On this, the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost, we commemorate the holy, glorious and all-praised Leaders of the Apostles, PETER and PAUL (ca. 67).
Did someone insult you? Bless him! Did he strike you? Bear it well! If he despises you, make nothing of it. If he calls you dirt, remember that you came from the earth. If he calls you a nobody, worthless, unimportant, recall that you are truly clay and ashes. Does he say that you are ignorant, a beggar and worthless? Then use the words of David the Psalmist-King and call yourself a worm. Whenever you are seized with the temptation to hurl insults, think that you are being tested to see whether in patience you turn to God, or in impatience you turn to the evil one. Take time to think in order to choose the best way. Either be kind to your enemy or defend yourself strongly by taking no notice of him. For what is more bitter to someone hostile to you than for you not to notice him?
. . . We also saw another father in the desert not far from the city [of Oxyrynchus], called Theon, a holy man who had lived as a hermit in a small cell and had practiced silence for thirty years. He had performed many miracles and was held to be clairvoyant by the people of those parts. A crowd of sick people went out to see him every day, and laying his hand on them through the window, he would send them away cured. One could see him with the face of an angel giving joy to his visitors by his gaze and abounding with much grace.
Not long before, some robbers had come at night from some distance away to attack him. They thought that they would find a considerable sum of gold hoarded by him, and intended to kill him. But he prayed, and they remained at the door, rooted to the spot, until daybreak. When the crowd came to him in the morning and proposed to burn these men alive, he was forced to speak a single sentence to them: "Let them go unharmed; if you do not, my gift of healing will leave me." They obeyed, for they did not dare to contradict him. The robbers at once entered the neighboring monasteries, and with the help of the monks changed their way of life and repented of their crimes.
He ate vegetables but only those that did not need to be cooked. They say that he used to go out of his cell at night and keep company with wild animals, giving them to drink from the water which he had. Certainly one could se the tracks of antelope and wild asses and gazelle and other animals near his hermitage. These creatures delighted him always.
We also saw another old man in the desert of Antinoë, the metropolis of the Thebaid, named Elias. By now he would be a hundred years old. People said that the spirit of the prophet Elijah rested on him. He was famous for having spent seventy years in the terrible desert. No description can do justice to that rugged desert in the mountain where he had his hermitage, never coming down to the inhabited region.
The path which one took to go to him was so narrow that those who pressed on could only just follow its track, with rough crags towering on either side. He had his seat under a rock in a cave, so that even the sight of him was very impressive. As for the rest, he whole body trembled under the weight of his years. Every day he worked many miracles and did not cease healing the sick.
The fathers said of him that no one remembered when it was that he went up into the mountain. In his old age he ate three ounces of bread in the evening. In his youth he had made it his rule to eat only once a week. . . .
- From The Lives of the Desert Fathers
Kolwezi, February 8, 1981
My venerable Elder, brothers and fathers, your blessings!
. . . The people rejoiced that we had come to see them. A priest together with a small choir arrived the day before from another village, so we were able to do Matins inside a thatched hut-church. The Christians, covered with a few shabby pieces of clothing, chanted and sang to the Highest in an Orthodox way. During Divine Liturgy I spoke to them a little about witchcraft, with which they are sorely pressed in this idol-worshipping area, as well as about polygamy, for within the congregation was the ruler of the area with five wives and the leader of the village with two or three wives. Afterwards, the leaders, along with my father and Costas, sat on the stools and began to sing all together, while the women danced modestly in front of them. . . .
I have provided a room in the belfry of our church to a demon-possessed woman to stay year-around. She eats, walks, and is generally all-right. Occasionally, she starts dancing and singing endlessly, but is otherwise fine. She is advanced in age, unbaptized, of course, and an idol-worshipper. She has nine grown children, but can't live with anyone. With us she calms down. When, however, we have Baptisms or the Sanctification of Waters, the exact moment that I am blessing the water, even though she is far away, the demon begins to drive her crazy. I have observed this on four different occasions. On two occasions she jumped into the baptismal font. When I asked her why she had done this, she replied that she wants to cast Satan out of her. As this happened right at the time of the sanctification of the waters, both the catechumens and the faithful observed it. So, I preached to them a timely sermon on how the manifest reaction of Satan is proof that the water is sanctified by the Grace of the Holy Spirit. Thus they are able to use the Holy Water with great assurance for the dispelling of the various kinds of witchcraft that are performed against them . . . .
[From an interview with Fr. Cosmas in 1988]
Witchcraft is one of the very basic problems that the Missionary
confronts. Afterwards, there comes polygamy, drunkenness and the
other passions. I have many personal experiences of these from my
life down there, from Confession, exorcisms, and everyday life.
There are two forms of magic or witchcraft - black and white. When we speak of black magic, we mean blood and death is involved. White magic is performed by him who seeks to expose the evil magicians. The black magician is called "Moulozi," whereas he who performs so-called white magic is called "Moufoumou." The Africans consider the white magician to be good, for he helps, he gives the medicine and exposes the evil sorcerer. Both of them, however, work with the same means, the same powers - demonic powers. They simply toy with the people, playing one off against the other and vice versa. And in this way, practically the whole of the African world is clutched in the hands of Satan, the hands of the magician and his witchcraft. To put it simply: I would say that the magician or sorcerer is he who runs the African world . . . .
I have cases of major magicians who have come and sought refuge in Orthodoxy. First of all, they hand over their satanic tools - I have sent some of these to a museum of the mission work in Thessaloniki - and little baskets, which are filled with different items, pieces of human bodies, effigies of animals and other different items. They follow a certain process and are finally able to attend catechism class. When they are Baptized they are completely delivered from the nightmare, which day and night prevents them from finding peace. All of this, of course, is with the presupposition that it will be preceded by purification and Confession . . .
They don't have books [on magic and witchcraft]. They are all initiated orally amongst themselves. A young man who had killed his sister's children and, finally, wished to become Orthodox, told me that his grandfather had initiated him when he was a little boy. He took him to some river, they sat on his left and his right, lit fires and performed their religious ceremonies. Generally, sorcery happens at night, sometime after midnight. The missionaries celebrate nighttime Liturgy, sometime after midnight, especially for the magicians, in order to immobilize them.
God, of course, is all-powerful and through the Mysteries of the Church the magicians are totally brought to no effect. We often go to the villages and celebrate the Liturgy and afterwards the Blessing of the Waters, which drives out the witchcraft. They have their own "agiasmo" ["blessing of waters"] and their own instruments. But the Church is very strong, which even the magicians themselves admit.
No magic of any sorcerer can touch the conscious Christian, who makes a clean Confession and receives Holy Communion, and who follows what the Church tells him. A humble mindset, of course, is also necessary. The conscious Christian with a humble mindset is armor-clad by the grace of God and no witchdoctor or magician can do anything whatsoever to him.