cross is represented, but His open eyes show Him to Christians as the One eternal,
the everlasting Logos, the One without beginning, and without an end, the One who exists for
ever. Christ was painted dead on the Cross only since the 8 th century, showing more clearly
that the Son of God really died as man. As real as the death is, so is true the real Resurrection.
Orthodox iconography help and teach Christians to always look divine things through the light
of the faith. Thus, the scene of the Crucifixion is painted on a golden background, Christ wears
a holy halo of light on the Cross, and an inscription showing “THE EMPEROR OF GLORY” is
written above Him. Even only the Cross, painted over the altar or as a liturgical item, of bless-
ing during liturgical services, has the wonderful rays of the Resurrection engraved within it.
The Christian faith is based on the true that Christ was crucified and buried and the third day
He rose again according to the Scriptures and that Christians worship His Cross and praise
and glorify His holy Resurrection. The same thing is done by any icon painter when painting
the holy halo of the Saviour with the Cross. The Cross thus becomes the unseparated sign
through which the face of Christ is rendered, because His holy halo always wears the Cross.
The light of the grace, symbolised through the holy halo, has the Cross implanted within it. For
Orthodox believers, the traditional and normative scene of the Crucifixion is the one in which
Christ wears a holy halo. The Cross thus becomes the embryo of the Resurrection, in which the
rays of the divine light already rose. Christ lies on the Cross as if He lied on the throne of glory.
He is not an unhappy condemned person, but “the Emperor of glory”, Who willingly chose to
be sacrificed on the Cross. It is possible that the transmutation of the Cross as an object of in-
sult into a blessed sign of the victory only like that.
In the Western Church, especially since the Renaissance, painting
the death of the Lord is done laying much stress on realism,
which, more often than not, becomes black thrill, the agony of
man in the nothingness of death. Focusing on the teaching about
the Resurrection of the Lord, the guarantee of everybody, the
Church does not see the end of the existence of man in death.
Therefore, the ones that passed away and departed from this life
are not forgotten, but they are commemorated at every Holy
Liturgy, and especially on Saturdays, special liturgical services are
officiated, through which God is pleased to bestow everlasting
happiness on them. According to the Church teaching, man does
not disappear at the same time as the moment of his death, does
not pass on into eternity, as some neighbours of Christians ex-
press themselves. Although the body remains lifeless, is buried
and decays, the soul proceeds on its existence in the everlasting
world. Moreover, at the moment established by God, the body will

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rise from the dead, will re-unite with the soul, and man will live for ever, either through a con-
tinuous progress towards God or by keeping continuously estranged from Him. The relation-
ship between the soul and the body is very close because they make up the human nature only
when they are together. It is said that immediately after it separates from the body through
death, the soul keeps the features of the body within it like a stamp, so that it will recognise
and rebuild its body at the Resurrection. Believing in the Resurrection and confessing the
close relationship between the soul and the body, the Holy Fathers decided the Church to com-
memorate those departed from this life, to pray for them, mediating for their rest and the for-
giveness of their sins. It is the proof of the love that does not forget those departed from this
life and that is stronger than death, passing beyond the grave obstacle. At every Divine Liturgy,
at the proskomedeia table, the departed are remembered while the holy bread particles
(miridas) are taken from the prosphora, and placed on the diskos, near Holy Lamb. Remem-
brances of the deceased are not offered, only at the Holy Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts, be-
cause there is no proskomedeia officiated, because the Holy Gifts were brought and consec-
rated at the previously officiated Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom or St. Basil the Great.
16 The Holy Lent

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The liturgical services for the remembrance of those departed from this life are called “re-
quiem service”, a term coming from Greek and meaning “mediation”, namely the influence for
the situation of the deceased before God. Requiem services are officiated at various intervals
after the funeral, each term having its own justification, namely at three days, in remembrance
of the Resurrection of the Lord, the beginning and the basis of the Resurrection of everyone, at
nine days, in remembrance of the ninth hour when Christ before dying promised the thief the
paradise, which Christians wish to be inherited by all the departed people, at 40 days, in re-
membrance of the Ascension of Christ into heaven, at the three months, six months and nine
months, in honour and glory of the Holy Trinity, at one year, from the example of the early
Christians who believed the day death as the day of birth in the eternal life, and each year up
to seven years, as number seven is considered sacred. These explanations are based on the re-
lationship of Christians to God. There are, however, also other complementary explanations,
based on the analogy of the phases through which the decay of the human body passes until it
is completely decayed. Three days after his death, the face of man begins to desfigure itself;
after nine days, the body of the deceased person begins to rot, excepting his heart; after forty
days, his heart decomposes as well. At the requiem, people bring to church: requiem cake, spe-
cial breads (wafers) and wine. They also distribute foods and clothes, for those remembered.
Therefore the prayers for the dead are accompanied by acts of mercy, which unites those who
offer the charity with those in whose memory they are offered, but also with those who re-
ceive the offerings. For the Church, every Saturday is dedicated to remembering those depar-
ted from this life as it is the day on which God rested after creating the entire world and man,
is the day on which Christ remained with His body in the grave, and He descended His body to
hell, to release all those just people deceased since the beginning from there. The death of
Christ restored the seventh day, turning it into one of recreation, victory and destroying those
who made a victory of death from the world. Therefore, the Holy Father also considered Sat-
urday suitable for officiating the requiem service, because it comes before Sunday, the day of
Resurrection – the first day of the new creation or the eighth day of the world to come. In the
course of the ecclesiastical year, there are two Saturdays on which all those deceased are re-
membered in hope of the Resurrection and everlasting life. On those two Saturdays, Christians
pray to God not only for their known near relations, but also for those who, deceased under
unfavourable circumstances or who are not known by anybody, might have not enjoyed the fu-
neral service and the proper remembrances. The first one is the Saturday before Pente-
cost-Trinity Sunday, called “the Summer Saturday of remembrance of the souls”. At that time,
the Church officiates the remembrance of all souls and pray in order they to also enjoy the
gifts of the Holy Spirit, Whose descent is celebrated the day after. The second Saturday is the
one before Meatfare Sunday, during the period that comes before the Holy Lent, being called
“the Winter Saturday of remembrance of the souls”. According to the Triodion, all souls are re-
membered at that time because the second coming of Christ and Judgement Sunday is celeb-
rated the day after. There are also, however, days on which requiem services for the deceased
are not officiated at all as they mark important moments in the history of the salvation of
Christians. Either they are days of joy or sorrow, they request a special attention from Christi-
ans or remembering those deceased from their relations, which is inevitably accompanied by
sorrow, can divert the attention of Christians from the event they are called to perceive, under-
stand and feel. Thus, days or times of joy when requiem services are not officiated are Sundays
because Sunday is the day of the Resurrection, and, consequently, a day of joy, and not a day of
sorrow; the period between the Nativity and Theophany of the Lord and the whole Renewal
Week, when Christians go through the two great events in the life of the Church, namely the

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Nativity and the Resurrection of the Lord. In fact, Christians do not fast during the two peri-
ods. Days of sorrow, on which the entire Church, going beyond the individual sorrow, must at-
tend, are the meatfare period until the first Saturday of Great Lent and the one on Lazarus'
Saturday (the day before Palm Sunday), until Great and Holy Pascha, when Christians must
direct their attention to the events during the life of the Saviour happened in Passion Week.
Requiem services are not officiated on the ordinary days of Great Lent (Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday) because only the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts that has not
Proskomedeia is officiated on those days. The Proskomedeia is the Office of Oblation celeb-
rated by the priest prior to the Divine Liturgy during which the bread and wine are prepared
for the Eucharist.
Pious Mary of Egypt is one of the most
popular holy women of the Orthodox
Church. Written by Patriarch Sophroni-
us of Jerusalem, her biography attracts
and captivates someone both by its re-
markable style and especially by the
height of the image of the repentance it
describes. Fixed on the fifth Sunday of
Great Lent, the remembrance of Saint
Mary of Egypt advises believers to imit-
ate her life, get rid of passions through
ascetic fights, making certain that re-
newing their life and coming back to
God are possible for everybody, how-
ever fallen he could be at one moment.
Saint Mary of Egypt lived in the first
centuries of Christianity. It is known
neither the year when she had been
born nor the year in which she passed
on to the everlasting life. Researchers
estimate that she travelled on earth
about in the 5th - 6th centuries, taking
into account that he who discovered
her in the wilderness and made her life
public – monk Zosimas – lived between
the 5th and 6th centuries. The one who
would become “the jewel of hermits”
was born in Egypt. Her parents were
very likely Christians. Nevertheless, as
the story of her life goes, she received Baptism during her childhood. When twelve years old,
she left her parents and went to the citadel of Alexandria. There, she began living a profligate
life, living the life of a prostitute, although she refused to be paid for her manner of living. Em-
bracing the passion of licentiousness, wanting to attract the attention of as much men as pos-
sible on her, she lived in poverty at the same time, like a beggar woman. To earn her living, she
often spun tow. She spent seventeen years like that. In the summer of the year when she
reached the age of 29 years old, she left Alexandria for Jerusalem. On the pretext of attending
the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, she joined a group of young people of Egypt and Libya,
18 The Holy Lent

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who travelled on sea to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage. Her so-called pilgrimage had another char-
acter than the one of the one of the group she had joined., namely she considered that such a
journey could help better her manner of living. Paying the price of the journey with her own
body, she indeed seduced many young men on the way to Jerusalem. When the Feast of the Ex-
altation of the Cross began, Mary disappeared from curiosity in the crowd that made for the
church. Arrived at the porch and wishing for seeing the Holy Cross, she tried to get into the
church together with the other believers. She could get in only to the threshold. There, she felt
how an unseen power stopped her however much she strained herself to get into the church.
It might have been for the first time during her lifetime when her wish did not come true. In
the beginning, she believed that it was caused by the crowd and tried one more time, but while
other people got in without making any effort, she was stopped again. After she strove several
times, she grew very tired and sat down outside, near the church, to take a rest. Staying there,
she realised that she had been preventing from getting into the church and seeing the Holy
Cross because of her sinful life. Then, she began crying with bitter tears. Seeing the icon of the
Mother of God above the place where she was staying, she prayed to the Holy Virgin to allow
her to be also able to see the Holy Cross, promising that she would change her sinful manner
of living entirely since then and would go wherever the Mother of God would guide her for do-
ing penance. Making certain within the depths of her soul that her prayer had been answered,
she made for the entrance of the church. That time, however, not only she was not stopped by
anyone anymore, but also she felt how her access to the church was alleviated. After worship-
ping the Holy Cross, she came back to the icon of the Mother of God, asking Her for discovering
the place where she had to go to repent it. At that time, she heard a voice from a distance that
told her she would find a good place if she would cross River Jordan. Leaving that place,
someone gave her three coins as a gift. She bought three pieces of bread using those coins.
Then, she made for River Jordan. At the Saint John the Baptist Church near River Jordan, she
received the Holy Sacraments. She then went to the River Jordan shore, ate a half from a piece
of bread, drank water from the river and slept that night on the ground.
The following day, she crossed River Jordan and,
praying to the Mother of God to be always her guide,
she went forward the desert beyond River Jordan.
There, she lived a very harsh ascetic life. After the
pieces of bread she had brought ran low, she fed on
roots and different plants she found in the unfruitful
desert. In time, her clothes also broke, being useful
to her neither as against the cold in night time, nor
the heat in day time anymore, but besides the natur-
al conditions of the desert, during the first seven-
teen years, she fought the greatest battles against
her passions. To get rid of torments, Pious Mary of
Egypt asked the Mother of God for help every time,
begging her for strengthening her for fighting her
battle against her passions. She laid down crying
until she felt how a sweet light banished the
thoughts that confused her. After seventeen years of
fire and hard battle, the help and protection of God
made her feel neither the harshness of the life of the
desert nor the torment of her passions anymore.

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Thus, thirty years passed for her without seeing neither any living being, human being nor
wild beast. After those thirty years, Saint Mary of Egypt met monk Zosimas. He was the first
person she saw, after the forty-seven years since she had crossed River Jordan. Zosimas was a
monk. Until he met Mary, he had lived a quiet life, namely he had entered on of the monaster-
ies of Palestine from an early age. He turned out to be covetous in any action undertaken by
him – as concerned his ascetic endeavour and studying the words of the Bible – that he be-
came well-known relating to divine matters. Many monks from the neighbouring monasteries
came to him for seeking his advice. Moreover, God favoured him many times with divine vis-
ions. Reaching the age of 53 years old, a thought began to confused him, namely he wondered
if other monk could surpass him as concerned his spiritual endeavour and from whom he
could learn something he did not know. The answer did not delay to come from God, and to
know the truth of the words he had been told, he was then advised to left his monastery for
another one, situated near River Jordan. He immediately went to the monastery he had been
recommended. There, he discovered monks living a pure spiritual life from whom he learnt
many things for his spiritual progress. Wishing for fighting a battle more against his passions
and make progress to the way of virtues, the monks of that monastery kept an old rule, namely
on the first Sunday of Great Lent, they received the Holy Sacraments during the Holy Liturgy
and ate little food, then asked the blessing of their abbot, left the monastery and, after crossing
River Jordan, they parted company and went into the desert. There, every monk laboured ac-
cording to his strength for the entire Lent and came back to his monastery on Palm Sunday.
Zosimas also obeyed their rule. He took little food with him, crossed River Jordan and, going
over the wilderness, fulfilled his canon of prayer. He slept stretching on the ground a little at
night, where night overtook him. He started on his way again early in the morning, always de-
ciding in favour of rugged places for walking. He hoped to meet an anchorite from whom he
could learn something. An anchorite is a religious person who lived alone and avoided other
people.
After twenty days of going through the wilder-
ness, about noon, stopping to say his usual pray-
ers, he noticed a shadow like a human body
some distance from him. The apparition was na-
ked, tanned by the heat of the sun, and the hair
of her head was white and touched only her
shoulders. Making certain that the apparition
was not a diabolical trick, but that a human be-
ing stood before him, he began to run after that
person, but the latter, realising that Zosimas
came to her, began to run trying to move away
from him. Zosimas finally got to a place that
seemed to be a drained brook and began to ask
that person for talking to him. Then, the pur-
sued person told him “Father Zosimas, forgive
me, but I cannot show myself to your face be-
cause I am a woman and I am undressed.” The
monk quaked hearing that she had called his
name and that she had known that he was a
priest. He thought that, because she had not met
him ever before, only the grace of God could dis-
20 The Holy Lent

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cover those things. Then, he gave the woman one of his clothes. After exchanging a few words,
understanding that she had lived a high spiritual life, he asked her for telling him about her
life. She hardly answered the favour of the monk. Finishing to tell him the story of her life, she
asked Zosimas for doing not leave the monastery on the first Sunday of Great Lent the follow-
ing year, and for taking the Holy Sacraments on Holy Thursday and going to the shore of River
Jordan, to partake her of the Holy Sacraments. That year, Zosimas also looked forward to the
coming of the Great Lent period. On Holy Thursday, he took a chalice containing the Body and
Blood of the Lord and went to River Jordan, dying with impatience for meeting the holy wo-
man. When she came, she made the sign of the Cross over the river and crossed it as if she
walked on land. Having partaken of the Holy Sacraments, she raised her hands to heaven and
sighed with tears in her eyes, exclaiming “Now let your servant depart in peace, O Lord, ac-
cording to your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation.” She then asked Zosimas for ful-
filling her one more wish, namely to come again the following year to the place where they
had met for the first time to see her. She crossed River Jordan again as if she walked on land
and disappeared in the wilderness. After that year passed as well, Zosimas left the monastery
together with the other monks again on the first Sunday of Great Lent and made for the place
where he had met the holy woman for the first time. He found her there, but she had died.
Then, he grew sad because he had not even asked her name. While he thought about it, he saw
a message “Bury, Father Zosimas, the body of humble Mary here” written on the ground, near
her body. He also understood from that message that she had died even during the night when
she had partaken of the Holy Sacraments. Because the soil was barren and he had no tools to
dig the grave, he asked a lion, which had come near the body of Mary, for digging the hole.
With the help of the lion, he fulfilled the wish of Pious Mary of Egypt, giving the dust to the
dust. Back to the monastery, he told all the monks the life of Saint Mary of Egypt, and over
years, because it was going round by word of mouth, Patriarch Sophronius of Jerusalem wrote
it down. Saint Mary of Egypt is celebrated on 1st April and on the fifth Sunday of Great Lent.
Her life is also read on the Wednesday in the fifth week of Great Lent within the Great Canon
of Saint Andrew of Crete, to show the repentance suggested by the canon.
Saint Sophronius was born in the citadel of Damas-
cus in 550. Endowed by God with the gift of poetics,
he made brilliant studies and became a professor of
rhetoric. Rhetoric is the skill of using language in
speech or writing in a special way that influences or
entertains people. On the occasion of a pilgrimage to
the Holy Places, he remained at the “Saint Theodosi-
us” Monastery, situated near Bethlehem. There, he
met and formed a friendship with monk John
Moschus, known for the writing he left for present-
day Christians, namely “Leimon” or “Spiritual Mead-
ow”. Together with his friend, Sophronius visited dif-
ferent monastic centres of Asia Minor, Egypt, and
Rome. In 633, he travelled to Alexandria and Con-
stantinople to convince the patriarchs of the two
Churches not to accept the Monothelite Heresy,
which Emperor Heraclius tried to enjoin. He became
the Patriarch of Jerusalem one year later. To defend
the Orthodox teaching about the two wills of Jesus,

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he wrote an Anthology with 600 texts from the Church Fathers, a work that was, however, not
kept until today. He died in 638, short time after Constantinople had been conquered by the
Arabs. Short time before his death, he had succeeded in negotiating with Omar I for recog-
nising the civil and religious liberties of Christians and the Jews for paying a tribute. Saint
Sophronius wrote many liturgical, theological, hagiographic and poetic texts, as well as homil-
ies. A homily is a speech or piece of writing giving advice on the correct way to behave and so
on. However, only “The Life of Saint Mary of Egypt”, “The Life of Saint John the Merciful, Patri-
arch of Alexandria” and “The Life of Saints Cyrus and John the Unmercenaries” were kept until
nowadays. He is celebrated by the Orthodox Church on 11th March.
After praising God and bedewed the body of Saint
Mary of Egypt with tears, it was time for Zosimas to
fulfil what he had been ordered. However, he
wondered how he would dig the hole if he had no
tools to do that. Then, sighing deeply, he raised his
eyes and saw a lion standing by the body of the pi-
ous woman and licking her legs. When seeing the
wild beasts, he quaked, especially that he re-
membered the words of Mary, who had said that she
had not seen any wild beast. Therefore, he made the
sign of the Cross in hope of the power of the one
that was bedded under ground would protect him
unharmed. The lion began to approach the old man,
greeting him not only with his moves, but also
through the intention it showed him. Zosimas told
the lion to dig the grave because he was old and did
not have the necessary tool and could not cover a
long distance to bring it. Then, the lion immediately
dig a hole large enough for burying the body by the
order of the old man. After the old man bedewed the
legs of the pious woman again and prayed much for
everything, he covered her body with earth, and the
lion was also present. Afterwards, they went to-
gether: the lion went to the depth of the wilderness, like a sheep, and Zosimas came back,
blessing and praising Christ, the God of Christians.
Lazarus' Saturday is celebrated by the Orthodox Church on the day before Palm Sunday. The
two days represent the boundaries and connection between Great Lent and Passion Week,
namely they are two celebration days, an anticipation of the joy of the Resurrection of Christ
will bring the following week, specifically the victory over death. The information provided by
the Holy Gospels about Lazarus are few. It is known that he became from Bethany, which has
been traditionally identified with present-day West Bank city of al-Eizariya, meaning “Place of
Lazarus”. He was the brother of Martha and Mary. The Holy Evangelist John says that “Jesus
loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus”. Christians can understand from the biblical account
that Lazarus occupied a special place in the heart of the Saviour Christ: he counted, like the
Holy Apostle John, among His near relations, and it was certainly due to their frankness and
resulted from that they opened their heart to Him. Because Bethany was situated only 3 km
away from Jerusalem, Jesus often visited the three brothers He loved. The Tradition even says
that Lazarus would have been the son of Pharisee Simeon, the one who prepared a supper for
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the Saviour in his house. On the days that came before His Passion, Christ used to retire to-
gether with His disciples in waste places. The hate of the religious leaders of the Jews became
very great. The very obvious wonders performed by Jesus lately and the reprimands ad-
dressed to them had persuaded them to wish His death. Therefore, they were looking for an
opportunity to catch and kill Him, but the time had not come yet, and Christ would choose
when to be caught. Christ was beyond River Jordan, in Perea, in a barren land, where John had
once baptised people. There, he received messengers from the two sisters Martha and Mary:
they begged Him for coming to their house as soon as possible because Lazarus was seriously
ill. It is not said from which illness he suffered, but it was incurable and caused death. How-
ever, Jesus did not answer their requirements immediately, but stayed for other two days in
the place where He was. Then, accompanied by His disciples, He went to Bethany. He got to the
village on the fourth day after the death of Lazarus. Their house was still in great mourning
after him: many friends and acquaintances of them were still together with the two sisters for
comforting them. Outside the village, Jesus met Martha, who slightly reproachfully, told Him
that her brother would not die if He had been there. Christ answered her that “I am the resur-
rection and life”, namely He is the One Who gave life to everything, but also the One Who can
defeat death. He would, however, prove that after few days, when He would defeat death
through His death, which He accepted willingly. Then, He met the other sister, Mary, who also
came hastily because she had heard that the Teacher arrived at their village. Seeing the sorrow
of the two sisters and their friends, Jesus also grew sad and cried before the tomb of Lazarus.
Christ, Life and the lifegiver, faced death. The One Who had created man for an everlasting life
saw how he was seized with corruption and decomposition. He then asked them for taking
away the stone. Martha tried to oppose Him, saying that he did already stink, namely Lazarus
had decomposed. Advising her to believe in what would happen, He firstly thanked the Father
for the wonder that would be performed, and then asked Lazarus for coming forth. Lazarus,
who had been dead, came forth with his hands and legs bound with grave clothes, and with his
face bound about with a napkin. Seeing the wonder, some of those present believed in Him,
while others, reminding of the brothers of the merciless rich man, for whom he asked for the
resurrected Lazarus to be sent to them to believe, considered it a good thing to go and com-
plain against Him to the Pharisees. Then, the Synedrion assembled and decided to murder
both Him and the resurrected Lazarus.
After Pentecost, when persecutions against Christians
started by murdering archdeacon Stephen, Lazarus ran
away together with his sisters to the island of Cyprus.
He was also pursued for being murdered because his
existence itself was the living proof of the divinity of
Christ: he had been dead, but he was then alive. When
Apostles Paul and Barnabas, during their first mission-
ary journey, stopped in Cyprus, they also met him there
and consecrated him bishop of Cyprus. The Tradition
says that after he had been resurrected by Christ, he
lived for other 30 years, after which he died. Always re-
membering the image of the hell on the four days when
he had been dead, Lazarus never smiled. He was buried
in Larnaca, Cyprus. A small church was built over his
tomb. About 890, Emperor Leo the Wise, who appreci-
ated Saint Lazarus much and composed the verses of

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the Vespers of Lazarus' Saturday, moved the holy relics to Constantinople, the capital of the
empire. For the relics, he offered money and skilled workmen who raised the Church of Saint
Lazarus, which is also seen today in Larnaca. In 1204, when crusaders conquered Con-
stantinople, they also took, besides other liturgical items, the holy relics of Lazarus to the
West. Kept in Marseilles in the beginning, they were then carried to other places, so that their
trace is lost today. In 1972, during the restoration works made to the Church of Saint Lazarus
in Larnaca, a coffin of marble which contained a fragment of the holy relics was discovered un-
der the altar. At the funeral service of Christians, but also when the departed are remembered,
Saint Lazarus is called to intercede with Christ for Christians. It is said that Lazarus wanted to
see the Mother of God again because long time had passed since he had left the Holy Land. For
that purpose, he sent her a small ship. Accompanied by the Holy Evangelist John, the Mother of
God went to Cyprus with that ship. A great storm started on sea, and instead of arriving at Lar-
naca, where Lazarus was, the ship was taken to the Holy Mount Athos. At that time, the Mount
Athos peninsula was full of idols and pagan temples. An idol is a statue that is worshipped as a
god. A temple is a building used for the worship of a god or gods, especially in religions other
than Christianity. The Mother of God and Saint John told the inhabitants of the peninsula about
the true God. A very great number of people were then converted to Christianity. Over years,
the Holy Mount Athos became a land of monks, called the Garden of the Mother of God until
today. The Mother of God left the Holy Mount Athos for Cyprus and met bishop Lazarus. She
presented him with two little bishop's sleeves and an omophorion worked by her. The omo-
phorion is one of the bishop's vestments and the symbol of his spiritual and ecclesiastical au-
thority. Then, she came back to the Holy Land.
The liturgical services officiated during Great Lent
do not however concern the wonder of the resurrec-
tion of Lazarus as an ordinary event happened
formerly, more or less external to Christians, which
is only remembered on Lazarus' Saturday, but the
whole sixth week of Great Lent calls Christians to
witness the events happened at that time, referring
those events to themselves. On the other hand,
Christians are called to identify themselves with Laz-
arus. Thus, Christ resurrects every Christian within
Lazarus and releases every Christian from death.
Palm Sunday is one of the twelve royal feasts during
the ecclesiastical year. Of Jerusalemic origin, men-
tioned in the 4th century for the first time, the Feast
of the Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem occupied, in
short time, the entire Christian world, being celeb-
rated with great pomp. Closely related to the wonder
of the resurrection of Lazarus in Bethany, Palm
Sunday prepares Christians for the joy brought by
the victory of Christ over death on Great and Holy
Pascha, the one of the Resurrection. The Feast of
Palm Sunday reminds Christians of the moment when Christ triumphantly entered into Jerus-
alem, which had occurred few days before His Passion. Although not mentioned, the event of
the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem was certainly celebrated since the early Church. In the be-
ginning, Palm Sunday was celebrated only by the Christian community of Jerusalem. Having a
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local character, being not also known by other Churches, the feast does not appear among the
other enumerated in the Apostolic Constitutions, a document compiled towards the end of the
4th century. It is however mentioned by Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Epiphanios of Cyprus,
and Saint Cyril of Alexandria, who wrote homilies on the feast, as well as Spanish pilgrim Eger-
ia, who described it in her travel notes when she went to the Holy Land. Leaving Jerusalem,
the feast firstly passed through Egypt, then came to Syria and Asia Minor. In the 5th century, it
was already celebrated in the capital of the empire, Constantinople, when the emperor and his
court attended the solemn procession that took place on Palm Sunday. On that occasion, the
great number of believers wore both palm branches and olive and lilac branches. During the
procession that took place on the streets of the city, the faithful sang beautiful hymns com-
posed by hymnographers like Andrew of Crete, Theodore the Studite and Joseph the Studite.
The habit the emperor himself to attend the procession on Palm Sunday was also followed by
the courts of the Romanian Lands. In the 6th - 7th centuries, the feast also diffused to the West,
being mentioned by Saint Isidore of Seville. The custom of blessing the palm branches brought
by believers to church was also introduced at that time, and the procession would take place
in the morning.
When Jesus entered into Jeru-
salem, He was welcomed by a
great number of men, women,
and children that held green
palm branches in their hands
and expressed their joy, crying
out: “Hosanna: Blessed is He
that comes in the Name of the
Lord, the King of Israel.” From
ancient times, palm branches
were considered the symbol
of victory. The Romans, for in-
stance, used to welcome their
competition winners or war
vanquishers with palm
branches. When Jesus entered
into Jerusalem, palm branches
had a much richer meaning,
namely they showed the vic-
tory of Christ over death. They
are mentioned having the
same meaning in the Book of
Revelation. Therefore, in icon-
ography, martyrs are repres-
ented, many times, holding
palm branches in their hands.
Although in the New Testa-
ment it is said that the Saviour
Christ was welcomed with
palm branches, in time and depending on the climate of a certain country, other branches
(olive, myrtle, lilac) were also used. In Romania, according to custom, willow branches are

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brought by believers to church for being blessed. The Feast of the Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem
was described for the first time by Western pilgrim woman Egeria, who, towards the end of
the 4th century, visiting the Holy Land, left her travel notes to present-day Christians. Her
travel notes represent a very precious document because it helps Christians evoke that age.
On Holy Friday, Christians remembered the
sacrifice of the Lord Christ on the cross
sadly and honourably. At the same time, they
know that He said everybody to take up his
cross and follow Him, on the way of the faith
that leads to resurrection. Over centuries,
even beginning with the Holy Apostles, some
saints assumed the cross as their manner of
life, but also a way of passing to God. Christi-
an calendars talk about their martyrical
death. Through the sacrifice and Resurrec-
tion of the Lord Jesus Christ, the cross be-
comes the sign of victory and supreme hon-
our considering the deepest love the holy
martyrs showed towards the Lord Christ, for
Whom they did not hesitate to give their life,
crucified. Saints were not fastened with nails
to the cross, but their deep love for the Lord
and Master of their life fixed them there, but
the cross, under its known shape, was as-
sumed by few saints. They did not actually
want to pass away like that, but they did not
give up when the time for their torture
came. As concerns the word of the Saviour,
Who advises everybody who followed Him to take up his cross, “Whosoever will come after
Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me”, some saints understood it in a
very direct way, namely holy martyrs died on cross during persecutions for faith. Others took
up the cross of monastic life, abstinence and hardship, living in the wilderness, suffering from
many temptations and needs. Present-day Christians bear the cross of giving up their bad ac-
tions, make the effort of transcending and overcoming obstacles, which come from other
people, when they want to unite with Christ. Christians may wear the cross around their neck
feeling it adorn them – especially if it is made of a precious material – make the sign of the
cross so easily when passing by churches, but it is much harder for them to give up their bad
actions and the sins they commit. It indeed seems to be a heavy burden. To assume it clearly
and bravely like the militant of Christ represents bearing His Cross. Then, the heavy cross be-
comes a light one, because the Lord is already the One Who helps Christians carry its burden.
Before all martyrs, one of the two malefactors suffered death on cross, but for his sins. He ex-
perienced the sorrow of his crucifixion, but then he enjoyed the calling of the Lord to paradise
for the humbleness he showed in the last moments of his life. Through his repentance and be-
lief in the Lord Christ as “the emperor of glory”, he was the first who went to Heavens, through
the sacrifice of the cross. The Tradition says that “the good malefactor” was called Dismas.
Among those who loved the Lord Christ unto death and even the death of the cross, the Holy
Apostle Peter, the leader of the Holy Apostles, who was crucified upside down in Rome on 27th
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June during the reign of Nero, is counted. Even the Lord announced the great Apostle about his
death on the cross: “When you were young, you girded yourself, and walked whither you wish:
but when you would be old, you would stretch forth your hands, and another would gird you,
and carry you whither you would not wish.” The Holy Apostle however wanted to be with the
Saviour until his death and answered Him “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of
eternal life.” Showing humbleness, the Holy Apostle Peter asked his tormentors for crucifying
him upside down, considering he did not worth the honour of dying like the Saviour.
The Holy Apostle Andrew (30th November), “the first
called”, the brother of Saint Peter, also suffered the
death of the cross. By tradition, he preached the faith in
Christ through all the countries near the Black Sea and
through Dobrudja, then came back to Thrace and went
to Greece, being crucified at Patras on an X-shaped
cross, then called Saint Andrew's Cross. Saint Jude
Thaddeus (19th June) preached Christ within the Holy
Land, then in Arabia, Syria, and Mesopotamia, being
hung to a piece of wood, by the servants of the idols
from the parts of Mount Ararat, and gave up his life for
his Lord. Saint Simon the Zealot (10th May) is one of the
twelve Apostles of the Saviour, also called “the Canaan-
ite” or “the Zealot”. The Christian Tradition says that Si-
mon the Zealot is not somebody else than the bride-
groom at Cana in Galilee, during whose wedding Jesus
performed His first wonder, namely He turned a large
quantity of water into wine. After the descent of the
Holy Spirit, the Holy Apostle Simon did not hesitate to
travel to distant lands, to enlighten the peoples with the
light of the Holy Gospel. He went to Egypt, Mauritania, and even Britain, according to a tradi-
tion. Coming back to the East, Saint Simon got to Persia, where he was caught and crucified at
Suanir. The Holy Martyr Nestor (28th February) lived during the reign of Emperor Decius (249-
251) and governor Epolius of Lycia, in Perga of Pamphylia. Because he honoured Christ, he
was caught by the ruler of the city and brought to the governor, before whom, confessing his
faith in Christ, he was crucified. On the cross, he thanked God and strengthened his believers
and then he breathed his last. Saints Trophimus and Thallus (11th March) suffered martyrical
death in Laodicea. During the reign of Emperors Diocletian and Maximian, when Asclepius
was the governor of Laodicea, a great persecution started against Christians. After the holy
martyrs Trophimus and Thallus were caught, they were pelted with stones for a long time, but
God protected them, and they were finally unharmed. Seeing that, the ruler and those together
with him and being ashamed, they let them leave without tormenting them for some time. Be-
ing however denounced again, they were brought to justice, and there, confessing bravely, be-
fore all those present, that Christ is true God, and mocking at pagan idols, they admonished
the tyrants. For doing that, they were hung on a piece of wood, and after undressing them
completely, they began to deeply crush their bodies. However, the saints, on one hand praying
to God, and on the other hand defaming Hellenic gods, enraged the ruler. Deciding, thus, to
murder them like that, he ordered they to be crucified on cross and they hence passed to God.
The holy martyr Diodorus of Emesa (13th June) breathed his last into the hands of God, being
crucified. Saint Eutychios (2nd September), being crucified, passed away.

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Celebrating Great and Holy Pascha is the most important thing, both for the Jews and Christi-
ans. Sacrificing the paschal lamb every year became the unforgettable memory of releasing
from the bitter Egyptian bondage, but it also simultaneously showed the hope of the release
through the Messiah-Christ. Prophets would use the image of the sacrifice lamb deliberately
referring to the work of the future Messiah. Transposed into the Christian thinking, the
paschal lamb just prefigures Christ – the Christian Passover. Christians passed from the sin to
the virtue and from death to life through Christ. Founded by the divine will, Pascha (the Chris-
tian Passover) is also the evidence of the redeeming intercession of God into the world for
those wearing the name of “Christians” from “Christ”. The whole Old Testament actually gives
evidence about the providential intercession of God. Founding and celebrating Great and Holy
Pascha, Christians did not simply copy the Jewish feast and even seize it. There are invincible
scriptural evidences that Christ gave Great and Holy Pascha to Christians, that He, Who re-
leased the Jews from Egypt, also released Christians from the bondage of the Devil and the sin,
which laid heavier on them than the Egyptian bondage did it on the Jews. The matchless good
news brought by Jesus to the world, with the consent and by the command of the Father, was
especially destined to advise of the conclusion of peace between earth and the heavens,
between God and people. Christians must remember that the coming of Christ into the world
almost coincided with the climax of the bondage and the prophet might have also called Him
“the Servant of the Lord” for that reason. Although He called Himself the liberator of bonds-
men and war prisoners, Christ did not release anybody from any earthly bondage because He
was not destined to shake or destroy the socio-political world structures. Christians are how-
ever entitled to call Christ their Passover or their supreme Liberator because He released hu-
mankind from the bondage of the swayer of the world, namely Satan.
To find out what they must do for Christ, if He did
everything for them, Christians must have reference
to the teaching and advise of some Holy Fathers
that find a new interpretation and a new content for
Passover. If the Jews celebrate their temporary and
earthly release, also nursing, at the same time,
hopes that a Messiah will come as their national lib-
erator, Christians must celebrate their release from
the sin and death and also nurse the hope that they
will unite with the Crucified and Resurrected Christ,
to keep their communion with Him for ever. To fulfil
their mission, it requests true and consistent pre-
paration from them. One of the three biblical feasts
of the Jewish people, also called “pilgrimage feasts”,
is the one of Passover. Recalling the biblical moment
of sparing the firstborns of the Jews, when the ex-
terminating angel struck dead all the male first-
borns of the Egyptians, the word “Passover”, which
in Hebrew is translated as “Pesah”, means “salva-
tion”, “passing over”. The Bible indeed says that the
angel sent to murder the sons of the Egyptians passed over the house of the Israelites and
overlooked their sons because God wanted to spare their lives. Founded on the own initiative
of God, the feast is directly related to the release of the Hebrews from the Egyptian bondage
and because it was celebrated for the first time even on the evening that went before they
28 The Holy Lent

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freed themselves from the Egypt where the Jews had been bondsmen for 430 years, the feast
also got a commemorative and national character. There are some opinions that assert that the
way of celebrating the feast is a trace of the pastoral practices during transhumance. It is obvi-
ous that someone may speculate everything, but he must not forget that the feast also has a
meaning of release from the Christian viewpoint, although not all Christians were shepherds.
Right from the start, it appeared as a family feast that was celebrated under the careful super-
vision of the family father (because he also officiated as a priest and had to guarantee its pro-
gress according to the ritual), the feast itself had an obvious community aspect, firstly on a
family-wide basis, then on a tribal-wide one, and, finally, on a national-wide one. The purpose
was also uniting Jewish believers within the same faith and adoring the same God. To celeb-
rate the feast, a lamb or a kid, perfectly healthy, between 9 o'clock and 11 o'clock and between
15 o'clock and 17 o'clock respectively, was sacrificed. Completely grilled, the animal was con-
sumed with unleavened bread (leavened bread stood for corruption) and with bitter green-
grocery. Boiling meat was not allowed. The blood of the sacrificed lamb was used to grease the
door cases from houses. When the blood of a sacrificed lamb was shed, it meant the atone-
ment for sins, bitter greengrocery symbolised the hard life spent by the Israelites during the
Egyptian bondage, and unleavened bread represented the purity of life. On that occasion, the
head of the family had to interpret the significance of the feast. The paschal lamb had to be
consumed in great haste.
Attire, the one of a Bedouin,
equipped as if he made an im-
minent journey, namely girded
with a belt, wearing shoes on his
feet and a staff in his hand, was
also very important for that oc-
casion. The traveller attire, at
least for the first Passover,
aimed at suggesting the Jewish
believer that, as a pilgrim on a
long pilgrimage, he had to travel
completely discharged from use-
less burdens. The attire of those
who celebrated Passover in the
Old Testament may also have a
symbolical meaning for the
Christian believer, who is forced
to always remember his status
of traveller on earth. Not even
after the end of the journey and
entering into the Promised
Land, to own the land reserved
to him, a Jew did not become the
absolute owner of the land, but
he was just a temporary usu-
fructuary. An usufructuary is a
person who has the use and en-
joyment of something, especially

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property. Therefore, he could not even alienate it, because only God, Who allows man to use it
temporarily, is the Master and the legitimate owner, and he who uses it is just a foreigner. Pas-
sover suggested the Jews that man has the divine talent for physical and spiritual freedom
and, consequently, nobody is entitled to manipulate his consciousness and take an unfair ad-
vantage of his person. Consuming unleavened bread for seven days also referred to the Feast
of Passover. Unleavened bread had three meanings: firstly, it symbolised bondage. According
to the Book of Deuteronomy, unleavened bread was, for the Hebrews, the sign of the sadness
or misery they had experienced when they had been bondsmen in Egypt. According to the ac-
count of the flight from Egypt, the unleavened prepared in great haste recalls the precipitated
leaving of the Hebrews. Leavening would be also later prohibited during the feast of harvest,
because it was the time of the joy of the renaissance, renewal, and definitive and complete sep-
aration from the past. Representing, therefore, the sin from the past, the Israelites were also
reminded that they had been atoned with blood and that they had to leave behind the sin and
the Egyptian world of corruption. Because it is a feast of release, but also one of communion
with God, it had to be celebrated by the entire community. Therefore, if someone, for objective
reasons, did not attend the ceremonies of the paschal sacrifice, was obliged to fulfil the same
ritual the following month, on the same day. Because it was founded in Egypt to commemorate
the release of the Israelites, the one who have declined to celebrate the feast was considered
to no longer want to belong to the community released by God and was actually excluded by
lapidation.
Egyptian historical documents were
created, like in most of the empires
of the world, at the request of polit-
ical leaders, who were exclusively
interested in magnifying their
politico-military merits and qualit-
ies, so that it is easy to explain why
they do not venture to ever talk
about any failure. The only written
source from which the exodus peri-
od can be accurately concluded is
the Bible. Thus, according to the
biblical account, in the four hun-
dred and eightieth year after the
children of Israel were come out of
the land of Egypt, in the fourth year
of the reign of Solomon over Israel,
in the month Zif, which is the
second month, he began to build
the house of the Lord. The years
when King Solomon ruled are, ac-
cording to historical information,
unanimously accepted: from 971 to 931 or from 968 to 938 BCE (before the Common Era).
Adding 480 years to the reign years equals 1447 or 1444 BCE. Some argue against that period,
suggesting a much later period. However, according to the tablets discovered at Tell el-Amarna
(a former island on the Upper Nile, which disappeared after the Asuan Dam had been con-
structed), some decided that the Jews might have entered Canaan about 1400 BCE. Subtract-
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ing the 40 years during which the Israelites wandered through the wilderness would mean
that the exodus might have taken place about 1360 BCE, what would correspond to the reign
of Pharaoh Semenkare (1362 BCE) or Tutankhamun (from 1360 to 1350). Not even the opin-
ions according to which the exodus might have occurred during Pharaoh Ramses II, especially
that his name also appears in the Book of Exodus, are not missing.
Explaining the extraordinary actions related to the release of the Hebrews and reported in
very high detail by the Book of Exodus was a topic of investigation for many researchers. It is
about the great cataclysm that might have occurred on the Santorini Island (also known as
Thira or Thera). A cataclysm is a sudden disaster or a violent event that causes change, such as
a flood or a war. Some researchers asserted that the volcano erupted with an unequalled force
about 1500 BCE, what is impossible to prove because there is no written evidence. Other opin-
ions related the event to the year 1000 BCE. Relying much also on the researches of Jacques
Cousteau, a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, film-maker, innovator, scientist, photo-
grapher, author and researcher, engineer Paul Emil Raşcu, who published a book on this topic
in 2005, seems convinced that the reference year may be 1500 BCE. However, the message of
the book and the step of the author to bring into accord the biblical accounts with the quite ex-
traordinary natural phenomena that changed the configuration of the island collapsed within
itself for ever, like after a very great implosion, with a prosperous civilisation that did not en-

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joy the occasion of continuity any more, matters more than the mere conviction. The credit for
conducting a thorough and conclusive analysis as concerns the preceding phases and the ones
that followed the eruption of the volcano, correlating them with the ten plagues fallen upon
Egypt goes to the author. Thus, according to the author, the changing of the waters into blood
and the turning of the waters red might have resulted from the huge falling of bloodstone and,
therefore, only surface water supplies, namely the ones that had been discovered, were af-
fected, because it is indeed said that the Egyptians were obliged to dig their own supply wells.
The invasion of frogs would be explained by abandoning the infested waters in which they
could not survive any more, and the strong lightnings were the manifestations of the erupting
volcano. The three-day darkness would have resulted from the clouds of the volcano that
covered the sky, but the author cannot answer how only the Land of Goshen, where the
greatest community of Jews was still lighted. The last plague, specifically the death of first-
borns, would have resulted from the increase of the sensitivity of the lungs of the little ones,
who were the first ones that suffocated by the extremely polluted and toxic atmosphere. The
author is again wrong as concerns the topic. According to his opinion, firstborns might have
been also the youngest and the weakest ones, but it is quite the opposite. It seems that he
makes a confusion between the word 'firstborn' and 'newly-born'. Firstborns were, on the con-
trary, the most vigorous ones, being the eldest children. Further on, he says that greasing the
door cases of the houses with the blood of the paschal lamb might have aimed at warning the
Hebrews to stay at home where the atmosphere was less polluted than outdoors because if the
eruption was so great that it was felt almost throughout the world, the atmosphere could not
become rarefied until the following day in the morning in order a number of over one million
people of all ages to come out Egypt.
Deeply marked by the belief in the truthfulness
of the Bible, the author emphasises that Christi-
ans must not fall into bigotry, considering that
God can violate the laws He Himself issued. The
credit for finding the meaning of the Holy Scrip-
ture very well towards the leadership of historic-
al events or natural phenomena in favour or to
the disadvantage of somebody also goes to the
author. The pillar of dark cloud during the day
that becomes a pillar of fire at night, to enlighten
the path of the people, is considered by the au-
thor to be the immense pillar of volcanic ash and
fire emitted into the atmosphere by the explo-
sion blast and carried by clouds over Egypt and
not only. It results from the eruption of the vol-
cano on the Santorini Island, which was situated
even on the path followed by the Hebrews. Al-
ways drawing a parallel with the description of
the event by the Holy Scripture, the author also
provides an explanation for the seemingly unjus-
tified return of the fugitives led by Moses from
the north, namely from the path of the Phil-
istines, towards the south, which might have been actually avoiding to expose the travellers to
inhaling ash and toxic gases. Many assertions seem logical and well justified by the author, but
32 The Holy Lent

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the idea that the Hebrews might have crossed the Nile and not the Red Sea, as the author ar-
gues, and that the translators might have mistranslated the Yam Suph as the Red Sea, main-
taining that it might be about the Sea of Reeds, because reeds cannot grow in salt waters, are
intolerable. The author, and maybe the ones from whom he had drawn his inspiration, forgot
that, considering the poorness of the language, a word can have seven to eight meanings in the
biblical Hebrew language. If the Bible says ‘the Red Sea’, somebody cannot change the text in
order it to be suitable for his opinion. Another critical remark is that when rivers overflow into
the sea on very vast surfaces, salt water is replaced with the sweet one or the sweet one
lowers the salinity of the salt one, so that vegetation can grow, as one can notice especially in
deltas. A delta is an area of land, shaped like a triangle, where a river has split into several
smaller rivers before entering the sea. Another critical remark is that the crossing was done
through the area of bitter lakes, which in antiquity were actually a continuation of a strip of
the Red Sea, which really met an arm of the Nile and the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore, the au-
thor should have also taken into account the radical change of the relief in that area, taking the
Dead Sea as reference, which is far from resembling the one in antiquity. However, the book is
valuable enough, because it is the first one of its kind appeared in Romania, and the unques-
tionable credit of the author would be the one of trying to conciliate science with religion,
namely explaining scientifically a great biblical event disputed by many people and however
accepted by very many people. Nevertheless, even if it is hard to understand, that event
unique in the world changed the destiny and the mentality of many people for ever, so that,
directly or indirectly, all Christians are beneficiaries of the exodus.
As a ritual practice, fasting is found in all great world religions. Harsher or more permissive,
shorter or longer, having an expiatory character, of request or thanksgiving, fasting is found

COVER STORY
from Europe to the most distant corners of the Far East, showing the consciousness of sinful-
ness, the need for purification, and the vocation of renouncement present within man always
and everywhere. As a mean of purification of passions and moral perfection, fasting is found in
all great religions. As concerns Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, one can notice that al-
though there are major differences regarding the way of fasting, the practice of renouncement
and purification of the body and soul through fasting is a constant character of these religions.
The Arabic word for fasting is ‘Sawn’, it calling the three types of fasting of Islam, namely Ra-
madan (the most important period of fasting and one of the Five Pillars of Islam), the fasting of
repentance, and voluntary fasting. Essential for any Muslim is Ramadan, which is called from
the month when it must be observed, the ninth one of the Islamic calendar, considered the
time when the Koran was revealed to the Prophet. Ramadan, with its rules that must be ob-
served within it, is very clearly stipulated in the holy book of the Muslims. This 30-day period
of fasting is compulsory for all Muslims, men and women that have passed puberty and are
mentally sound so that they can take it upon themselves consciously. During the day, a fasting
Muslim is not allowed to consume any kind of foods or drinks including water. He is not also
permitted to smoke, put on perfume, or have sexual relations. Besides observing the bans, the
Muslim believer try to speak less, lie and give up envy and greed, not to slander, defame or
hurt anybody else, but during the fast, he seeks for living in peace of mind, meditating on the
depth of Islamic teachings, seeming kind, friendly and merciful to his neighbours. The un-
known feature of Ramadan is that fasting – at least the one of the body – lasts since the day
arises until the sun sets. At the moment when it is getting dark, things change, and all bans are
suspended. After dark, the Muslims may have a light meal, but a real great fast, to which the
whole family comes, is prepared in the last part of the night, near daybreak. In some Muslim
countries, suspending the feast every evening is a festive occasion, where believers attend rich
meals, which are arranged on streets until daybreak. During this period, public houses are
open for the whole night, offering dishes and sweets specific to the Ramadan period.
34 The Holy Lent

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Within Hinduism, a very complex and various religious structure, there are different kinds and
times of fasting found, relying on the own beliefs of a Hindu and local customs. Thus, believers
practice fasting on certain days of a month, as every eleventh day, when the pious followers of
god Vishnu fast, convinced that they thus please their god, are liberated from sins and purify
their mind. Vishnu is the Supreme God in the Vishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Purnima, the
day with full moon of the Hindu calendar, dedicated to the Great Goddess, when believers fast
from sunrise to moonrise, is also a day of fasting. Then, depending on the god they honour,
Hindu believers fast on the Wednesdays dedicated to them. Thus, the followers of Shiva fast on
Mondays, the ones of Brihaspati fast on Thursdays, the ones of Vishnu fast on Fridays and so
on. In addition to these days, there are a series of other days of fasting, observed every year,
when the birth of some celebrities, namely Ganesha, Krishna and so on, or different other reli-
gious feasts, are celebrated. Likewise, great pilgrimages, which took place yearly or periodic-
ally, are accomplished by believers who abstain from certain food and worldly pleasures be-
fore or during their pilgrimage, but practising abstinence, silence, meditation, and reading sac-
red texts. In addition to these periods of fasting, there is the fast practised by wives for their
husbands, mothers for their sons, and sisters for their brothers. The Buddhist viewpoint on
food abstinence reflects the mean supported by Buddha, doing not play an essential part in
the process of enlightenment. However, there is also the practice of fasting in Buddhism, both
in the case of monks and the one of laymen, but which is different from one Buddhist school to
another; while some believers, on behalf of the principles of non-violence, are vegetarians,
others eat meat without realising that they thus violate ahimsa. Ahimsa is a term meaning to
do no harm. If some laymen never fast, others recognise the value and importance of fasting,
observing the fast for two, six, or more days a month. Likewise, if some monks never fast, oth-
ers start observing a very rigorous fast. Thus, they begin making 3-day preparations as a pre-
liminary, when they only eat dry bread, to prepare their stomach for the following eighteen
days of fasting, a period when they eat nothing and drink only small quantities of water. If that
period of fasting turned out to be benevolent for the spiritual evolution of the monk, it is re-
peated again, its period being lengthened to 36 and, sometimes, 72 days. It is important that a
monk must always observe this very drastic and long fast under the supervision of a master or
superior monk, who can stop him any time. Both in the case of Buddhist laymen and monks, it
is considered that although it is not definitely necessary for enlightenment, fasting leads to the
purification and disciplining the body and thoughts.
A practice similar to the one of
Buddhist monks is also found in
another religion within the Indian
framework, namely Jainism. Hav-
ing a doctrine of non-violence
taken to extremes, all believers of
Jainism (called Jains), are veget-
arians and fasting therefore
means for them the abstinence
from all kinds of food, not only
from those of animal origin. In
fact, especially as concern monks,
their whole life is dedicated to
punishing their body, rigorous
fast being their favourite mean for

COVER STORY
achieving their goal. If some monks abstain from eating any kind of food for an entire day, oth-
ers for two days, and others for seven or fifteen days, laymen trying to imitate them as far as
possible, some monks assume a kind of vote for continuous fasting, having the same meaning
as self-murder through slow starvation. Today, more than 200 Jain monks cause their death by
refusing to eat any kind of food every year in India. Considered the most praiseworthy manner
of dying, those who accept to die like that always enjoy the admiration of everybody and ven-
eration of the Jain community after their death. Although it is sometimes admirable through
the efforts of will and disciplining of the body it presupposes, the fasting practised within
these religions appears either as a purpose itself or as a journey without an end. On the con-
trary, fasting, as it is found within the Church, is a spiritual journey of purification of the body
and soul ending in meeting Christ through the Holy Sacrament of Eucharist. Observed on the
occasion of Karwa Chauth, an annual traditional Hindu and Barelvi festival of married women
celebrated in the Northern regions of India, there is kind of fasting in Hinduism that can be
called ‘altruistic fast’. Originated in a legend saying that the prayer of a faithful wife is even
stronger than the god of death, this rigorous fast is observed by wives in order gods to protect
their husbands and offer them long life, happiness and welfare. The Karwa Chauth fast begins
in the evening, after moonrise, and lasts until the following evening, during which the wife is
arrayed in holiday clothes, wears the most beautiful jewellery and paints her hands and legs
with henna, reddish-brown dye, a substance used to change the colour of something, espe-
cially hair and skin. After moonrise, when the fast ends, a ritual takes place during which after
the prayers dedicated to the night heavenly body, the wife gets the first food and mouthful of
water from her husband. Karwa Chauth is one of the ways through which the wife, suffering
for her husband, shows her love and devotion for him. Likewise, the fast of the mother for her
son and the one of young girls for their older brothers are also practised in Hinduism. Al-
though it has a compulsory character for all Muslims, there are also rules that establish the
situations when Ramadan is not observed. Thus, for those who deliberately neglect the fast,
there is the possibility to compensate this situation, namely a two-month fast and a tax to be
enough for providing sixty poor people with food, a compensation that must be fulfilled until
the following Ramadan month. For those who suspended the fast for reasons beyond their
control, such as women that bore children, seriously ill people or those who travel, only the
period when they did not observe the fast is compensated, and old people and incurable ill
people are not obliged to fast, but they must offer charity according as they can.
Orthodox believers officially enter the Holy Lent since
Clean Monday, seven weeks before Pascha, a period that
comes before the lighted Feast of the Resurrection of the
Saviour Jesus Christ. The seven weeks represent a period
when all believers abstain from eating meat, specifically
milk, eggs, meat, fish and their derivatives. Lent, which
was founded by the Church as far back as the first Christi-
an centuries, must not be only limited to food, because it
also has a spiritual aspect, being a mean of perfection for
man. The Lent before the Feast of the Resurrection of the
Lord, also called Great Lent or Forty Days remembrance,
is the most important part of the liturgical Triodion peri-
od, which lasts from the Sunday of the Publican and the
Pharisee, three weeks before the proper beginning of the
fast, to the lighted Sunday of the Resurrection. The first
36 The Holy Lent

COVER STORY
three weeks from the ten ones of this period represent a time of preparation for the soul in or-
der to begin the fasting period, and the rest of seven weeks represent the Holy Lent itself. This
liturgical period is a special time of preparation through repentance, fasting and prayer, for the
great Feast of the Resurrection of Christ. This fasting period is the longest and most restrictive
one as concerns food. It lasts for seven weeks, namely 48 days, being one of the harshest ones
of the four fasts of long standing, and it is therefore called Great Lent by the faithful. This fast-
ing period, which reminds Christians of the fast observed by the Saviour before starting His
Messianic activity, was regulated by the Church in the first Christian centuries in order all the
catechumens that had to receive the Baptism on the day of the glorified Feast of the Resurrec-
tion of the Lord to follow a proper preparation and that period was also considered a soul pre-
paration of believers for properly welcoming the annual Feast of the Passion and Resurrection
of the Lord. The manner and duration of fasting were not uniform in the first three centuries.
There are evidences saying that during that early period of the Church, some believers fasted
in expectation of the Resurrection only on Holy Friday, other followers even fasted for two
days on the Friday and Saturday before the Resurrection, others for three days, others for an
entire week, and others even fasted for more days, lasting until six weeks before the Great
Feast of Pascha. In the 4th century, believers kept the fast for eight weeks in Jerusalem, and in
the West, believers fasted for forty days at the same time. In the 3rd century, the Holy Lent was
divided into two different periods. The Forty Days Lent, which lasted until Palm Sunday, and
was a movable feast, and the second period, Great Lent, lasted for one week, more accurate
since Palm Sunday to Great and Holy Pascha, being characterised by a very harsh diet. After
establishing the date for celebrating Great and Holy Pascha, through the decision taken at the
First Ecumenical Council, held in 381, the practice of Great Lent of seven weeks, of Antiochian
origin, was definitively adopted in the Orthodox Church. Although there were also differences
as concern the duration of the Holy Lent after the 4 th century before among local churches, the
Orthodox Church also keeps this period and the manner of fasting today.
According to the Orthodox Tradition, Great
Lent begins on the Monday after the Sunday of
the Expulsion of Adam from Paradise, also
called Forgiveness Sunday, after Cheesefare
Sunday, and the fast is observed until the even-
ing of Saturday in Passion Week, namely Holy
Saturday, inclusive. During this whole period
of the fast, liturgical services are more sober
than the ones officiated during the other litur-
gical periods of the ecclesiastical year. During
Great Lent, on common days, the Liturgy of
Presanctified Gifts is officiated, the Liturgy of
Saint John Chrysostom being only officiated on
Saturdays, Sundays, and the Feast of the An-
nunciation of the Blessed Virgin, excepting the
first five Sundays of the Holy Lent when the
Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great is officiated.
The Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great is also offi-
ciated on Thursdays and Saturdays during the
last week of Great Lent. Likewise, people do
not get marry during this period. In the begin-

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ning, even the laws of the Byzantine State interdicted all diversions, games and performances
during the fast. During the seven weeks of fast, there are some restrictions on the number of
daily meals and dishes. According to the tradition established, within the Orthodox Church, it
is recommended on the first two days of fasting, on Monday and Tuesday during the first
week, those who can observed a rigorous fast, or who can abstain from meat to night, when
little bread can be eaten and water can be drunk. During the last week of the Holy Lent, also
called Passion Week, Orthodox believers fast from Holy Monday to Holy Wednesday and on
Holy Friday and Holy Saturday. During this period, believers are allowed to eat fish two times,
namely on the Feast of the Annunciation of the Holy Virgin and on the Feast of the Entry of the
Lord into Jerusalem. At the Vespers of the Sunday of the Expulsion of Adam from Paradise,
when the Holy Lent begins liturgically, the bishop or priest reads the prayer for forgiveness of
sins, from which the name of ‘Forgiveness Sunday’ comes. The believers who attend this even-
ing service, in order they not to begin observing the fast angry with their neighbour, they usu-
ally ask pardon and wish a useful fast to each other. At the parish churches where this Vespers
is not usually officiated, it is recommended the forgiveness prayer to be read on Sunday, after
the Holy Liturgy. The first week of Great Lent also comes with some new liturgical rules. At the
Vespers officiated on Sunday in the evening, beginning with a prokimenon specific to this peri-
od, the colour of bright canonicals are changed and lights are turned off in church. A proki-
menon is a psalm or canticle refrain sung responsorially at certain specified points of the Di-
vine Liturgy or the Divine Office, usually to introduce a scripture reading. The covers of the
holy table, iconostases screen and the other things that adorn the church are replaced with
others dark-coloured and they are again changed to a bright colour on Saturday and Sunday.
Monday and Tuesday are aliturgical days, days, when neither an Eucharistic Liturgy nor the
Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts are officiated. The Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts is however offici-
ated on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in monasteries, and only on Wednesday and Friday,
is usually officiated in parish churches. In the Church of Greece, on Monday, the first day dur-
ing Great Lent, public activities are suspended. At the same time, on Monday, Tuesday, Wed-
nesday and Thursday, the Canon of Repentance or the Great Canon of Repentance, written by
Saint Andrew of Crete, is read during Great Compline. On Saturday, known as the Saturday of
Saint Theodore, the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom is officiated, and the following day, called
the Sunday of Orthodoxy, the Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great is officiated. These are two days
when an Eucharistic Liturgy is officiated, days on which believers make a halt during their
spiritual journey. On these two days, dispensation for oil and wine is given, as on all other Sat-
urdays and Sundays during the fast. In the first week, believers usually confess their sins and
receive the Eucharist for the beginning of their path. Fasting must be united with its liturgical
services, the Great Canon of Repentance, the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts, Confession and the
Eucharist, reading from the Psalter, the Holy Scripture or other holy books. Christians must
take fasting seriously, fast and pray to be better and kinder, to give up or restrict watching tele-
vision, at least from those programmes that are not interesting or serious, those who do not
feed them intellectually or spiritually. If they fail to do that, it means that they are a little en-
thusiastic and their fast is not complete. They must ask God for seeing their own sins and not
convicting their neighbour, because he who numbers only good things is a little more peaceful,
affectionate.
The Great Canon of Repentance is one of the most impressive creations of Christian hymno-
graphy, in which the theme of repentance is mirrored masterfully. Through the theme sugges-
ted by the Great Canon of Repentance, Christians are connected to the possibility of the union
between humankind and God through repentance. The Great Canon is a Bible in miniature, be-
38 The Holy Lent

COVER STORY
cause it gives a summary of the whole period described by the Holy Scripture, from the sin of
the ancestors of humankind, the long journey of mankind for finding heavenly happiness and
ending with the redeeming work of the incarnated Son of God. The first week of Great Lent is
opened by reading the Great Canon of Saint Andrew of Crete in four parts. According to the
Greek biography, Saint Andrew of Crete was born about 660 in Damascus, Syria. The Tradition
says that he had been dumb until he reached the age of seven years old, and he has been
presented with the gift of speech whenever he was partaken of the Holy Sacraments for the
first time. After he finished his studies in Damascus, when he was about 14-15 years old, after
he visited the Holy Land, Andrew would be tonsured in monasticism at the Holy Monastery of
Saint Savas, situated near Jerusalem. It seems that he might have written the greatest part of
his work, including his fundamental work, namely the Great Canon of Repentance, there. In
Jerusalem, he would be also chosen by Patriarch Theodore as a secretary by the deputy of the
patriarchal seat, then entrusting orphan children to his care. Sent to Constantinople around
585 by Patriarch Theodore to give the adhesion of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem to the de-
cisions of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, he remained in Byzantium, where he was ordained
priest. Around 512, he was consecrated bishop for Gortyna, Crete. An unpleasant moment dur-
ing the life of Saint Andrew of Crete is the adhesion – under the pressure of Byzantine Emper-
or Philippikos Bardanes – to the Monothelite heresy, when he signed the document of the
Monothelite Council, held in 712. Some liturgists believe that the Great Canon of Repentance,
written towards the end of his life, would be the expression of his own experience of the Fall of
man and return to the true faith. He is therefore considered ‘mystagogue of repentance’, guid-
ing those who read the verses of the canon to the way on which he himself went.
The classic work of Saint Andrew of
Crete is the Great Canon, a vast poem,
remarkable through the depth of piety
and repentance. Liturgical canons ap-
peared at the end of the 7th century and
the beginning of the 8th century, repla-
cing liturgical hymns called kontakion
to a great extent. A kontakion is a type
of thematic hymn in the Orthodox
Church and other Eastern Christian
churches. Saint Andrew of Crete was
considered ‘the father of canons’, being
therefore the first author of canons and
the promoter of this hymnographic spe-
cies within the Greek Church. A canon is
a rule of faith, a guidance in life, and an
order according to the principles of the
Gospel of Christ. The title of ‘great’ itself
lays emphasis on its length, a vast poem
of 250 stanzas, the longest canon within
the rule of the Church. Read on the first
days of the first week of Great Lent and
completely on the Thursday of the fifth
week, the Great Canon, due to the soul-
uplifting thoughts it leaves, the themes

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necessary in the life of everybody (humbleness, repentance, stabbing the heart), as well as its
depth becomes a guidance and an adviser for the life of Christian believers. The content of the
Great Canon is a spiritual one, a deep dialogue of a sinner with his own consciousness, which
draws his attention to the sins he committed. One can notice the alternation of two levels,
namely the sinful soul that mourns over his sins because he did not follow the right path, but
he followed the wide path of eternal damnation and that asks God for forgiving him because
he sinned before heaven and before Him and the one of the human being that reached divin-
isation through repentance. The Great Canon is the hymn of the rediscovery of the human be-
ing through repentance. The entire hymn is completely penetrated by the sad search of man in
the beginning, the need and importance for gaining it again. The Canon resembles a hall full of
mirrors, in which Christians see their life again. The sinful faces who did not keep the divine
commandments and wasted their gifts, spoiled the harmony and lost the consideration be-
stowed upon them are separated from the standards as regards spiritual life, acceptable to
God, that must be followed by Christians. Unlike the examples given by the Old Testament to
mirror the sinfulness condition of the human being, the characters mentioned in the Canon
are not shown only through their sinful aspect, but also through their great effort to become
friends with God again. These examples actually show Christians that repentance is not an
utopia, a phantasmagoria of some people or a religion, but the only way of the human being to
gain salvation. The author of these verses calls everybody to recognise the mistakes they made
and the sinful condition shared by all Christians. Reading the Great Canon, Christians notice
the story of the humankind, with its fall, but also with its rise, a history that begins sadly, with
losing its relation with the Creator of the world. Towards the end of the Canon, Saint Andrew
makes an impressive transposition of repentance. If the examples and images of the Old Testa-
ment abounded until now, the following message is presented like a miniature of the four Holy
Gospels. The main message preached by the author is in accordance with the evangelic one,
namely ‘Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’. Repentance now becomes a source of
joy and hope, which is completely opposed to the despair to which Christians would be temp-
ted to drive. The drama suffered by the penitent comes to an end in the future, namely when
he attends the Resurrection of Christ. The Resurrection represents joy and is experienced con-
sequently, as repentance should be also experienced. This truth is actually the theological
sense of repentance within the Great Canon, a repentance that breeds and brings joy. The pur-
pose of the repentance reflected within the Great Canon of Saint Andrew of Crete is not an ab-
stract discovery of sins, a way to transcend them. Created in the image of God, man must know
that repentance is the correct attitude, acceptable to God, the only one that can bring back the
original beauty of the human being. Through repentance, man heals his wounded soul, repairs
his alienation from God. The feeling of guiltiness, which makes the soul grow sad, is not found
anymore in repentance, but the deep feeling of the divine law is felt and comes down to the
depth of the human being, soul and body – raising the human being again to the destined posi-
tion. Repentance breeds and brings joy, because it leads to the communion with the Giver of
Life.
40 The Holy Lent

FEATURED ARTICLE
The Nativity Lent, a pilgrimage to the Baby Jesus of

Bethlehem
On 15th November, Christians enter the Nativity Lent. From 15 th November to 24th December inclusive,
Christians prepare for the great Feast of the Nativity of the Lord. From the viewpoint of the calendar
year, it is the first fasting period of the four ones of long standing, as the liturgical year begins on 1st
September. It lasts forty days and is the second one after the Holy Lent as concerns its importance. As
the manner of fasting, it is easier than the Holy Lent, being similar with the summer fasting period, the
one of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. At the same time, the Nativity Lent period is closely related
to the many traditions of the Romanian people.
The Orthodox calendar mentions 14th November as ‘the
Last Meal before the beginning of the Nativity Lent’. The
following forty days of fasting remind Christians of the
same period spent by Moses on Mount Sinai before re-
ceiving the Ten Commandments. Like those people of
the Old Testament, Christians have the duty to prepare
through fasting and praying, for receiving the Saviour
Christ, Who is born from the Virgin Mary. As far back as
the 4th - 5th centuries, the Fathers of the Church men-
tioned the Nativity Lent, but having a different duration.
It would be standardised in 1166, when during the
Council at Constantinople, under the chairmanship of
Patriarch Luke Chrysoberges, it would be established
the Nativity Lent to last forty days, from 15th November
to 24th December. Because this fasting period represents
the Old Testament period, the regulated liturgical hymns
are marked by many Messianic prophesies and words
on the fulfillment of the promise of the Redeemer.
The Nativity Lent prepares Christians for the great Feast of the Nativity of the Lord, an opportun-
ity of joy for all Christians. The manner of fasting is closely related to this moment, one of the hap-
piest ones in the history of salvation. The period of late autumn finds the larder of housewives
loaded with bottled food, and the Church regulated fish, oil and wine to be allowed on every Sat-
urday and Sunday until 20th December (the celebration of Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer), as well
as when every saint has a feast day with a vigil service during this period and at the royal Feast of
the Entrance of the Virgin Mary into the Temple (21 st November), irrespective of the day on which
it may fall. The saints whose feast days are an opportunity of fish allowance on weekdays varies
every year. From 20th to 24th December, the fast becomes harsher. The Feast of the Entrance of the
Virgin Mary into the Temple historically represents one of the first successive events that led to
the Nativity of the Lord. The Holy Virgin was dedicated to the Lord on a path that would make her
worthy of being the Mother of God. Since the Feast of the Entrance of the Blessed Virgin, during
Matins, the katavasias of the Nativity of the Lord are sung at the lectern until 30 th December in-

FEATURED ARTICLE
clusive. On 30th November, the Holy Apostle Andrew, the protector of Romania, is celebrated. The
saint who preached the Gospel of Christ to Romania gave rise to many traditions kept in the Ro-
manian folklore until today, a beautiful Christmas carol included. The Feast of the Holy Hierarch
Nicholas, celebrated by the Church on 6th December, has a different story. In the evening before
the feast, children prepare their shoes, expecting gifts from Saint Nicholas. He gives presents to
obedient children and gives a twig to naughty children. Pairing Saint Nicholas with the presents
gifted to the little ones is originated in the cult dedicated to the saint in Holland, as the protector
of Amsterdam. In Holland, when the saint was celebrated, the shoes of children were filled with
presents. This image captured most countries and worships as a feast of children. In the 20 th cen-
tury, a company producing coolers probably made the most important publicity drive that ever
existed, namely ‘Sinterklaas’ (the Dutch name of ‘Saint Nicholas’) became ‘Santa Claus’. For com-
mercial reasons, Saint Nicholas was no longer introduced as a archbishop of Myra, with canonic-
als, mitre, and episcopal crozier, but as a merry elderly man with a white beard, dressed in a red
mantle, with white fringes made of fur. In the Romanian tradition, the name of the feast also gave
the name of the character that gives presents in the evening of Christmas Eve, namely Father
Christmas.
When the Nativity Lent begins, Christians
gather together and repeat Christmas
carols. The first waits (in the past, street
singers of Christmas carols) of the first
Christmas were angels, who according to
the Holy Evangelist Luke, sang: ‘Glory to
God in the highest, and on earth peace,
good will toward men’ on the Nativity of
the Lord. The Romanian Christmas carol
has both religious themes (the Holy Trin-
ity, the Creation of the world, the Fall of
man, the Mother of God, the Annunci-
ation of the Virgin Mary, the Nativity of
the Lord) and secular elements (Christ-
mas carols for the country lad, maiden,
the newly-married couple, babies, widow
or old people). In the Romanians, the
Christmas carol is a connection between
generations, seemingly kept more faithful
than within any other people. Waits are
messengers of God, namely they come
peacefully, advise Christians to be hope-
ful, wish them health and happiness and
announce Salvation. For their news and
wishes, they are welcomed by house-
holders very creditably. It is said that the
authors of the content of Christmas car-
42 The Nativity Lent, a pilgrimage to the Baby Jesus of Bethlehem

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ols are unknown, and the faithful people found the most suitable content and tunes. The content
comes from the theology of the Nativity of the Lord, and the tunes come from the genius of the
Romanian people. On 24th December, before Christmas, the faithful fast until the Ninth Hour.
Then, believers usually eat boiled wheat, mixed with nut kernel, fruits and bee honey, recalling
the fast of prophet Daniel and the three young men of Babylon. On that day, in many parts of the
country, believers also give alms with such boiled wheat, going about the houses of their relatives
or the ones of the poor, with thin puff pastries as made of pie baked, in which nut kernel mixed
with sugar or bee honey is wrapped. They are called ‘the swaddling clothes of the Saviour’. Fast-
ing on this day recalls the fasting period during the early period of Christianity, when catechu-
mens fasted in the evening before Christmas, having to receive the Holy Sacrament of Eucharist
for the first time.
The moment of the Incarnation of the Son of God was experienced intensively by the whole Uni-
verse adorned by God with wonderful energies, created, but which can receive the unseen work
of the uncreated energies of the divine grace. At that time, the world wonderfully experienced a
cosmic symphony. The natural world and the supernatural combined to thank God and for the
peace of those living on earth. Angels sang, the shepherds worshipped, the creature offered hos-
pitality and warmth, the Magi combined the welfare of the world with the then philosophy and
prostrated themselves before the feet of the Word that Was with God right from the start and that
was God Himself. The Word of God is the Son of God. The Nativity Lent is only understood in the
context of the personal attendance, through sacrifice, to the joy of the Incarnation of the Lord. The
Nativity Lent is evidenced as a period of preparation for the mysterious, but real, meeting with
Christ, the Baby of Bethlehem. Christians read, meditate, pray, make it up with their neighbour
and the whole Universe, confess and receive the Body and Blood of the Lord, within a wonderful
atmosphere of winter, sitting at the fireside and listening to the voices of waits by the windows.
They also refresh the number of the years rich in Orthodox traditions and defeat the spirit of Hal-
loween and Valentine’s Day.

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The Holy Hierarch Calinic of Cernica, a great praying man

and a worthy country lover
On 11th April, the Church celebrates the Holy Hierarch Calinic of Cernica. In 1807, he had entered the
Holy Cernica Monastery, where he was tonsured into monasticism the following year, his name being
changed from Constantine into Calinic. For 43 years, he lived in the monastery near Bucharest, of
which 31 years he occupied it as an abbot, from 1818 to 1850. In 1850, he was installed as bishop of
Râmnic, holding the episcopal seat of the Oltenia eparchy industriously for more than sixteen years.
Loosened because of his old age and illness, he retired to the Cernica Monastery, where he still lived
for almost one year. On 11th April 1868, he passed to God, being buried in the porch of the monastery
church, dedicated to ‘Saint George’, his foundation. A porch is a small area at the entrance to a build-
ing, such as a house or a church, that is covered by a roof and often has walls. From 1787 to 1868,
more than eighty years in the life of Saint Calinic passed, a very important period in the history of Ro-
mania. During his life on earth, the spirituality and holiness harmoniously interweaved with his quality
of genuine Romanian, interested in fulfiling a better life in his country, for his neighbours, despite the
hard times.
The life of Saint Calinic was marked by at least
three major historical events, namely the Uprising
of Tudor Vladimirescu in 1821, the failed Revolu-
tion of 1848 and the Union of the Romanian Prin-
cipalities in 1859. None of those events were un-
known, but on the contrary: the portrait of a very
loving man towards his country, which was actu-
ally involved in a better life of the Romanians, is
outlined. From feudalism to a modern Romania,
Saint Calinic experienced many decisive events
for Wallachia, namely the end of Phanariot reigns
and the new enthronement of worldly rulers, up-
risings of the broad masses of the people, twice
(1821 and 1848), the fulfilment of the dream of
unting with Moldavia, the reforms of Prince Alex-
andru Ioan Cuza, replacing him with the foreign
prince, namely Carol I. Feudalism is the social sys-
tem that existed during the Middle Ages in Europe
in which people were given land and protection
by a noble man, and had to work and fight for him
in return. As a monk, he fulfiled his obedience and
was interested in the spiritual progress, specific-
alli the prayer. According as he was ordered to ac-
complish harder missions, he turned out to be a worthy leader, able to manage, in succession, the
community of a great monastery, but also the one of a large eparchy, leaving behind a spiritual
44 The Holy Hierarch Calinic of Cernica, a great praying man and a country lover
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and material inheritance Romanian Christians enjoy until today. On the occasion of the solemn
canonisation of Saint Calinic, which took place on 24th October 1955, it was said that the saint had
been simultaneously a great man of prayer and a matchless organiser.
The tragic events happened in 1821 found Saint
Calinic holding the position of an abbot of the
Cernica Monastery for three years. In May 1821,
the Turks had prepared an ivasion of Bucharest
to suppress the uprising of Tudor Vladimirescu.
Running away, the refugees found a place of se-
curity at the Cernica Monastery, thanks to abbot
Calinic. When they found out that the neighbour-
ing monastery hid revolutionists, the Turks
cantoned at a facility of Bucharest aimed their
cannons at the foundation. In the evening of 15th
May, the young abbot succeeded in quietening
the fears of those sheltered there, bringing them
to gather for praying. The following day, he sent a
letter to the pasha at the facility, convincing him
that the monastery did not hide fugitives, but it
looked after needed, helpless and old people,
nursed ill people and cared for women and chil-
dren. The Turk commander did not only give up
his plan to destroy the monastery, but he also
sent guardsmen to protect it from other attacks
from then on. There are no documents on the
failed 1848 Revolution from which the attitude of abbot Calinic or his relations with its leaders to
follow. Archimandrite Atanasie Baldovin, one of his disciples and biographers, wrote that his ab-
bot would have expressed his premonition that the year 1848 would be the beginning of a new
age. However, he would adopt the ideals of the Revolution especially in the activity that went be-
fore the Union of the Romanian Principalities. Since 1850, a new mission began for Saint Calinic,
namely the episcopacy at Râmnic – Noul Severin. On the occasion of his investiture, ruler Barbu
Ştirbei, during his speech, showed the ‘religious zeal’ and ‘the religious feeling’ that prompted
Saint Calinic, but also the respect he enjoyed both in the laity and the clergy. On 3rd March 1857,
the Unionist Committee of Bucharest was formed, what made Saint Calinic of Râmnic recommend
all the churches of his eparchy to pray for the union. Thus, on 15th April 1857, the bishop signed a
circular letter to archpriests and abbots through which he asked them for saying prayers in all the
churches for the union of the Romanians, showing a wise patriotism. The Unionist Committee of
Craiova addressed him a letter on 29th April through which he was praised and thanked for his ac-
tion. As a bishop, he attended the meetings of the community Divan, and since the autumn of
1857, he was one of the members of the ad hoc Divan Assembly of Wallachia, as a deputy of the
Oltenia clergy. On 2nd November 1857, he signed a memorial addressed to the ad hoc Assembly,
through which he showed his feelings towards the union that appeared. On the first days of 1859,
Saint Calinic was a member of the Elective Assembly of Wallachia. On 24th January 1859, he atten-

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ded a secret meeting, upon the proposal of deputy Vasile Boerescu, after which those present un-
dertook to vote for Colonel Cuza, the newly-elected ruler of Moldavia. The name of bishop Calinic
occupied the second place, after the signature of Metropolitan Niphon of Ungro-Wallachia, the
president of the meeting, on the document that recorded the secret oath. In the afternoon of that
day, he attended the public meeting where the election of Cuza was done through the formal vote
of the agreement of the deputies. On 25th January 1859, Saint Calinic signed the message through
which the Elective Assembly of Muntenia announced Alexandru Ioan Cuza, the ruler of Moldavia,
that he had been also elected the ruler of Wallachia.
Many things were left by the Holy Hierarch Calinic
of Cernica to present-day Orthodox belivers,
namely some material, they have responsibility to
keep and hand them down to posterity, and other
spiritual, he himself helps believers follow them
through prayer. It is said that Saint Calinic was a
soul-uplifting example of work and combination of
duty, virtue, kindness and patriotism. His life ap-
peared, brightly, on the background of one of the
most struggling, but also the most glorious ages in
the history of Romania. The concern of Saint Calinic
for using a native, Romanian, language in the cor-
respondence and documents of public interest res-
ults from a letter dated 6th July 1853 addressed to
Protosingelos Paphnutius, the manager of the suc-
cursal monastery in Bucharest of the Eparchy of
Râmnic. An eparchy is a province of the Orthodox
Church. Later, on 2nd November 1857, addressing
the Assembly of the ad hoc Divan, he expressed his
wish that the successors of the throne of the future
united country to be Orthodox. Simultaneously, he
requested only the Romanian language to be writ-
ten within the Assembly. His step was actually an attitude to disapprove the cosmopolitan cus-
toms of nobility to insert French words into the current speech. In Râmnicu-Vâlcea, Saint Calinic
founded a printing establishment in 1860, proceeding on the rich activity of his worthy precurs-
ors, among whom Hieromartyr Antim the Ivirian was also counted. In 1862, a series of menolo-
gies appeared, which contained, at the request of bishop Calinic, the Prefaces of the Menologies of
two bishops that preceded him, become available almost one hundred years before. They are spe-
cial because they mention the Dacians, the Getai, the Romans, Augustus, Trajan, Decebalus – the
voivode of the Dacians, Radu the Black, Basarab Laiotă cel Bătrân, the ban of Craiova, Matei Bas-
arab, Constantin Brâncoveanu, the monasteries in Curtea de Argeş and Câmpulung and other
deeds in the glorious past of the Romanians.
46 The Holy Hierarch Calinic of Cernica, a great praying man and a country lover
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The Holy Hierarch Joseph the New from the Partoş

Monastery, the protector of the Banat Metropolitan Seat
A protector of the Metropolitan Seat of the Banat and the patron saint of Romanian firemen, the Par-
toş Monastery, whose holy relics are venerated in the Timişoara Orthodox Cathedral, shined through
his holiness as far back as his lifetime, being, as he is called ‘the jewel of hierarchs, the banisher of all
passions, the rescue of believers, the wonderful praise of Timișoara and the appreciation of the Partoş
Monastery’. The Holy Hierarch Joseph the New from the Partoş Monastery is celebrated every year on
15th September.
The Holy Hierarch Joseph the New from the Partoş
Monastery, venerated very piously every year on 15 th
September, was born about 1568 in Ragusa (present-
day Dubrovnik), a city in Dalmatia, on the shore of the
Adriatic Sea. His father seemed to be a navigator, hav-
ing a ship, conveyed goods on the Adriatic, Mediter-
ranean and Black Seas, as well as on the Danube. There
are not many pieces of information on the first years
during the life of young Jacob, as he had been named
before he went into a monastery. It is known that be-
cause his father had passed away young, Jacob moved
with his mother, who seemed to hail from the Lemnos
Island, since they did not have relatives in Ragusa any-
more, to her brother, who was a dealer in Ohrid, a city
situated in the south of the Danube. There, young Jacob
studied until fifteen years old, being educated by his
mother in good honour to God. At his tender age of fif-
teen years old, Jacob dedicated his life to Christ, enter-
ing the Monastery of the Mother of God situated just in
the city where he lived, where he proceeded on his edu-
cation and went on reading holy books. Eager for pray-
ing and a life more solitary, after five years, Jacob left
the monastery of Ohrid, making for the Holy Mount Athos. There, he entered the Pantokrator
Monastery, situated on a rock beaten by waves, at a height of almost thirty metres, where he lived
a rough life, in fasting and praying, endeavour and obedience. During his full ascent to perfection,
Jacob was tonsured into monasticism, being given the name of Joseph.
He was only 21 years old when young hieroabbot Joseph, through his perfect self-denial, with his
humble thinking, with poverty and wisely, bewildered all Athonite anchorites. An anchorite was a
religious person who lived alone and avoided other people. Having a humble mind and having a
kind heart and thanks to the harsh fasts through which he curbed his body and strengthened his
soul, God gifted him with the power of the word through which he moved the hearts of everybody,
being touched to tears and winging them with the divine desire. For his clean mind in the high

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holiness he had reached, God also gifted him, among the other powers he had got, with the talent
of performing wonders as far back as his lifetime. The fathers of the Holy Mount Athos that
suffered from different illnesses, both sicknesses of the body and sicknesses of the soul, came to
father Joseph and were healed of their helplessness through his prayers. He is carried like a price-
less treasure in succession in the Holy Monasteries of Hilandarion, Xirapotamos, Vatopedion and
other monasteries, hermitages and cells in the Holy Mount Athos. A cell is a small room without
much furniture in which a monk or nun lives. The rumour about the life, qualities and wonders of
Joseph had been spreading in great haste. Thus, because a skilful adviser as concerned spiritual
matters, but also a good organiser of the monastic life according to the rules of Saint Basil the
Great, was required for those tasks, an abbot was sent for leading the Great Lavra of Saint Steph-
en of Adrianopole at the request of the Patriarch of Constantinople. There, for six years, he
worked ceaselessly for reorganising and ordering the spiritual law and the rules of the com-
munity life. He was then appointed abbot for leading the great Romanian lavra Koutloumousion,
an old princely foundation of Romanian rulers, beginning with Vlaicu Vodă, then rebuilt by Mun-
tenia and Moldovja rulers, Matei Basarab and Vasile Lupu. The monastic community of the
Koutloumousion Monastery was also formed of Romanians coming from other regions of the
country.
Reaching the patriarchal age of eighty years
old, abbot Joseph retired to a still cell of the
Vatopedion Monastery. At that time, however,
the episcopal seat of Timişoara, becoming va-
cant, the Romanians wanted their former ab-
bot of the Romanian lavra, who had already
acquired the fame of saint, as a Metropolitan.
On his way to the Banat, Saint Joseph had to
cross the Danube on a float bridge, but the
horses at the carriage were frightened and did
not want to move ahead. All the attempts
made by the coachman and the surrounding
people of making them go forward and mount
the bridge failed. Then, Saint Joseph, disturbed
by the enraged cries of the people, went down
and said few kind words to the horses, which
became tame like some lambs and mounted
the bridge by themselves where they stood
motionless until they crossed the Danube. On
his way to Timişoara, the saint was asked by
Aga Ismail for coming not far from Varset, the
largest city in the district of the Southern
Banat in Vojvodina, Serbia. In Muslim countries, especially under the Ottoman Empire, an aga is a
military commander or official. There, the wife of the aga, who was Christian, had laboured to be
confined for three days. She had been announced in a dream that only bishop Joseph could heal
her. Without fearing, Saint Joseph agreed to return from his journey and go with the aga. When he
48 The Holy Hierarch Joseph the New from the Partoş Monastery
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passed by the house of the aga, his wife immediately bore him a boy. After tens of years, the boy,
baptised Christian, entered a monastery and even became the bishop of Caransebeș, being a fam-
ous defender of Orthodoxy in very hard times for the ancestral faith. Arriving in Timişoara, Saint
Joseph was greeted by Iovan Capră, a silversmith who had been a one-legged person for twenty
years, but who was immediately healed by the saint. On seeing the wonder, both the believers and
the Turks who had come to greet him were amazed. The enthronement of Saint Joseph as a met-
ropolitan of the Banat was carried out on the day of Saint Elijah of the year 1650, namely 2 nd July.
That day is significant for that it represented the faithful attachment to their Metropolitan, espe-
cially as being the feast day of the prophet Elijah, the patron of major guilds in the city, the day
was wearing a special character's celebration. It is known that the life of any hierarch, in a way,
merges with the one of his eparchy. Likewise, the chronicle of the Banat Metropolitan Seat of that
time can be also considered a mirror of the life of the Metropolitan of Timişoara. The new metro-
politan came invested with an obvious authority in his title and the dignity of a patriarchal age of
82 years, as well as the one of the most coveted virtues, what implicitly represented a prestige of
his seat. He organised the Church, founded schools for training priests, raised holy altars, inspec-
ted monasteries and parishes from the Banat, comforting and enlightening his flock. He was much
loved and respected by the Turkish rulers, and many Turks, giving up their law, received the Bap-
tism because Saint Joseph loved everybody alike, and his door was open to everybody. His kind-
ness, mercifulness and teachings full of divine fire actually captivated everybody. Therefore, both
Christians and the Muslims were highly pious towards him for his holy life and his gift of perform-
ing wonders with which God had endowed him.
His advanced age made him retire to the Partoş Mon-
astery on reaching the symbolic age of three years of
episcopal pastorship, after he would have ordered
everything, by changing his spiritual life and wise
management of church matters. The place of his rule,
as well as his whole monastic activity, were bound
with his name forever, being called ‘from Partoş’ and
‘Metropolitan of Timişoara’, or the patron saint and
protector of the Banat Metropolitan Seat. He was 85
years old, in the year of grace of 1653, when, surroun-
ded by the love of everybody, he fixed himself in that
very ancient dwelling place of Romanian spirituality.
In the time of the saint, the Partoş Monastery was also
an important church centre, with a vocational school
for priests and included not only monks coming from
the Banat, but also coming from Wallachia. The life of
the saint lived there, for another three years, increased
the importance and purposes of the settlement, the
believers directing their steps towards it with the
same zeal later as well. Traditions say that when he fell
asleep into the Lord, the bells of the monastery began
ringing by themselves, without being rung by everybody, announcing the bad news to distant

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lands. Then, the lifeless body of the great Metropolitan was placed in a tomb built in the nave of
the monastery church, by the entrance door situated towards the south. A nave is the long central
part of a church where most of the seats are. On the tombstone placed above, pious hands dug an
inscription on which almost one century before, somebody could easily read ‘The Right Reverend
Joseph the New, former Metropolitan of Timişoara’. It was the end of the summer of 1656, when
the spiritual father of the Orthodox believers of the Banat passed on to the everlasting life, aged
85 years old. Saint Joseph then called ‘the New’, for distinguishing him from other older saints
having the same name, did not cease to come to the assistance of believers, many of those who
approached his tomb, even after his death. Among other things, the icon painted in 1782, at the
request of a then archpriest and placed on the wall of the monastery church at Partoş, above the
place where he had been buried, talks about the veneration of saint performed by believers from
ancient times. It is known that a former mayor of Timişoara was healed of his illness coming to
pray there. In gratitude for his cure, he built, in 1750, close to the old monastery church, a newer
one, larger and more stable. Moreover, however, the former Metropolitan of Timişoara fall stead-
ily in the conscience of Banat believers, being invoked in any particular circumstances of their
lives.
Taking into consideration the life and
manner of life of pious Metropolitan
Joseph and being established doubtlessly
that he shined like a true chosen vessel of
God through his fair faith and that he left
behind the scent of holiness, the Holy Syn-
od of the Romanian Orthodox Church de-
cided on 28th February 1950 to canonise
him among the saints fixing the day of 15th
September of every year for venerating
him properly. The same year, the Holy Syn-
od of the Serbian Orthodox Church de-
cided to include the Holy Hierarch Joseph
the New from the Partoş Monastery in its
calendar, during the working session held
from 14th to 27th May. As results from the
report drawn up on exhuming the holy rel-
ics of the saint on 6th September 1956, it
was performed beginning with ten o’clock
after a thanksgiving service. The tomb
built above the burial vault, at the en-
trance into the holy monastery, which is
240 cm long, 135 cm wide and 95 cm high,
was opened by the then Right Reverent
protosingelos and exarch of monasteries,
helped by the present hieromonks, priests and deacons. In the past, an exarch was a metropolitan
deputed by the Patriarch of Constantinople to lead the church within a province or a country. The
50 The Holy Hierarch Joseph the New from the Partoş Monastery
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holy relics were then placed in ‘The Holy Three Hierarchs’ Cathedral of Timișoara, in a beautiful
shrine in order believers to worship them. A shrine is a place where people come to worship be-
cause it is connected with a holy person or event. The shrine is the work of a sculptor at
Archiepiscopate of Bucharest, being manufactured from wood of polisander tree, hair, yew tree,
and lemon tree, being 137 cm long and 37.5 cm wide. The face of the Holy Hierarch, dead, robed
in all his episcopal canonicals, wearing mitre and crozier, is sculpted in wood of lemon tree on the
cover. The socle with floral and geometrical motifs in Byzantine Style is sculpted in wood of pol-
isander tree. Scenes from the life of the saint are also sculpted in wood of lemon tree on the
edges. As a result of the official letter of the Ministry of Home Affairs in 1997 addressed to the
Holy Synod, asking it for designating either the Holy Martyr Cornelius the Centurion (celebrated
on 13th September) or Saint Joseph the New from the Partoş Monastery (celebrated on 15th
September) as a patron saint of the institution, the Holy Synod agreed the Holy Hierarch Joseph
the New to be the patron saint of firemen. Such a decision took into consideration his life, won-
ders, spiritual qualities and started from that he saved a church in Timișoara and a part of the city
from a fire that broke out when he held the appointment of Metropolitan of Timișoara (1650-
1653) is attributed, among other things, to the saint. Connected with that intention, there are
enough saints that are patron saints and protectors, namely the Virgin Mary (the patron saint of
the Navy), Saint Crispin (the patron saint of pilots), Saint Barbara (the patron saint of artillery),
Saint Joseph of Cupertino (the patron saint of parachutists) and so on. Today, thousands of believ-
ers coming from all over the country stop in the city on the shores of the Bega to pray and wor-
ship the relics of the Holy Hierarch Joseph the New from the Partoş Monastery. Another wonder
performed by him happened on 29 th June, when the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul was celebrated.
When he performed the Holy Liturgy on the dedication day of an old church of Timișoara, a great
fire broke out in the western part of the city. A strong wind spread the great fire quickly towards
the whole city. Many people perished in flames at that time, and everybody had been seized with
horror. Seeing the havoc, Saint Joseph the New went abroad before the church taking the Holy
Sacraments with him, and prostrating himself before God and asking His pity on him to save the
city from the havoc. Unexpectedly, thunder clouds rose from the south, covering the sky com-
pletely, and a heavy shower of rain was poured for few hours until it extinguished the destructive
fire completely. Then, going home, he shut himself up in his cell and did not go abroad anymore
for three days. When he showed himself publicly again, he noticed that the sign of the cross had
appeared on the back of the palm of his left hand, as if he had been burnt with red-hot iron. The
sign remained on the hand of the saint until the end of his life, a sign given by God to him for re-
minding him of His great mercifulness.

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The native land of Saint Paisios the Great
It is said that, crossing a branch of the Nile and reaching the Shee-Hyt Desert (as it is called in the
Coptic language), Wadi El Natrun (as called in the Arabic language and meaning ‘Natron Valley’), the
Saviour Jesus Christ blessed the place and told His mother that she had to know that many monks, as-
cetics and anchorites would live in that desert and all of them would serve the Lord, like angels.
In the desert situated in the
north-western part of Egypt,
namely Wadi El Natrun (also
called in Christian literature
‘the Nitrian Desert’), one of the
three areas of the famous wil-
derness, including Kellia,
Scythia and Nitria, at the end of
the 3rd century, the first forms
of monastic life in the world
appeared simultaneously. The
Holy Fathers to which ‘the
Egyptian Paterikon’ refers were
also localised there. Today,
Wadi El Natrun is considered a
sort of residence of the Coptic
Orthodox Patriarchate of Alex-
andria and Egypt. Nitria was
founded as a monastic area by
Abba Amun (who lived in the
3rd century) and lasted thanks
to the fact that it was always in-
habited by monks. The crowd
of people in Nitria might have
made Abba Amun create a
second monastic area situated
only 18 km away from the first
one, called Kellia. It is one of
the most important Christian
archaeological sites in the
world, where not less than
1,600 large buildings erected on a surface of 100 square kilometres, within only 300 years, were
discovered. The Coptic Orthodox Church ‘Saint Paisios the Great’ lies in an extremely beautiful
area, with a colossal traveller’s potential, recognised on a global scale. The area is a treasure that
holds very precious ‘pearls’ for believers. In the Monastery of Saint Macarius, the relics of Saints
Macarius of Egypt, Macarius of Alexandria, Macarius the Younger, as well as the tomb and a part
52 The native land of Saint Paisios the Great

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of the relics of the Holy Prophet John the Baptist, are found. In the Monastery of Saint Paisios the
Great, the relics of Saint Paisios the Great are found, in the Monastery of the Syrians (‘Deir al-Suri-
an’), one can find the tree of Saint Ephraim the Syrian and small parts of relics belonging to many
saints, and at the Monastery of the Romans (‘Deir el-Baramous’), the relics of Saint Maximos,
Dometios, Moses the Black of Scete and the Holy Great Martyr George can be found. Everything is
covered with sand all around. In the western part of the Sahara Desert, and every pilgrim natur-
ally feels, under such unfavourable circumstances, that the monastery is much closer to a miracle
than it really is. With a good reason, the monastery can be considered a real oasis of historical and
cultural vestiges of great importance, which opens a new horizon in Christian spirituality. Many
people visited the monastery, as the names of some of them are also famous, and among them
two travellers and a Jesuit priest, all of them being of French nationality, are also numbered. In
1839, Henry Tattam (28th December 1788 - 8th January 1868), a Church of England clergyman and
Coptic scholar, assessed the manuscripts in the monastery archive, and in 1843, only 13 monks
living at the monastery and ‘the place with the best water in the world’ were discovered. In 1875,
however, when famous Junkers asked the authorities for allowing him to visit the monastery, he
was refused because his European predecessors might have stolen many valuable documents
from there.
The Pious Paisios the Great, who is commemor-
ated every year on 19th June, according to the Or-
thodox calendar, or Abba Pishoi, as Coptic Christi-
ans call him, was born on 15th July, according to
the Orthodox calendar, about 320 AD in a little
town in the Nile Delta. The little town where he
was born was called Shensha or Shesna, currently
in the Egyptian governorate of Al Minufiyah, his
parents honouring God, educated in the faith of
Christ, being very rich and smartened up with
magnificent clothes, who did their best to also
educate their sons to advance in divine and hu-
man things. Because his father passed away
young, Paisios, together with his brothers, was
placed in the care of his mother, who was very
sad. At that time, an angel appeared in her dream,
leaving her a divine message, namely ‘The Lord
wants you to give Him one of your children, to
serve Him’. Full of humbleness, but also seized
with fear, the woman addressed to him, saying
that he could take whoever he wanted. Then, the
angel took Paisios by the hand saying ‘God chose
your son Paisios to serve and glorify His holy name, glorified forever; he is acceptable to God’. Be-
ing small and very weak, his mother asked the angel for choosing another child able to perform
all the tasks God would set him, but ‘he is the one chosen by God, and strength is shown in the
weak’ the angel replied. When he reached the age of 20 years old, Paisios made for the Sahara

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Desert, his place of labours being the Scetes Monastery in the beginning. Together with another
novice, the one who would become Saint John the Dwarf, young Paisios apprenticed Saint Pambo,
commemorated in the Orthodox calendar on 18 th July. Advised by his teacher not to look at
people, Paisios spent three years looking upwards, but with his head bent. It is said that, while he
spent his time there, Saint Paisios might have found the original manuscript of Prophet Jeremiah.
When his teacher fell asleep into the Lord, Paisios asked God for guiding him to what he would do
afterwards, and the Lord sent him an angel who directed his steps to the monastery that would be
named after him. Day and night, Saint Paisios concerned himself about fasting and praying, medit-
ating on the Divine Law. Therefore, for a long time, he devoted himself to organising the monas-
tery, with the help of the monks and ascetics that laboured there. His good name would go beyond
the borders of Egypt, making many pilgrims, among whom Saint Ephraim the Syrian was also
counted, arrived just from the parts of Syria there, to visit him. Together with Saint John the
Dwarf, worthy to remember Paisios the Great went through the unique experience of living in a
grotto dug by a human hand, somewhere in the basement of the neighbouring church, Deir al-
Surian. According to custom, likewise, when he lived in the grotto of the Monastery of the Syrians,
Saint Paisios the Great was visited by the Saviour Jesus Christ Himself. Then, from his overflowing
wealth of affection, he made a gesture that is seldom seen in the desert, namely he washed the
feet of his his guest. Immediately after he dried the feet of the Lord and He went away, Paisios
drank with great zeal the holy water from the wash bowl in which he had washed His feet. Ac-
cording to tradition, he immediately started living a superhuman life, as the prophesy of baby Je-
sus sounded when He passed through those places together with the Holy Family, as well. In the
years 407-408, when the tribes of the Berbers invaded those places, Saint Paisios left the area, es-
tablishing himself in Mount Ansena. In Antinopolis (a city founded at an older Egyptian village by
the Roman Emperor Hadrian to commemorate his deified young beloved, Antinous, on the east
bank of the Nile, not far from the site in Upper Egypt, where Antinous had drowned in 130 AD),
he would meet Saint Paul of Tammah. The two pillars of spirituality from the Egyptian wilderness
would live together, and their good close friendship would make them inseparable, God prom-
ising that they would live together forever. Pious Paisios fell asleep into the Lord in 417. After the
persecutions, the Christians of those times took the two bodies and placed them in the Monastery
of Saint Pishoi. Like the Monastery of Saint Macarios the Great, the Monastery of the Romans and
the Monastery of Saint John the Dwarf, the holy monastery suffered from the five attacks of the
Berbers. Their ruler ordered destroying those monasteries in the time of Patriarch Andronic
(616-623). When the attack of the Berbers came to an end, Patriarch Benjamin I (623-662) re-
built those holy monasteries. In the 8th - 11th centuries, actually, most of the monasteries lying in
the Nitrian Desert were rebuilt or repaired. The holy relics of the two leaders of Orthodox Chris-
tianity would be moved from Alexandria to the Nitrian Desert only in the 9 th century. The intact
body of Saint Paisios is also kept today close to the relics of Saint Paul of Tammah. Saint Paisios
lived in the ‘golden’ times of Christianity, from 320 to 417 AD. He lived an excellent ascetic life,
similar to the one of angels. He showed love towards his neighbours and simplicity. He performed
great wonders, both during his lifetime and after he fell asleep into the Lord. It is said about Saint
Paisios that he was one of the few ones for whom God kept up the world during his lifetime, being
called ‘the Great Father of the desert’. It is hard enough to say if Saint Paisios chose the desert for
his labours or the desert chose him, but it is certainly that he gave it its own identity.
54 The native land of Saint Paisios the Great

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Andrei Rublev, the painter of the Holy Trinity
Many people consider Andrei Rublev the greatest icon painter in Russia. His work was recognised
as far back as during his lifetime, and in the 16th century, the Russian Orthodox Church standard-
ised him as concerned iconography. However, there are very few things about the life of Rublev
and very few facts can be described using a reliable source of information.
The reputation of Andrei Rublev exceeds by far the
number of the written documents that mention him
and the works of art left by him. Nevertheless, a
thread of the life and works of the great Russian
artist can be followed. It is thought that he was born
between 1360 and 1370. Rublev entered the ‘Holy
Trinity’ Lavra near Moscow, founded by Saint Sergi-
us of Radonezh, as a monk in his youth. Because of
the lack of the written documents, the specialists es-
tablished the chronology of the works of Rublev on
the basis of the stylistic analysis. It is thought that
the first work of Rublev are the frescoes of the Or-
thodox Cathedral of the Dormition of the Virgin
Mary at Gorodets, in Zvenigorod, dated about 1400
and kept until today in small fragments. Zvenigorod
was the residence of Prince George, the son of great
Moscovite Prince Dmitri Donskoi between 1388 and
1425. Prince George was a great admirer of Saint
Sergius and, therefore, he might have asked a monk
from the ‘Holy Trinity’ Lavra for painting the frescos.
The monk that would paint them was Andrei Rublev.
Rublev was mentioned in chronicles in 1405 for the first time, when, together with Theo-
phanes the Greek and Prokhor of Gorodets, painted the frescoes for the Cathedral of the An-
nunciation of the Moscow Kremlin. The painting was destroyed, but, according to the public
opinion, the same group of painters also coloured the church iconostasis, so that some icons
are attributed to Rublev. The chronicler wrote the name of Rublev, placing him on the third
and last place, a situation that shows that the artist must have been still young and less experi-
enced than the others at that time. His participation in painting the frescoes from the church
where the members of the reigning dinasty of Moscow proves that Rublev was numbered
among the recognised artists. The name of Rublev was mentioned in 1408 for the second time.
A chronicler wrote about the painting the frescoes at the Cathedral of the Dormition of the Vir-
gin Mary in Vladimir. In that note, the artist appeared on the second place, after monk Daniil
Cherni. As the works painted later prove it, the two painters and monks were attached to each
other in their team work, but they were also very close friends. The Cathedral of the Dorm-
ition of the Virgin Mary, built in the 12 th century in Vladimir, was the residence of the bishop
and one of the large churches in Russia. Over centuries, it was ravaged by civil wars several
times. Not even the works of Daniil Cherni and Andrei Rublev were completely kept, being
destroyed only two years after they had been painted, probably during the Tatar invasion.
Fragments on the western walls of the church based on the scene of Doomsday, as well as two

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rows of icons from the iconostasis are still kept from the frescoes at Vladimir. In 1408, during
the Tatar invasion, the Holy Trinity Lavra was destroyed, but later rebuilt completely by abbot
Nikon, the disciple and successor of Saint Sergius. About the 1420s, Daniil and Rublev were in-
vited together with their disciples to paint the frescoes in the stone church of the Holy Trinity
Lavra. The mural paintings were not kept, in contrast with the iconostasis that resisted almost
completely until today. Soon after the works at the Holy Trinity Lavra came to an end, Rublev
went to the Andronnikov Monastery in Moscow, where he would paint his last work, namely
the frescoes at the Saviour Cathedral. Documents prove that Rublev coloured not only the
paintings kept in fragments of small dimensions, but he also contributed to the architecture of
the holy worship place. There, Andrei Rublev fell asleep into the Lord on 29th January and was
buried there as well.
In 1918, some works attributed to Rublev were dis-
covered at Zvenigorod, namely fragments of fresco in
the Cathedral of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary and
three icons belonging to the Deisis cycle, representing
Christ Pantocrator, the Holy Archangel Michael and the
Holy Apostle Paul in the wood shed near the church.
Icons were found in a deplorable condition, specific-
ally with their colour exfoliated, cracked wood and
very dirty. The face of Christ suffered most, but even
so, the redeemed fragment gives the spectator an
overwhelming impression of the stillness, kindness
and presence of the painted One. The icons at Zvenig-
orod are numbered among the most beautiful por-
traits of saints at that time. Laying stress upon the dy-
namycs of the figures, graphicalness of attitudes and
gestures, Rublev introduces the rules of a new aesthet-
ics. It is visible especially in the icon of Archangel Mi-
chael, which is the prediction of the talent of a sub-
leme work, namely the Holy Trinity. In 1551, during
the Hundred Chapter Synod held in Moscow, it was recommended the painters to colour the
icon of the Holy Trinity agreeably to the old iconographical patterns, ‘as the Greek artists and
Andrei Rublev painted’. The famous icon of Rublev was just the classic scene in the Byzantine
iconography depticting the three angels who visited Abraham and his wife Sarah at the oak of
Mamre. Rublev, however, simplified the scene of historical events to a maximum and confered
an atemporal character to the whole painting. The Byzantines would not do that because they
knew that the icon had to always show what it was seen, the sacred history of humankind.
However, to lay stress upon the union of God within the Holy Trinity, Rublev chose ideal artist-
ical means. The twists of the angels, the arrangement of their feet, the way in which they keep
their heads bent create the closed form of a circle, whose centre is marked by a goblet with the
head of the Lamb – the symbol of the Holy Eucharist. A goblet is a cup for wine, usually made
of glass or metal, with a stem and base but no handle. Even the throne, the steps of the al-
tar-table, the ‘bent’ mount and the branch of oak enter the circular dynamycs. The vision of the
union that includes the whole world is so suggestive, that identifying the angels with the per-
sons of the Holy Trinity becomes less essential, and specialists still discuss heatedly about it.
According to some annotators, the Angel in the middle of the painting is likely to represent
Christ, Who points to the Eucharistic goblet. The colour of vestments, which consists in a
56 Andrei Rublev, the painter of the Holy Trinity

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cherry-coloured chiton with a golden-yellow girdle and a blue himation, typical to the mediev-
al representations of Christ, favourises the interpretation. A chiton was a form of clothing
worn by men and women in Ancient Greece, from the Arabic period (c. 750 – c. 550 BC) to the
Hellenistic period (323 – 30 BC).
The work of Rublev is considered a great work within the Russian medieval painting. His style
would be a source of inspiration for the creations of the so-called Moscovite school, he would
raise to a very high level, for long time. Rublev created a synthesis, including the most im-
proved features of the Byzantine art and the national one in a whole. He repulsed the austere
and dramatic painting of Theophanes, to which he opposed a completely different manner of
dealing with the light, the fluency of the outlines, forgetting contrasts and the clarity of the
painter’s palette. The creation of Rublev crowned the Moscovite painters who, adopting the
Byzantine heritage, would gain a special status in painting. The evidences related to his char-
acter also contributed to the development of the legend about Rublev. Chronicles described
him as a very wise and experienced, as well as pious and kind man. Therefore, the Russian Or-
thodox Church canonised him among the saints in 1988 to recognise his artistical and moral
authority. He is commemorated every year on 29th January. His works can be admired in Mo-
scow, Kremlin, the Trinity Lavra of Saint Sergius in Sergyiev Posad, Saint Petersburg and
Zvenigorod.

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The teacher of repentance receives the crown of

martyrdom from Herod
‘The intermediary of the Law’ and ‘preacher of repentance’, ‘candlestick and angel’, Saint John the
Baptist is the one through whose voice the humble nature was elevated and the pride of death
submitted. The greatest one born of a woman, the symbol of martyrs and missionaries, is con-
sidered the Forerunner of Christ, the one who introduces the Lamb of God, the Redeemer of the
sins of humankind, to the world, by the Church tradition.
Saint John the Baptist is the greatest
prophet because not any prophets, not
even Saint Elias the Prophet, were said to
‘would be filled with the Holy Spirit, even
from the womb of his mother’. Although
he did not receive the gift of working won-
ders, Saint John became the forerunner of
true Christ, receiving the Baptism of
Blood, the same Baptism that Jesus Him-
self and His disciples would receive. The
destiny of the life of Saint John the Baptist
had been foreseen within the Eternal
Council of the Most Holy Trinity. Christen-
ing him John, before his birth and even be-
fore he had been conceived, is thus justi-
fied. The angel of the Annunciation said
before priest Zacharias the word accord-
ing to which John would be called his son
and ‘he shall be great in the sight of the
Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor
strong drink’. Christ the Lord made a mys-
terious confession about John before the
crowd, namely ‘he is more than a prophet’.
The prophet showed the mysterious plans
of God, transmitted His word to people.
Saint John was a witness that attested to
the event attending it. He is more than a
prophet, because his confession is one of
the human conditions of the mission of Christ, ‘thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness’.
It was emphasised that everything that is got only when man is entirely spiritually matured
was given to John as a gift as far back as he had been born, and ‘many shall rejoice at his birth’.
When he had been not born of Elizabeth yet, when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the
Mother of God, the New Testament records that the babe (John) leaped in her womb. Thus, it
is confirmed that John appears as a prophet and friend of the Bridegroom, and he overcomes
time as an Angel of the Incarnation. John was a messenger, he was the envoy that came from
the wilderness and said ‘Behold the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world’. The
coming of Saint John the Baptist itself was accompanied by signs, ‘because the hand of the
58 The teacher of repentance receives the crown of martyrdom from Herod

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Lord was with him’, and John became the hand, the finger that showed and talked the world
about Christ, the Light of the world. The birth of John announced the birth of Christ, because
the blessing of Zacharias can be considered a Messianic hymn. In the person of Zacharias, the
time of the Old Testament, which prostrates itself before the coming of the Lord and salutes
the Forerunner that comes to give ‘knowledge of salvation’ unto his people, to announce ‘the
visitation of the dayspring from on high’.
John began to preach in the wilder-
ness, baptised his disciples there
and ‘the voice of him that crieth in
the wilderness’. His entire being
answered the call of the wilder-
ness, rose throughout the unique
greatness of that land impover-
ished and burnt by the inner flame
of ascetic cleanness, namely ‘John
had his raiment of camel’s hair, and
a leathern girdle about his loins;
and his meat was locusts and wild
honey’. Considering himself un-
worthy of unloosing the shoe’s
latchet of Christ, Saint John
preached the Saviour as ‘one
stronger than him’ and ‘earlier than
him’. Through his sermon, Jesus as
the Messiah had to advance, to be
known and listened, and John had
to become humbler. During his en-
tire sermon, Saint John drew atten-
tion to the authority of Christ. The
whole Jerusalem had been shaken
by his word that preached repent-
ance and the near punishment of
those who do not realise their sins.
Identifying Saint John as ‘the voice
of one crying in the wilderness’
was his hard life lived in the wilderness and the strength of his spirit, signs similar to the au-
thority of Saint Elias the Prophet. The mission recorded by the Holy Gospel on Saint John the
Baptist is the one of a messenger ‘to bear witness of the Light that all men through Him might
believe’. Saint John is one of the last prophets sent like the servants of the Householder of the
vineyard in the parable of the wicked husbandmen, to call to repentance those who had devi-
ated from the will and plan of God. The Baptism to which Saint John called all the Jews was the
returning from the kingdom of the Evil One to the bosom of God within Christ, because the
wickedness of the soul is firstly destroyed through repentance and the new man is created
only later. Nobody can discover God as the Father without baptism and repentance. The
prophets of the Old Testament had the mission to awaken the consciousness and return the
hearts of people to the Divine Law by announcing His judgement. Saint John can be taken as a
standard for all the prophets as concerns the relationship between the Law and grace, which
59 The teacher of repentance receives the crown of martyrdom from Herod

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was not given to him to experience it ‘for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth
came by Jesus Christ’. Christ, the precious corner stone, Who brings salvation, is placed before
the last prophet, because ‘the law and the prophets were until John’. Saint John is the Forerun-
ner of the Lord not only during His earthly lifetime, but he is ‘also the forerunner of Christ for
those placed in hell’, ‘preacher for those who stand in the darkness’. Such a service can be con-
nected with considering Saint John as the Forerunner of Parousia or the Second Coming of
Christ. Nevertheless, in the Deisis icon that means ‘imploration’, ‘mediation’, Christ appears
flanked by the Mother of God and Saint John, who pray for those who did not have time to do
penance during their earthly lifetime. Saint John made himself known as the archetype of the
witness of Christ, the irradiating principle of all the forms of confession, the constellation of
male vocations; therefore, the Church prayer calls him ‘prophet, apostle, angel, forerunner,
baptist, priest, preacher for those who stand in hell, the example of monks and the flower of
the wilderness, martyr’.

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The Holy Hierarch Spyridon, the protector of the sick
One of the most passionate defenders of the right belief during the First Ecumenical Council held
in Nicaea was the Holy Hierarch Spyridon, bishop of Trymithous, who is commemorated by the Or-
thodox Church every year on 12th December. He takes a place of honour thanks to the fact that he
succeeded in returning many unbelievers to God through his simplicity, cleaning the passions of
many people through the gift of working wonders with which he had been honoured. He was per-
secuted during the reign of Roman Emperor Maximian, being arrested, then exiled. He knew the
Holy Hierarch Nicholas, with whom he made very close friends, at the Council of Nicaea. He per-
formed many miracles through which he helped those in want.
Saint Spyridon was born in 270
AD in Asha, a locality of Cyprus,
into an ordinary family, and the
main activity during his child-
hood was sheep feeding. Saint
Spyridon was familiar with the
Sacrament of Marriage, and after
his wife had passed away very
young, he took the monastic
cowl, spending his fortune on
helping people in want. En-
dowed by God with the gift of
working wonders, because ‘he
healed all kind of illnesses, of
those which could be hardly
cured, and banished evil spirits
only speaking the word’, Saint
Spyridon became the spiritual
shepherd of the believers in
Trymithous. He lived during the
reign of great Emperor Con-
stantine the Great, being a firm
supporter of the right belief,
which he always introduced to
people without twisting the
facts, making the words of the Saviour strong for those standing in the darkness. The first
Christians looked for the right belief with their hearts. Their search would become a rational
one since learned people, philosophers, who, until discovering Christ within the Church, had
searched for the truth within the different systems they studied minutely in the schools of that
time, converted to Christianity. Trying to know the Creator rationally led to many heresies,
among which the one of priest Aries was the most difficult one for the Christians of the early
Church. A heresy is a term that shows the wrong teaching of a person or group of people, and a
heretic is a person who deviated from the right teaching of the Christian Church, adopting,
supporting and spreading another faith. The heretic considered God-the Son as a creature of
God-the Father and not of one essence with the Father. Emperor Constantine the Great (306-

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337), who although did not know theological matters, finding out the trouble caused by the
heresy of Aries within the Church, established an ecumenical council to be organised, where
the Church truth of faith to be set up concisely. The Ecumenical Council was held in Nicaea in
321, and Saint Spyridon, the representative of the Church of Trymithous, was also numbered
among the attendants.
There, he amazed many attendants
with the simplicity with which he
explained the Orthodox faith. Not so
much literate, the saint succeeded in
converting a great philosopher of
that time from Arianism to Ortho-
doxy. To prove the union of the Holy
Trinity to the philosopher, Saint
Spyridon made the sign of the cross
with his right hand, holding a brick
in his left hand and invoking the
name of the Holy Trinity. Immedi-
ately the fire rose high, the water
fell down on the ground, and the
clay in the brick remained in his
hand. All those present were thun-
derstruck, and the philosopher
could no longer find the language to
fight against the saint, where the di-
vine power, which made the words
of the Bible, namely ‘the kingdom of
God is not in word, but in power’, be
confirmed, worked. After the works
of the council came to an end, Saint
Spyridon came back to his city. In
the meantime, Irine, his daughter,
who had spent her whole lifetime in
virginity, serving Christ, passed
away. During her lifetime, a woman had given the girl a golden treasure to keep it. Then, if the
girl had passed away, the woman could not take her treasure back anymore, because only the
dead girl knew where she had placed it. After they had searched the treasure and found noth-
ing, Saint Spyridon went to the grave of his daughter and shouted at her, as Christ had once
shouted at his friend Lazarus, asking her where the treasure was, and she told him the place
where the treasure was hidden as if she awaked from a long sleep. Then, the saint told her
again that she could sleep from then on until the God of everybody would awake her at the
public resurrection. Likewise, the saint also healed Emperor Constantius, the son of Emperor
Constantine, after he had seen him in his dream and, calling him from the city of Trymithous,
was healed by being only touched. After a whole lifetime during which he had honourably
served the church of Trymithous, Saint Spyridon was called by his Lord to go to the heavens, to
the places of the righteous, to the place arranged for him according to his good deeds. He fell
asleep into the Lord in 348 AD, aged 78 years old, being buried in the ‘Holy Apostles’ Church in
the city of Trymithous, Cyprus. After the Saracens had invaded the island, the Cypriotes
62 The Holy Hierarch Spyridon, the protector of the sick

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opened his tomb for moving his holy relics to Constantinople. Saracen was a term used by the
ancient Romans to refer to people who inhabited the deserts near the Roman province of Syria
and who were distinct from Arabs. Then, they discovered his uncorrupted body, surrounded
by an agreeable smell of basil, as a sign of the holiness of his life. On the fall of Constantinople
under the Ottomans in 1453, his holy relics were moved to Serbia, and a father in Corfu
brought them to Greece. Today, the relics of Holy Hierarch Spyridon are found in a church of
Corfu, a church situated at 100 metres’ distance from the Metropolitan Church, near the relics
of the Holy Empress Theodora, commemorated by the Church on 11th March every year.
Even today, the saint works for be-
lievers through his holy relics. He
is known as ‘the traveller saint’, be-
cause his silken shoes wear and
are replaced every year when he is
commemorated, on 12th December.
Unlike the other holy relics, the
ones of the saint often disappear
from their shrine, coming to those
who ask them for help with faith
and working many wonders. He is
the protector of the sick and there-
fore many hospitals are named
after him. There are many proofs
and testimonies about the jour-
neys made by the saint, specifically
clergymen and believers often no-
ticed that, for short time, the body
of the saint was missing from its
shrine, and when the saint came
back, his body was warm and
covered with dust. Likewise, the
shoes of the saint are replaced
every year, because they wear,
traces of dust and grass being able
to be seen. For that reason, Saint
Spyridon was chosen the patron
saint of shoemakers. During reli-
gious processions, Saint Spyridon
is carried in his shrine on his legs. He is commemorated for more than 1600 years by believers
as the one who always spends time with people. When Corfu belonged to the Venetians, they
venerated him piously for the assistance they had got from him. As a proof of veneration, the
Venetians had dressed the saint with canonicals sewn with thread of gold, but, the following
day, they found his relics dressed in the same humble canonicals, and the clothes he had been
given from them stood close to his shrine. There is a church dedicated to the Holy Hierarch
Spyridon in Jerusalem. One day, the priests saw the saint in the church, looking through one of
the windows. After he left, the face of the saint remained imprinted on the window pane. Ac-
cording to the account of Dionysius of Furna (c.1670-c.1745), an important Greek iconograph-
er, Saint Spyridon appears as ‘an old man with a long beard and split a little into two parts,

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wearing a skull cap’. The saint is also represented in the icon of the First Ecumenical Council,
together with the other present hierarchs. In the middle of the assembly, a philosopher that
looks amazed at something is represented, while Saint Spyridon, stretching his hand to him,
squeezes a brick from which fire, clay and water in his other hand, showing thus that the Holy
Trinity is of one essence.
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The Apostle gifted by God
Saint Matthias, whose name means ‘gift of Yahweh’, had been one of the seventy disciples of the
Lord Christ and then chosen to take the place of Judas Iscariot, after he had fallen from his apostle-
ship by transgression. According to historian Nicephoros, Matthias might have preached in Judaea
and then in Ethiopia, and according to another tradition, he also preached in Macedonia.
The Holy Apostle Matthias descen-
ded from the nation of Judas. He
learned the Scriptures and under-
standing the Law following the ad-
vice of Saint Symeon the God-Re-
ceiver in Jerusalem from a child.
‘Full of the divine covetousness
after the Lord’, Matthias, hearing of
the preaching and teaching of
Christ and seeing his wonders, ‘in-
jured himself with love towards
Him and, defaming earthly things,
followed Him together with the
other disciples and the people he
tamed on seeing the face and hear-
ing the most sweet words of the In-
carnated God, and the Lord, Who
tests the hearts and the depths of
believers, noticed the covetousness
and honest knowledge, chose him
as a disciple. Then, after the suffer-
ing of His own will, the Resurrec-
tion and the Ascension of the Lord
Christ, the Holy Apostle Peter, the
greatest apostle, being in the
middle of the church, delivered a
speech on taking the place of Judas,
who gave up apostleship of his own accord’. According to the Acts of the Apostles, the Synod of
the Twelve Apostles, the first chosen ones of the Lord, had to remain unchanged, and Judas
Iscariot had to be replaced with another apostle, and Matthias was the chosen and numbered
one among the twelve Apostles, and the selection was strengthened by sending the Holy Spirit
in cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. Only the twelve Apostles, whom
Saul, the persecutor of the Church of Christ, become Paul, the Apostle of the Nations, also
joined after his conversion to Christianity, could found and organise churches and communit-
ies everywhere, ordaining them deacons, priests and bishops. Likewise, only they, who were
full of grace and charismas, had a right and were able to give the Holy Spirit to the baptised
ones. A charisma is a trait found in persons whose personalities are characterised by a person-
al charm and magnetism (attractiveness), along with innate and powerfully sophisticated abil-
ities of interpersonal communication and persuasion. Therefore, priesthood comes from the

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Apostles, because the grace from Christ was transmitted through them to bishops. After re-
ceiving the Holy Spirit, the Apostles drew lots for the place where they should have gone to
preach the gospel of Christ, and according to the account of historian Nicephoros, the lot fell
upon Saint Matthias to go to Judaea, in order to preach Christ God there, and he made efforts
in it, exploring cities and villages and announcing the salvation of the world ‘enlightening
everybody and advising them towards divine knowledge and making those who had stood in
vanity and unbelief vessels of the Light’.
However, he did not preach
Christ only in Judaea, but also
among nations, because he is
said to have also preached the
word of God in Colchis and
Ethiopia, where he suffered
from many torments, being
dragged, beaten, hung to tor-
ments, crushed on his ribs
with pieces of iron and burnt
on his back with fire, but be-
ing strengthened by Christ, he
accepted torments with pleas-
ure and stood them bravely.
By another tradition, the Holy
Apostle Matthias also la-
boured in Macedonia to an-
nounce Christ, where the
Greek pagans caught him and,
wishing for tempting the
power of the faith preached
by him, they gave him a pois-
onous drink that caused
blindness. However, Saint
Matthias drank the poison for
Christ and remained un-
harmed, but moreover, put-
ting his hands on those more
than 250 people blinded by
the poison and invoking
Christ, he healed them. Because the Devil did not stand to see the wonder, he showed himself
to unbelievers as a little child, ordering them to murder Matthias. Although, when they wanted
to catch the apostle, he walked in the midst of them without being seen, and being searched
for three days, he was not found. Then, showing himself of his own will to them, and they, ty-
ing him, threw him into the dungeon, where after showing himself to him, seized with anger,
the Devil gnashed his teeth at him. Nonetheless, on the following night, the Lord stood before
him in great glory, strengthened him and, untying him, opened the gates of the dungeon and
released him. When the day arose, Saint Matthias appeared amidst the people again and
preached Christ bravely, and when those who were callous and did not believe his words and
wanted to murder him, the earth immediately opened out and swallowed them, and the ones
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that have remained, being afraid of what could happen to them, came back to Christ and re-
ceived baptism. Afterwards, the Apostle of Christ came back to Judaea again to his lot and,
preaching the word of God, he brought back many of the souls of Israel to Christ the Lord, as-
suring them by signs and wonders, because he illuminated the blind, cleaned lepers, chased
away devil from people for Christ, healed lame and deaf people and resurrected deceased
people.
Because of the wonders he worked among the Jews for Christ, in about 63, Saint Matthias was
sentenced to lapidation by the Jewish Sanhedrim, under the leadership of archpriest Ananias,
the same archpriest who had passed the sentence the Holy Apostle James to be thrown from
the wing of the Temple. While the villains hit him, the Holy Apostle Matthias raised his hands
towards the sky and drew his last breath, as the first martyr of the Church, namely the Holy
Archdeacon Stephen, had suffered. In order the illegal judgement and murder not to be dis-
covered by the Roman administration, who was in office at that time, the Jews cut off the head
of the saint with an axe, because those who opposed the Caesar were murdered like that, so
that the death of Saint Matthias to be like an observance of the Roman law and not like an il-
legality of the Jews. Cutting off the head with an axe explains why the Holy Apostle Matthias is
considered the patron saint of butchers and joiners. Saint Matthias, labouring with the good
hardship, fell asleep into the Lord, and the believers took his body and buried it honourably,
glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ.

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The treasure of Vatican City
The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter, commonly known as Saint Peter’s Basilica, represents one of the
main landmarks for any visitor of Rome. It was built above the tomb of Saint Peter, to store the
vestiges of the chain with which the greatest Apostle had been tied when he had been imprisoned
in Jerusalem. The vault of the basilica stores the rests of the first building, but also many tombs of
some popes, cardinals and lay princes. The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter lodges the main shows of
the Roman Catholic ritual.
It was just a commemorative monument in the beginning, built on the place near the Circus of
Nero, where the Holy Apostle Peter had been crucified in 67 AD. To remember the greatest
Apostle honourably, however, Emperor Constantine the Great (306-3337) built later, over his
tomb, a basilica that would become one of the largest (it is 186 metres long, with its dome be-
ing 119 metres high) and the most beautiful worship places in the Christian world, but also a
safe place for the vestiges of the chain with which Saint Peter had been tied when he had been
imprisoned in Jerusalem. With a total area of over 15,000 metres, the Papal Basilica of Saint
Peter in Vatican City, Rome is considered the second largest sacred place of Christianity, after
the Basilica of Our Lady of Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast, Africa (with a total area of about
300,000 metres). Although impressive, the Papal Basilica of Saint Peter is not the seat of the
bishop of Rome, the chair being represented by the Basilica of Saint John Lateran.
The works would be started under the pontificate of Pope Silvester I (314-335). Many prestigi-
ous architects and artists contributed to creating the great work of art. Architect Donato
Bramante (1444 -11th March 1514) initiated the first works, painter Michelangelo accom-
plished the project of the dome, painter Raphael changed the original plan, from a Greek cross
into a Latin one, architects Carlo Maderno completed the front side and artist Bernini drew
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the plan of the square, with its famous colonnades. A colonnade is a row of evenly spaced
columns supporting a roof, an entablature, or arches. The basilica was imposing right from the
start. Somebody had to climb the 35 stairs, preceded by the statues of the Holy Apostles Peter
and Paul. The inward yard was 56 metres long and 62 metres wide, and the inside of the ba-
silica was formed of a hall which was 90 metres long and 84 metres wide, separated into five
naves. A nave is the long central park of a church where most of the seats are. The central nave
was 23 metres wide, separated from the side naves through four rows of 23 columns, and light
penetrated through the 72 windows. The basilica would be considered as the core of the fu-
ture pontifical State and, for twelve centuries, the basilica started by Emperor Constantine the
Great was visited by pilgrims.
In the 15th century, the building was in ruins and, therefore, Pope Julius II (1503-1513), a great
protector of humanists and artists, decided a new basilica of vast proportions to be built. A hu-
manist is somebody who believes in humanism, a system of thought that considers that solv-
ing human problems with the help of reason is more important than religious beliefs. The con-
struction of the present-day large building, started on 18th April 1506, came to an end in 1612,
during the pontificate of Pope Paul V. The column in Saint Peter’s Square, reflecting the in-
creased power of papacy during Baroque, tops through its size – it is 273 metres long and 226
metres wide – the squares during the Renaissance. A number of 284 columns that are 15
metres high, 88 pilasters of travertine and 140 statues of saints that are 3.10 metres high ad-
orn the colonnade. Travertine is a white or light-coloured calcareous rock deposited from min-
eral springs, used in building. The obelisk, which had been situated in the axis of the Circus of
Nero in the beginning, brought from Egypt – the second highest in Rome, after the one in the
Lateran Square – was located in the present-day square during the papacy of Pope Sixtus V, be-
ing conveyed with the help of 75 horses. The baroque front side of the present-day basilica is

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118 metres wide and 48 metres high, having eight columns with Corinthian capitals, which are
27 metres high. It is dominated by the statues of the Saviour, Saint John the Baptist and eleven
Apostles. The one of the Holy Apostle Peter is inside the building. The loggia of the blessing of
popes, from where the Pope shares the festive blessing ‘urbi et orbi’ (which translated means
‘to the City and to the World’) is built in the middle of the building. A loggia is a gallery or
room with one or more open sides, especially one that forms part of a house and has one side
open to the garden. The nave, built from 1608 to 1612, is 72 metres long. The central nave has
a view towards the largest inward area of a Christian basilica. It numbers 44 altars, 11 domes,
868 columns, 395 statues of marble, travertine or bronze, and 135 mosaic images. The bronze
canopy, made by artist Bernini and erected over the tomb of Saint Peter, inaugurated in 1635,
is 29 metres high and weighs 370 quintals. A canopy is a cover that is fixed or hangs above a
bed, seat, etc. as a shelter or decoration. The 16 stairs that go down to the tomb of Saint Peter
are guarded by 99 candles. Near the canopy, there is the bronze statue of Saint Peter, a work
that dates back to the 13th century, being made by architect and sculptor Arnolfo di Cambrio.
Sitting on a marble throne, the greatest Apostle holds the keys of the kingdom of heaven, a
symbol of the power received from the Saviour Jesus Christ, in his left hand, and his right hand
is raised as if he blessed somebody as a father. The episcopal seat of Saint Peter in the apsis is
supported by the statues of four teacher saints of the Church, namely Saint Ambrose, Saint Au-
gustine, Saint Athanasius and Saint John Chrysostom.
The sculptural ensemble of Saint Peter, located in the first chapel on the right side and made
by Michelangelo in 1500, the tombstone of Pope Urban VIII Barberini, or the tombstone of
Pope Alexander VII, the pontifical throne attributed to Pope Urban Barberini are only a few of
the beautiful things that can be admired in the impressive building of Christianity. Architec-
tonically, the Papal Basilica of Saint Peter represents the triumph of Roman Baroque when the
Roman Catholic Church tried to compel recognition, as high reputation, towards the rise of the
power of the national countries France and Spain. Despite the changes that occurred over cen-
turies, the cross that rises today on the dome of the present-day basilica is on the same up-
right axe on the tomb of Saint Peter and shows those who come to Rome that the tomb of the
greatest Apostle is located there. The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter lodges the main shows of
the Roman Catholic ritual and plays a solemn part on the occasion of proclaiming the new
popes and the obsequies of the deceased ones.
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The Baptism of the sinless Man
At the age of 30 years old, the Saviour Jesus Christ was baptised in River Jordan by Saint John the
Baptist, like the hundreds of Jews that came to wash away their sins. Jesus Christ did not come to
River Jordan to do penance or redeem Himself, but showing for the first time His divinity, His place
within the Holy Trinity and the mission for which He had been sent.
The Baptism of the Lord (the Holy
Theophany or Epiphany) is one of
the twelve royal feasts during the
ecclesiastical year, from which the
importance of the event results as
well. In the beginning, during the
first Christian centuries, the feast
was celebrated alongside the
Nativity of the Lord, on 6th Janu-
ary, as a double feast called the
Holy Epiphany. The two feasts
were separated around the 4th
century. Although the texts men-
tioned in the Holy Scripture do
not provide many details about
the life of Jesus until He had been
30 years old, when He came to
River Jordan to be baptised by
John, it is known that the Saviour
had lived in Nazareth, in the
house of His mother, together
with Joseph, from whom he had
learnt the trade of joinery. When
He was 30 years old, the age of
adulthood in the Jews, Jesus came
to be recognised and to be bap-
tised, a moment since which He
began His missionary activity. The Synoptic Gospels tell the event insisting on the personality
of he who performed the Baptism of the Lord, namely Saint John the Baptist. The Gospel of
Matthew, the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels be-
cause they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes the
exact same wording. He was a prophet sent by God to announce the close coming of the Messi-
ah and to spread the baptism of repentance at River Jordan. The name of ‘Forerunner’ he was
given also results from his mission. However, the Jews often mistook him for the Messiah,
something criticised many times by John, as the Holy Gospels tell in their accounts. Unlike the
Synoptic Gospels, the Gospel of John does not insist on the moment itself, when it is known
that certain wonders were performed, the Holy Trinity appeared, namely the heavens were
opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him.
Then, a low voice from heaven said ‘This is My beloved Son’. Saint John the Evangelist insists

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on the moment when Jesus was identified as ‘the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the
world’. It is actually the recognition of the Messianity of Christ and the legitimisation of His
earthly activity. The disciples of John the Baptist became the ones of Jesus, some of them even
becoming Apostles.
The Baptism of the Lord in
River Jordan was an event
contested by many some re-
searchers, who advocated
the hypothesis that it might
have been a legend. It was
shown that, although histori-
ans have little information
and historical evidences
about the event, it actually
happened. John the Baptist
himself is a real character,
and the evidences of the
schools that interpret the
Bible from the viewpoint of
history and criticism prove
it. According to them, the
event is believable, because
it satisfies the criterion of
the multiple acknowledge-
ment in the Bible and the
one of the dissemblance.
Even some researchers, who
contest many passages in the
Gospels, consider the Bap-
tism of the Lord as a real
event. According to the first
criterion, three of the four
Gospels show that Jesus was
baptised by John, what con-
firms both the officiator and
the event itself. Likewise,
John is mentioned in the
texts as the preacher of the
Messiah, as the one who baptised the Jews to receive Christ. The second criterion invoked by
the researchers of the Bible to prove the truth of the event is the one of the dissemblance.
Thus, because Jesus was sinless, He had not to be baptised by John. The Christians of the first
centuries could not invent such a moment because they would have brought into disrepute the
image of Christ. Therefore, the researchers show that the event actually happened, with deep
spiritual meanings. Besides the researches of the historians and the evidences of the Holy
Scripture, there are also other proofs of the historicity of the event. Thus, it is also told in
many of the apocryphal writings. Likewise, there were a series of heretical beliefs, such as Ad-
optianism and Cerintianism, which mentioned the Baptism of the Lord, in the first Christian
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centuries. Although heresies were condemned, their evidences also prove that the Baptism of
the Lord had been performed as the Gospels tell. A heresy is a term that shows the wrong
teaching of some persons or group of people; a doctrinaire misbehaviour from the teaching of
the Church.
The Synoptic Gospels show that John the
Baptist said that the Messiah, He Who would
come after him, would not baptise with water,
but with Holy Spirit and fire. Fire was the sym-
bol of anger in antiquity. Therefore, many trans-
lators avoided using the word in the mentioned
passages. Alongside the discovery of the Dead
Sea Scrolls, the researchers showed that the
texts sometimes contained the word ‘anger’
close to the term ‘Holy Spirit’. Since then, the
word ‘fire’ started to be also translated. Another
fear of the translators of the passages concern-
ing the Baptism of the Lord was the one as re-
garded the connection that would have been
made between John, the Baptist with water, and
Jesus, the Baptist with fire, and the duality in
the Sumerian mythology. The Babylonians hon-
oured Enki, later known as Ea, and called
Oannes, a name synonymous with John, in the
time of John and Jesus. Their fear was also
strengthened by the fact that Oannes was con-
sidered the goddess of pure water, the forerun-
ner of the god of the sun and fire. Certainly, the
connections did not actually exist, being some
entirely coincidental occurrences, but manipulated by those who contest the truthfulness of
the events during the lifetime of the Saviour. John the Baptist lived and baptised in Judaea, at
River Jordan, in a barren place called ‘the wilderness’ or even ‘desert’. The researchers show
that the term ‘the wilderness’, used for indicating the place where John lived was actually the
place where the Essenians, a Jewish religious group, lived. Some of them even asserted that
John was one of the great leaders of the sect. A sect is a religious community separated from a
certain official Church. Others showed that the term ‘the wilderness’ had been used for unin-
habited places, where those who wished for being closer to God retired. By tradition, Jesus
met John at River Jordan, and there is an old Orthodox monastery in those places.

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Saint Silouan, a man of the love of God
The spiritual route of any saint recorded or not by the history of the Church repeats the destiny of
humanity, its falls and rises, its sufferings and joys. At the same time, the saint experiences the
most valuable aspects of the Christian faith. Pious Silouan of Athos, who is remembered by our
church today, certainly the most renown saint of the last century, has left posterity his writings, his
spiritual testament, as a testament of love for God and people.
The word of Saint Silouan is
not searched, but it overflows
from what the Holy Spirit re-
veals to him, showing him the
way to redemption, through
love and humbleness, without
which all the efforts made by
man fall to the ground and are
frustrated. Without having an
elaborated work or systemat-
ised writings, Saint Silouan had
left posterity a genuine intelli-
gible spiritual synthesis, full of
the inspiration of the Spirit.
Many Orthodox communities,
either monastic communities,
or parishes in the country or
from abroad, chose Saint Silou-
an as their protector and kind
intercessor before God. The
Lord, Whom monk Silouan
loved from the bottom of his
heart, gave him the gift of guid-
ing, comforting and enlighten-
ing the souls of people, how-
ever tested and might have
been. Of not much education,
but showing much love to-
wards God and zeal in His
knowledge, that man suc-
ceeded in leaving a hopeful
message for the modern man,
who is very anxious and occu-
pied with the whirl of his time. From his writings, notes left to his disciple, one can see how
the love towards God, the steadfast prayer for the enlightenment of the soul, humbleness, as a
stamp of the work of man towards redemption, must be united with the matchless love to-
wards people and the entire creation. Saint Silouan is the singer of the divine love, a love
which was seen by his soul during his lifetime and which is considered more precious than
74 Saint Silouan, a man of the love of God

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any good in this world.

Saint Silouan sang the loss and re-
discovery of the grace and beauty of
the divine face within man. Saint Sil-
ouan saw every action of God as a
proof of the love He bears believers.
The creation and redemption are
moments when the love of God
worked within the world, and while
the Lord obviously showed His glory
and might within the Creation, He
showed deeper humbleness and
mercy within the Redemption. How-
ever, the Lord worked through both
of them through His love. The word
of Christ on kindness and the
humbleness of the heart is found
within the spiritual teaching of Saint
Silouan. Saint Silouan shares a
thought to the modern man, who
strives after making sure that life
can go well in the future even
without God, namely the great
wealth of believers consists in that if
God belongs to them, then
everything belongs to them as well.
God does not leave the request of man without an answer, because the Holy Spirit shows man
how to live according to His will, how to get humbleness and, thus, to be able to feel that God is
present in his life. Understanding the need to look for a father confessor, Saint Silouan wrote
both on the grace and blessing that overflows through the father confessor, but also on the
dreadful responsibility of bishops and priests for the salvation of the world.

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The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin
The Annunciation is the foundation of the salvation of Christians because, at that time, Mary, the
virgin brought by her parents to the Temple from a child and then betrothed with joiner Joseph,
was visited by the Holy Archangel Gabriel, who told her the extraordinary mission God had
destined to her. Thus, Mary became the Mother of God, always remaining a Virgin. The moment of
the Annunciation, minutely described by the Holy Evangelist Luke, contains few atmospheres – the
salutation of angel, the revealing of the divine plan, the excitement of the Virgin Mary, the answer
given by the Holy Archangel Gabriel, the announcement of the descent of the Holy Spirit and the
acquiescence of the Blessed Virgin, all of them remarkably united by the skilled icon painter in a
static image of the icon of the Annunciation.
Throughout history, the icon of the An-
nunciation underwent many changes. If
the Ever-Virginity of the Blessed Virgin
and her quality of being the Mother of
God had been emphasised in the begin-
ning, since the 2nd millennium, the dia-
logue between the Holy Archangel Gab-
riel and the Mother of God was emphas-
ised. Besides the Holy Gospel of Luke,
the skilled icon painters also used the
apocryphal text of the Protogospel of
James as a source. Located in the church
even on the holy doors of the holy altar,
the icon of the Annunciation contains
several essential elements, namely the
three characters – the Holy Archangel
Gabriel, the Holy Virgin Mary and the
Holy Spirit, the architecture in the back-
ground, the throne, the veil with which
the canopy of the throne is covered, and
the red thread from the hand of the
Holy Virgin, elements having a special
meaning. The Holy Archangel Gabriel is
represented with his left leg in motion
and his wings opened to show that an-
nouncing the news begins before his
stopping. The blessing he gave to Mary
is exposed in the icon through the sign he makes with his right hand. The expression of the
face of the archangel is also the painted representation of the might bestowed he comes to an-
nounce, and the might on the face of the Blessed Virgin, but also the red thread held in her
hands are the consequences of the consent ‘Be it unto me according to your word’. The Holy
Archangel Gabriel is a messenger, he wears a staff in his left hand, not a lily, as it is misinter-
preted, under a Roman Catholic influence, but a staff, because the archangel is a herald, a mes-
senger. The gesture of withdrawal of the Virgin Mary when she heard the news, present in the
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icon, shows the attitude of an apparent refusal, for fear of not being cheated, as once Eve had
been cheated by the serpent; it is also an action of humbleness, because, indeed, according to
certain stories of her life, it is said she wanted it, but, in her humbleness, she did not dare, and
her gesture of withdrawal has many meanings.
Actually, the icon represents the meeting of the heav-
en with the earth – the Mother of God is called ‘ladder’,
‘bridge’. At that time, the meeting is held, the Secret
‘hidden forever’, which had not been even known by
angels, is revealed, but Archangel Gabriel was the only
one to have found out and brought it. It is a dialogue
between the divine humbleness and the obedience of
the new Eve. A major theme of humanity, motherhood
– the woman gives birth to life, but the Mother of God
gave birth to the Source of Life, through humbleness
and purity, is shown in the icon. The scene is not only
attended by two participants, as believers are accus-
tomed to see, but there are actually three, because the
dialogue between Archangel Gabriel and the Mother
of God could take place only through the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, the Holy Spirit is the main character of the
scene, a triangle being thus created. The Holy Spirit is
present in the icon through the halo of light coming
from above – believers are accustomed to the ray that
goes towards the Mother of God, usually where a dove,
the symbol of the Holy Spirit, is. The three rays that go
towards the Mother of God are met more frequently.
In the icon, the ray of divinity is glimmered through a red veil hung on the canopy of the
throne behind the Holy Virgin. Sometimes, the Mother of God is either represented on the
throne or standing, but the throne never disappears. It shows the Mother of God as the
Empress of the heaven and the earth, but also the one of angels. The red veil is also considered
the shelter of the Blessed Virgin offered by her to her Son, namely the placenta in which He
found His first earthly refuge. In the last scene in the iconography of the Akathist hymn of the
Blessed Virgin, when the Holy Spirit comes down on the Holy Virgin and the Incarnation of the
Saviour takes place, the Holy Archangel Gabriel is missing in most cases. The Mother of God is
represented on the throne with a purple robe that covers her, sometimes held by angels, sym-
bolising the eclipsation of the Holy Spirit. The main architecture in the icon that appears in the
background means either the house where she had lived and where the Annunciation had oc-
curred or the symbol of the Temple or the Holy Tabernacle, because the Mother of God would
be ‘a temple of the living God’ or would show that the meeting had not occurred in the wilder-
ness. The clothes of the Virgin Mary are not unimportant. The red colour of her clothes is
regal, and the green one is the symbol of the earth. In the Orthodox iconography, the shoes of
the Virgin Mary are always red, only emperors wearing purple shoes in Byzantium.

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The Great Canon, the path to rediscover the true self
The Great Canon is one of the most impressive creations of the Christian iconography, in which the
theme of repentance is mirrored wonderfully. Through the theme proposed by the Great Canon,
Christians are connected to the possibility of the union between man and God through repent-
ance. The Great Canon is a Bible in miniature, because it summarises the entire period described
by the Holy Scripture, from the original sin, the long journey of the human being for finding heav-
enly happiness and ending with the redeeming work of the incarnated Son of God.
The first week of the Holy
Lent is opened by the read-
ing of the Great Canon or the
Canon of Repentance, au-
thored by Saint Andrew of
Crete, in four parts. Accord-
ing to the Greek biography,
Saint Andrew of Crete was
born around 660 in Damas-
cus. According to the tradi-
tion, he had been dumb until
he was seven years old, and
he received the gift of
speech whenever he partook
of the Holy Sacraments.
After he had been educated
in Damascus, when he was
about fourteen years old,
after he had visited the Holy
Land, Andrew would be ton-
sured into monasticism at
the monastery of Saint Sava
the Sanctified, situated near
Jerusalem. It seems that he
composed the greatest part
of his work there, his funda-
mental work the Great Can-
on included. In Jerusalem,
he would be also chosen, by
Patriarch Theodore, as a
secretary belonging to the deputy of the patriarchal seat, being entrusted with taking care of
orphan children. Sent to Constantinople around 585 by Patriarch Theodore, to bring the adhe-
sion of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem to the decisions of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, he re-
mained in Byzantium, where he was ordained priest. Around 512, he was consecrated bishop
for Gortyna, Crete. An unpleasant moment during the lifetime of Saint Andrew is the adhesion
– under pressure of Byzantine Emperor Philippikos Bardanes – to the Monothelite heresy,
when he signed the document of the Monothelite Council held in 712. Some liturgists believe
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that the Great Canon of Repentance, written towards the end of his life, would be the expres-
sion of his personal experience of fall and return to the true faith. Therefore, he can be con-
sidered ‘the mystagogue of faith’, guiding those who read the verses of the canon to the way
through which he himself passed.
The classic work of Saint
Andrew is the Great Can-
on, a vast poem, remark-
able through the pro-
foundness of godliness
and repentance. Liturgical
canons appeared at the
end of the 7th century and
the beginning of the 8th
century, replacing largely
the liturgical hymn called
‘kontakion’. Saint Andrew
of Crete was considered
‘the father of canons’, be-
ing therefore the first
maker of canons and the
promoter of the hymno-
graphic species in the
Greek Church. The title
‘the Great’ itself emphas-
ises its length, a poem that
is 250 stanzas long, the
greatest canons of all the
canons in the Church or-
der. Read on the first four
days during the first week
of Great Lent and com-
pletely on the Thursday
during the fifth week, the
Great Canon, thanks to the
soul-uplifting thoughts it
leaves, the themes neces-
sary during the lifetime of
everybody (humbleness,
repentance, heart stabbing), as well as thanks to its profoundness, becomes a guidance and an
adviser for the life of any Christian. The content of the Great Canon is a spiritual one, a pro-
found dialogue of the sinful individual with his own conscience, which draws his attention on
the mistakes he made. One can notice the alternance of two plans, namely the sinful soul that
mourns over his sins because he did not follow the path of righteousness, but he followed the
wide way to perdition and that cries from the bottom of his heart to be forgiven because he
had sinned before the heaven and before Him and the one of the human beings become deified
through repentance.

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The Great Canon is

the hymn of the re-
discovery of the hu-
man being through
repentance. The
hymn is covered from
one end to the other
by the afflicting
search of the initial
beauty of man, the
need and importance
of regaining it. The
Canon is similar to a
hall full of mirrors, in
which believers see
their life again. The
sinful souls that did
not keep the divine
commandments and
wasted the gifts they
had been given,
spoiled the harmony
and lost the consider-
ation bestowed upon
them are separated
from the standards as
regards spiritual life,
acceptable to God,
that must be followed
by Christians. Unlike
the examples given
by the Old Testament
to mirror the sinful-
ness condition of the
human being, the
characters mentioned
in the Canon are not shown only through their sinful aspect, but also through their great ef-
forts to become friends with God again. These examples actually show Christians that repent-
ance is not a utopia, a phantasmagoria of some people or a religion, but the only way of the hu-
man being to gain salvation. The author of these verses calls everybody to recognise the mis-
takes they made and the sinful condition shared by all Christians. Reading the Great Canon,
Christians notice the story of humankind, with its fall, but also with its rise, a history that be-
gins sadly, with losing its relation with the Creator of the world. Towards the end of the Canon,
Saint Andrew of Crete makes an impressive transposition of repentance. If the examples and
images of the Old Testament abounded until now, the following message is presented like a
miniature of the four Holy Gospels. The main message preached by the author is in accordance
with the evangelic one, namely ‘Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’. Repentance now
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becomes a source of joy and hope, which is completely opposed to the despair to which Chris-
tians are tempted to drive. The drama suffered by the penitent comes to an end in the future,
namely when he attends the Resurrection of Christ. The Resurrection represents joy and is ex-
perienced consequently, as repentance should be also experienced. This truth is actually the
theological sense of repentance within the Great Canon, a repentance that breeds and brings
joy. The purpose of the repentance reflected within the Great Canon of Saint Andrew is not an
abstract discovery of sins, but a way to transcend them. Created in the image of God, man must
know that repentance is the correct attitude, acceptable to God, the only one that can bring
back the original beauty of the human being. Through repentance, man heals his wounded
soul, repairs his alienation from God. The feeling of guiltiness, which makes the soul grow sad,
is not found anymore in repentance, but the deep feeling of the divine law is felt and comes
down to the depth of the human being, soul and body – raising the human being again to the
destined position. Repentance breeds and brings joy, because it leads to the communion with
the Giver of Life.

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The house of prayer of the Jewish people
The temple of Jerusalem was not for the Jews only a symbol of their faith in God or the supreme
place of performing the public ritual. The Jews considered, with good reason, that the Spirit of
God, Who watches, answers their prayers and advises them, dwelt on the mount where King So-
lomon had erected the house of God for the first time. The first thought of the Jews returned
home after the Jewish State had been founded again, on 14th May 1948, was to rebuild the temple.
Their initiative was postponed until today, because the ceaseless conflicts with the Muslim Arabs,
which did not come to an end even today.
The first temple of the chosen people, built as Yahweh Himself had shown Moses in his vision,
was the tabernacle of the congregation. Although it was raised to be carried during the forty
years of flight in the wilderness of Egypt, the tabernacle served as the pattern for the future
temple in the holy citadel. It was erected during a longer halt, being adorned with the most
beautiful things in the halting place of the Jews, namely acacia wood of Sinai, valuable fabrics,
embroidered leathers and gold. Consisting of an outer courtyard and the interior itself, the
place of worship had inside inside the courtyard, the altar, on which they brought the burnt
offering, and the copper bath, where the priests washed themselves before entering the tent.
The interior was divided into the Holy and the Holy of Holies. The Holy occupied two thirds of
the tent and housed the incensement sacrificial altar, the table of shewbread and the menorah
(a seven-branched candelabrum). In the Holy of Holies, separated through a curtain from the
Holy, there was the holiest object of the tabernacle, namely the Ark of the Covenant. A sign of
the presence of God, the tabernacle was an element of religious union for the twelve tribes of
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the Jewish people and was the place where priests especially ordered for different liturgical
services officiated.
After entering the Promised Land, the tabernacle of the congregation, with the ark of the cov-
enant, was placed in Shiloh, in the central part of the Holy Land, in the borders of the family of
Ephraim. The Jews gathered there at least once a year for offering sacrifices, but also for celeb-
rating great feasts. Later, during the wars fought with the Philistines, the ark of the covenant,
the tabernacle of the congregation and all its objects were stolen by the Philistines and taken
to a city near Jerusalem, where they remained there during the reign of King Saul (the 11th
century BCE). Punished with illnesses for stealing those sacred objects, the Philistines re-
turned the ark to the Jews, being laid in a safe place. Afterwards, the tabernacle was moved to
another place because the ritual was performed there. Thus, the symbol of the union of the
Hebrew people disappeared. During the reign of King David (1000-961 BCE), the Hebrew
tribes gathered, Jerusalem becoming the capital of the citadel in 1004 BCE. The ark of the cov-
enant was brought to a new tabernacle of the congregation on Mount Sion, the event being a
real feast. In addition, the prophet king took the decision to erect a temple, a House of the
Heavenly God. God, however, sent him a message by Prophet Nathan that he would not be the
one who would raise the temple, but his son Solomon. The mission of King David was the one
of preparing the construction of the imposing temple, restoring the priestly groups of the tribe
of Levi and bringing, with the help of the people, gold for paying the necessary materials.
Although he did not raise the temple during his reign as a king of the Jews, David received
from God all the instructions as regards the architecture and use of the temple. He gave the in-
formation to his son, Solomon, who, enjoying peace and having the collected materials in

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hand, in the fourth year of his reign over Israel (April or May 967 BCE), began to erect it. The
monument was finished after only seven years and a half, namely in 960 BCE, in the eighth
month of the year. Built on the steep coasts of Mount Moriah, in the north-east of Mount Sion,
the temple was much larger than the tabernacle of the congregation. Although the interior of
the tabernacle was mostly kept, the temple, however, also had, besides the two large rooms,
other rooms, used by the employed staff. The beauty of the architecture, gold, the brought
riches, officiated liturgical services and offered sacrifices made the splendour of Jerusalem the
most visited place of the Holy Land. In 587 BCE, Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar ravaged
Judaea, and the temple was burnt. The Hebrews were departed to Babylon, where they re-
mained for 50 years. In 539 BCE, Persian King Cyrus conquered Babylon and released the
Hebrew people. In 538 BCE, the exiles came back to their country with the vessels of the
temple. Under the guidance of scholar priest Ezra and Nehemiah, the cup-bearer of Persian
King Ahasuerus, the walls of Jerusalem and the temple were rebuilt. Over centuries, the main
figure within the people was the one of the great priest, who taught the people and urged
them to wait for the Messiah. The Saviour went to the temple several times, where he taught
the crowd, according to the New Testament. He chased away the dealers from there and criti-
cised the illegality and hypocrisy of the priesthood. When He was crucified, the veil of the
temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, seeming to prophesy what would happen
in 70 AD, when the temple disappeared forever.
Besides the biblical proofs,
there are also other two im-
portant historical sources from
which one can gather informa-
tion about the Temple of Jerus-
alem. Borrowing the Jewish re-
ligious viewpoint, every part of
the temple was interpreted as a
divine symbol. Thus, the struc-
ture of the temple belonged to
the discovery made by God to
Moses, on Mount Sinai, where
he received the two tables of
testimony. The columns at the
entrance into the temple sym-
bolised the might of God and
His creative strength. In the
viewpoint of Solomon and the
Hebrew people, the temple represented and foreshadowed the cosmos. The three constructive
parts, namely the Holy of Holies, the Holy and the porch, represented the three fundamental
elements of the Creation, namely the heaven, the earth and the waters. As concerned the cos-
mic meaning of the temple, it was said that the ark of the covenant, with its sacred elements,
symbolised the nature of the universe. Describing the cosmic temple, the symbolism was elab-
orated, and the heaven was compared to the Holy of Holies and the objects in the temple were
compared to the heavenly bodies. The ark of the covenant symbolised the heavenly bodies, the
stars and the planets; the two sides of the ark were the two equinoxes, and the four golden
rings with which it had been fastened at its ends were the four seasons. The two cherubs rep-
resented the two hemispheres.
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The kindness of religious people
Somebody can meet both good and bad people in the street. A car accident does not leave cold
the pedestrians. Some of them involve themselves, give first aid to the victim, takes her immedi-
ately to a hospital. Others are just witnesses, sympathise with her or do nothing: they proceed on
their journey as if nothing happened. The first of them, like the good Samaritan in the biblical par-
able, improve a prosocial behaviour, and the other ones, like the priest and the Levite, seem that
they only appropriate from the Bible the teaching that says ‘Who goes on the road and mixes
among those that's not of his species, is like the man who grabs the ears of his own the dog’,
namely ‘he who will lie down with dogs will rise with fleas’ or ‘if you associate with evil people
their habits are bound to rub off on you and you will be infected with the same evil that they have’.
For hundreds of years, people
studied and applied altruism,
both within the religious and
philosophic system and as a
part of their life. However, the
scientific study of altruism
began quite late, the concept
being introduced by Auguste
Comte in 1851. Defined as an
aid given to a person without
aiming at gaining a material
reward, as a result of the
noble act performed, altruism
can be learned from the inter-
action with the neighbour
and advances within the hu-
man being, as a vital principle
and manner of life, according
as man moves up the social
ladder. From a psychological
viewpoint, it is not much
known about the variables
that influence the decision of
a person to become a volun-
teer or other factors that
stimulate and support so
much volunteers. Psycholo-
gists were interested in find-
ing out to what extent reli-
gious institutions and spiritu-
ally motivated volunteers play
a part in determining the
selfish and narcissistic behaviour. Most of the world religions support altruism as an import-
ant moral value. It is the central requirement within the teachings of Christ, especially within

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the sermon on the mount (‘Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy’), considered
as a personal obligation within Islamism (‘the zakat’), socially revalued within Hinduism and
Buddhism (the care for ‘the travelling monks’) and so on. A religion contributes to the promo-
tion of altruism, namely it offers examples, methods and resources. The people who live more
for the other ones than for themselves represent an example that should be followed. Reli-
gious literature is full of examples of remarkable people who transcended their own suffering
and watch others compassionately. On the other hand, the studies using socio-experimental
plans also showed that prosocial behaviour, as a source of religiousness, is limited to specific
religious tendencies. Moreover, it rather reflects a selfish motivation (the concern for the self
positive image) than an altruistic motivation. Religious people can be even discriminant and
not sympathetic to the help of those who do not belong to their group. To find out if religious
people are indeed more altruistic or aiding behaviour also showed itself in the same way in
non-religious or less religious people, a series of experimental studies were conducted since
1976, and the results were astonishing, specifically religiousness is not a good forecast of aid-
ing behaviour. Attending liturgical services is not necessarily transposed into a social con-
sciousness or a calling for helping the others in times of need. Altruism implies self-sacrifice,
and like any sacrifice, it must hurt the self to a certain degree.
However, later psychological re-
searches emphasised a series of
factors that are presumed to in-
fluence aiding behaviour.
Firstly, it is rumoured about the
mood of the individual at that
time, namely the individual in
high spirits are more inclined to
give help to somebody else than
those low-spirited. When
people feel fine, they are less
concerned about themselves
and more sensitive to the needs
and troubles of somebody else.
On the other hand, the persons
that feel sad and annoyed con-
centrate more upon they them-
selves, their worries and
troubles, are less concerned
about about how well the oth-
ers are and less inclined to give
help to other people. Good, fine
weather induces somebody to
be in high spirits, which causes
him to help his neighbours, and
bad weather brings about
somebody to be low-spirited
and inhibits aiding behaviour.
Many studies emphasised that men are more inclined to help women than women are inclined
to help men. A typical scenario is a puncture, when a driver is obliged to call upon the help of
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the other ones. It is noticeable that men will be the first ones that will stop (as a rule, alone) to
give help to the driver in need, but if the sexual motivation of men is taken into consideration,
one cannot affirm that they have an empathic ability greater than the one of women.
Although it is one of the most diffi-
cult behaviour that can be defined,
altruism can be detected through
the tomograms of the brain, ac-
cording to the new American re-
searches. They proved the activity
in the posterior superior temporal
context area that could predict al-
truistic behaviour and the own
thoughts of people as concerned
how selfish or generous they were.
Although understanding the func-
tion of the region of this area of the
brain does not necessarily identify
what caused people to act in an al-
truistic way, it might help research-
ers to understand the origins of
some important prosocial beha-
viours. Surprisingly, the size of the
locality of origin of the individual
has a certain influence on this kind
of behaviour, namely the individu-
als that spent their childhood in
small cities or in the countryside
are more inclined to help their
neighbour than those who live in
large cities. Time is another situ-
ational factor that might influence
prosocial behaviour, according to a study conducted in 1973, specifically the individuals
pressed by time were less willing to help than the ones that were not pressed by time. Like-
wise, perceiving the similarity to the neighbour in need increases the desire of a person to
help her neighbour. Perceiving the similarity includes features such as the race, ethnicity, fam-
ily or kind of problem. When two persons share one or more of these features, a common rela-
tionship is created, through which they relate. Their common features lead to aiding beha-
viour, what was proved by the studies conducted in 1997. The children under 18 months show
an altruistic behaviour, suggesting that people are naturally inclined to help the others, as it
was proved in German researches. Experimenters set simple tasks, and almost of the 24 chil-
dren helped them by carrying out the tasks, as a rule within the first ten seconds of the experi-
ment. They did it only because they believed the researcher needed help, but they did not do it
if the researcher did something deliberately.
The altruistic behaviour is not met only in people, but also with animals, especially with the
animals having complex social structures. For instance, vampire bats regularly regurgitate
blood, which is then given to the other members of the group which failed to eat that night.
Monkeys give alarm signals to warn their group members of the presence of predators, even if

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their action would thus attract the attention of predator to themselves, at the risk of their life.
When they see that the feathers of their father fell for its old age, storks stay around it and
warm it.
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The iconostasis, the limit between two worlds
The iconostasis is the wall consisting of icons that separate the altar, where the Holy Communion is
performed, from the central part, the nave, where the community of believers is. Because every
element has spiritual meanings within the Orthodox Church, not even the iconostasis is a simple
separating wall or a decorative element, but one of union between everlastingness and transitori-
ness. The Holy Fathers consider the iconostasis to be similar with a limit between two worlds,
namely the divine one and the human one, the everlasting one and the transient one. It was also
provided the following explanation: ‘The columns on the iconostasis represent the sky that separ-
ates the spiritual world from the sensitive one. It signifies the union of the heaven with the earth
through love’.
In olden times, the iconostasis
was formed of a lower lattice,
whose height only came to the
breast, on which icons were
placed. Later, the lattice in-
creased in height, other small
columns, untied through icons
and fastened through pillar or a
horizontal beam, adorned with
the cross and the icon of the Cru-
cifixion of the Saviour, being ad-
ded to the columns that suppor-
ted its grating. After the Seventh
Ecumenical Council, held in 787,
and the Council of Con-
stantinople (held from 842 to
843), when icon worship was
definitely established, many
rows of icons, which are called
registers, began to be added over
the beam, coming to gain the
shape that is seen today. An
iconostasis is furnished with
three doors, namely one in the
centre, with two wings, and oth-
er two side doors, each of them
with one wing. The ones in the
centre are called holy doors be-
cause only the clergy (deacons,
priests, hierarchs), who, during liturgical services, carry holy objects (the Holy Gifts, the Holy
Gospel and so on) in their hands, pass through them. They are also called great or royal doors,
because emperors once passed through them when they offered their gifts to the altar or re-
ceived the Eucharist, but also the Emperor of the Heavens, Christ the Saviour, passes through
them as the Holy Gifts, during the Great Entrance (the moment when the Cherubic Hymn is

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chanted in the church) at the Holy Liturgy. The icon of the Annunciation is painted on the royal
doors so that the two characters of the scene – the Mother of God and the Holy Archangel Gab-
riel to appear face to face, each of them on a wing of the doors (usually the Holy Virgin is
painted on the right side and the Holy Archangel Gabriel on the left one). The Mother of God is
painted there because she is the one who opened the doors of the tender-heartedness of the
heaven unto Christians, which are symbolised by the royal doors, as the priest is praying be-
fore starting the Holy Liturgy: ‘Open unto us the door of the tender-heartedness, O Blessed
Theotokos; in that we hoped in you, may we not perish, but through you be delivered from ad-
versities, for you are the salvation of the generation of Christians’. The faces of the four Holy
Evangelists, as ones that wrote about the good news brought by the angel to Mary, are painted
in inset portraits at the four corners of the Annunciation scene or below it. The side above the
royal doors is covered with a fabric curtain of different colours, called iconostases screen, that
is drawn sideways or raised in the moments arranged during liturgical services.
The doors from the north and
south are often called side-
ways doors or Deacons’ Doors
because deacons pass
through them during ektenes,
entrances and other moments
within the liturgical service
specified in the Ritual. An
ektene includes requests as a
prayer said by a priest or dea-
con. Ektenes are requests ad-
dressed to God, especially
used during the Holy Liturgy,
to which the quire or psalm
reader answers ‘Lord, have
mercy’. The faces of the Holy
Archangels Michael and Gab-
riel, as guardians of the heav-
en doors, or the faces of two
deacon saints (Saint Stephen
and Saint Philip or Saint
Lawrence) are painted on
them. Deacons are painted
there both because they rep-
resent the angels in the heav-
ens during a divine service
and since deacons pass
through these doors whenev-
er they leave and enter the al-
tar. Two of the military saints
(Saint George and Saint De-
metrios), as guardians of the heaven doors, can be also painted in the place of deacons. The
royal icon of the Saviour (Christ as an emperor or archpriest, sitting on the throne and holding
the Holy Gospel opened and blessing) and the royal icon of the Blessed Virgin (the Mother of
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God as an empress, sitting on the throne and holding the Baby in her arms) are painted on the
spaces between the royal doors and the lateral doors, on the right side (to the south). These
two icons are called royal icons firstly because they represent the main icons in the church
iconography, in which the two main characters in the history of humankind – the Saviour and
the Mother of God – are depicted in their heavenly glory and secondly since they surround the
royal doors. These two icons are especially venerated both by the clergy and by lay people, be-
ing adorned with precious stones or being mounted in silver or gold in some churches. Close
to the same register, the icon of the patron saint of the church is painted on the space on the
right of the lateral doors from the south, and the icons of some saints venerated especially in
the respective region, such as Saint Nicholas, Saint John the Baptist, Venerable Paraschiva of
Iaşi and others, are painted on the opposite side.
Four themes in the history of the Old Testament,
which are symbolically related to the Sacrifice of
the New Law, namely the ministration of
Zacharias (the father of Saint John the Baptist),
raising the copper serpent in the wilderness, as
the symbol of the redeeming cross, the sacrifice
of Abraham, which foreshadowed the sacrifice of
Christ and the sacrifice of bread and wine
offered by Salem, the King of Jerusalem, to
Melchizedek, which also foreshadowed the
Eucharistic sacrifice, are painted on the space
under the register of the royal icons. The next re-
gister of the iconostasis is represented by the
icons of the twelve royal feasts. In the middle of
them, in an inset portrait, the Resurrection of the
Lord, as the greatest feast , the Last Supper or
the Crucifixion is painted. The icon of Christ that
is not painted by the human hand, namely the
headkerchief of Saint Veronica or the face of the
Saviour imprinted on the Brick of King Abgar of
Edessa is places on the small empty space situ-
ated between the basic body of the iconostasis
and the register of the festive icons, if it exists. In the middle register, the faces of the Twelve
Holy Apostles, and sometimes the ones of the Seventy Disciples as well, are painted. In the
centre, there is the icon of the Saviour, depicted either alone, as the Teacher or within the Deis-
is icon, the Holy Virgin representing the Church of the New Law there, and Saint John the
Baptist symbolising the Old Testament Church. Twelve great and minor prophets of the Old
Testament are painted on the next row of icons, being usually depicted standing and holding
different symbols in their hands. In the middle of them, there is the icon of the Blessed Virgin
holding the Baby in her hands. Above all the icons, over the iconostasis, there is the Cross on
which the Redeemer is painted, and the Mother of God and Saint John, both of them with their
hands folded in an attitude of veneration, prayer or mourning, are painted in two smaller
icons at the feet of the cross. The exceptions or deviation from the iconographic normative
programme of the iconostasis are rare, being generally caused by some zonal traditions or
practical (sometimes financial) needs.

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Saint Cyril of Jerusalem
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem represents a personality of note of Christianity, a hierarch loved by the be-
lievers he pastorated and a popular theologian that dedicated himself to defending the Orthodox
teaching. The rage he showed whenever it was about the misinterpretation of the revealed truth
brought him about undeserved exiles, but which he bored forcibly and hopefully. The day of 18th
March, when he is commemorated, brings Christians about recalling his life and presenting cat-
echeses through which he made his name as as great teacher and Father of the Church.
Saint Cyril was born in Jerusalem
around 315. He entered monastic
life from a child and dedicated him-
self to deeply studying the Holy
Scripture. In 335, he was ordained
deacon by Bishop Macarius of Jeru-
salem, and ten years later, Bishop
Maximus ordained him priest.
After short time, in 348, he was
honoured to be appointed as bish-
op of Jerusalem, and in his new ca-
pacity, he uttered the catecheses
through which he made his name.
The catechisation notion refers to
supporting, training, teaching
someone the important truths
about Christ, salvation, the Sacra-
ments of the Church, the Holy Tra-
dition and so on. Then followed a
darker period in his life because of
the conflict into which he came
with Metropolitan Acacius of
Caesarea. Acacius had been de-
clared an Arian heretic by a council
held at Sardica, and Saint Cyril, as a
strong defender of the right belief,
did not want to submit to his
heresy. A heretic is a person that deviated from the right teaching of the Christian Church, ad-
opting, supporting and spreading another belief. A heresy shows the wrong teaching of some
persons or groups of persons; a doctrinarian deviation from the teaching of the Church. Owing
to the relationship of Acacius with Emperor Constantius, he succeeded in sending Saint Cyril
into exile, under the pretext of selling the goods of the Church he pastorated, to help the poor
during a period of famine. Driven away, Cyril went to Bishop Sylvan of Antioch. In 360, Julian
the Apostate ascended the throne of the empire and brought all the banished bishops from ex-
ile. Saint Cyril resumed his activity, witnessing the wonders happened during the attempt to
build the Temple of Jerusalem. The evidences of that time show that a very strong earthquake
demolished the new foundation of the Temple. It is also said that a fire from the heaven burnt
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all the tools used for building it and the sign of the Holy Cross appeared on the clothes of those
who worked to raise the building. After the wonders and the sermons that reproved the initi-
ative of the emperor, Saint Cyril was exiled again. Julian ruled over the empire for short time,
but his successor, Emperor Valens (who sympathised with Arianism), did not show himself
more merciful towards Saint Cyril and exiled him for the third time, because of the firmness he
showed whenever he blamed heresies. In 379, when Theodosius the Great ascended the
throne of the empire, Cyril resumed his activity honourably, keeping his believers for other
eight years, until he fell asleep into the Lord.
When he held the appoint-
ment of bishop of Jerus-
alem, Saint Cyril delivered
a series of catecheses be-
fore the people and made
a profound impact on the
Christian world. Uttered in
the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre around 350,
they represent important
evidences of the faith and
practices of those times.
The catecheses of Saint
Cyril are 24 in number:
the Procatechesis or pro-
logue lecture, 18 cat-
echeses addressed to cat-
echumens and 5 mystago-
gic catecheses addressed
to the ones that had re-
ceived Baptism recently
(neophytes). A neophyte is
a person who recently em-
braced a new religion and
is not completely initiated
yet. They dealt with topics
such as Baptism, repent-
ance, Christian dogmas,
the Holy Trinity, the
Church and explained the
Creed completely. A
dogma is a truth of faith
included in the Holy Scrip-
ture and the Holy Tradi-
tion; the doctrine of faith formulated within a council, in which the Church recognises the
whole content and the Orthodox development of the apostolic teaching, left either through the
written tradition or the verbal one. Mystagogic catecheses explained the ritual of the Holy
Baptism and the one of Chrismation, interpret the important moments during the Holy Liturgy
and impressively talk about the Holy Eucharist. Saint Cyril attended the Second Ecumenical

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Council that was held in Constantinople in 381 together with Saints Gregory of Nazianzus,
Gregory of Nyssa, Archbishop Meletios of Antioch and other great Fathers of the Church. He
played a very important part in struggling against Pnevmatomach heretics (who denied the
complete divinity of the Holy Spirit) and the Apolinarist ones (who denied the existence of the
rational soul within the hypostasis of the Saviour Christ), but also in formulating the Trinitari-
an dogma. The symbol of faith (the Creed), called the Nicaeo-Constantinopolitan Creed until
today, after the localities that lodged the first two ecumenical councils, was finalised. Saint
Cyril explained the Symbol in his Catecheses minutely.
A catechumenate meant the en-
tire period of preparation atten-
ded by those who wanted to em-
brace Christianity. The discipline
created by the catechumens’ in-
stitution around it is a charac-
teristic of the life of early Chris-
tianity. In those hard times, with
many wars and persecutions,
Christianity represented the
most viable alternative, thanks
to the change and superiority
with which it came on a spiritual
level. Therefore, as many people
say, Christianity had become a
real fashion of that time, but a
fashion that had to be assumed
responsibly and seriously.
Moreover, on account of con-
fronting countless heresies, divi-
sions and persecutions, not even
the Church could venture to ad-
mit feeble-minded people, with
doubts as to the truths of faith.
Through the Catechumenate
times, future Christians were prepared to welcome the Sacrament of Holy Baptism and the
other liturgical rituals. The bishop admitted someone among catechumens after a minute veri-
fication of the reasons that urged the candidate on his belief, as well as his moral life. Those
admitted were entrusted to the care of a clerical catechist, who initiated them into the myster-
ies of the faith and reveal holy truths to them. The Catechumenate times varied from two to
three years, as the bishop decided, and had many stages. During the last stage, catechumens,
who were called ‘illuminated (photisomeni)’ at that time, intensified the catechisation process
with fasting and prayers, making ready for receiving Baptism. More often than not, the last
stage coincided with Great Lent, and they received Baptism during the night of the Resurrec-
tion. Saint Cyril also uttered his Catecheses during such a night, addressing to some catechu-
mens.
94 Saint Cyril of Jerusalem

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A C O R P U S D E S I G N E D F O R T H E FA I T H F U L

The Holy Lent

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 3

4 The Holy Lent

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 5

6 The Holy Lent

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8 The Holy Lent

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 9

10 The Holy Lent

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12 The Holy Lent

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 13

14 The Holy Lent

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 15

16 The Holy Lent

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 17

18 The Holy Lent

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 19

20 The Holy Lent

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 21

22 The Holy Lent

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 23

24 The Holy Lent

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 25

26 The Holy Lent

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28 The Holy Lent

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30 The Holy Lent

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 31

32 The Holy Lent

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 33

34 The Holy Lent

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 35

36 The Holy Lent

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 37

38 The Holy Lent

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 39

40 The Holy Lent

The Nativity Lent, a pilgrimage to the Baby Jesus of

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 41

42 The Nativity Lent, a pilgrimage to the Baby Jesus of Bethlehem

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 43

The Holy Hierarch Calinic of Cernica, a great praying man

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 45

The Holy Hierarch Joseph the New from the Partoş

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 47

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 49

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 51

The native land of Saint Paisios the Great

52 The native land of Saint Paisios the Great

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 53

54 The native land of Saint Paisios the Great

Andrei Rublev, the painter of the Holy Trinity

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 55

56 Andrei Rublev, the painter of the Holy Trinity

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 57

The teacher of repentance receives the crown of

58 The teacher of repentance receives the crown of martyrdom from Herod

59 The teacher of repentance receives the crown of martyrdom from Herod

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 60

The Holy Hierarch Spyridon, the protector of the sick

Light of Christianity – Volume 2, July 2010 61