On this, the 9th Sunday after Pentecost, we commemorate the holy Martyr Myron, Presbyter, of Cyzicus (254), Martyr Patroclus of Troyes (Gaul, 3rd c.), Ven. Alypy the Iconographer of the Kiev Caves (1114), Martyrs Paul, his sister Juliana, and the rest, of Syria (ca. 273), Martyrs Thyrsus, Leucius, and Coronatus, with others, at Caesarea in Bithynia (c. 250), Martyrs Straton, Philip, Eutychian and Cyprian, of Nicomedia (ca. 303), St. Jeroen, priest-martyr of Noordwijk (Netherlands, 857), St. Elias of Calabria (903), Blessed Theodoretus, Enlightener of the Lapps (1571), St. Philip, monk, of Yankov (1662), and the New Martyr Demetrius of Samarina in Epirus (1808).
Through the intercessions of Thy Saints, O Christ God, have mercy on us and save us!
The work of piety and communion with God is a work of much labor and much pain, especially in the beginning. Where can we find the power to undertake all these labors? With the help of God's grace, we can find it in heartfelt zeal. A businessman, a soldier, a judge, or a scholar has work which is full of cares and difficulties. How do they sustain themselves in the midst of their labors? By enthusiasm and love of their work. And one cannot sustain oneself by anything else on the path of piety also. Without this we will be serving God in a state of sluggishness, boredom, and lack of interest. An animal like the sloth also moves, but with difficulty; while for the swift gazelle or the nimble squirrel movement and getting about are a delight. Zealous pleasing of God is the path to God, which is full of consolation and gives wings to the spirit. Without it one can ruin everything . . . One must do everything for the glory of God in defiance of the sin which dwells in us.
And so, it is clear that without zeal a Christian is a poor Christian. He is drowsy, feeble, lifeless, neither hot nor cold - and this kind of life is not life at all. Knowing this, let us strive to manifest ourselves as true zealots of good deeds, so that we might truly be pleasing to God, having neither stain nor spot, nor any of these things.
Therefore, a true witness of Christian life is the fire of active zeal for the pleasing of God. Now the question arises, how is this fire ignited? Who produces it?
Such zeal is produced by the action of grace; however, it does not occur without the participation of our free will. Christian life is not natural life. This should be the way it begins or is first aroused: as in a seed, growth is aroused when moisture and warmth penetrate to the sprout which is hidden within, and through these the all-restoring power of life comes; so also in us, the Divine life is aroused when the Spirit of God penetrates into the heart and places there the beginning of life according to the Spirit, and cleanses and gathers into one the darkened and broken features of the image of God. A desire and free seeking are aroused (by an action from without); then grace descends (through the Mysteries) and, uniting with our freedom, produces a mighty zeal. But let no one think that he himself can give birth to such a power of life: one must pray for this and be ready to receive it. The fire of zeal with power - this is the grace of the Lord.
-- From The Path to Salvation
This most pious priest, truly worthy of wonder, was born on the island of Naxos. His parents were quite well-to-do; they had land of their own, and on this land there was a little church named for Saint Nicholas. From the time when he was a little boy, he would go at all hours and secretly enter the little church; he would dress up in a sheet and chant whatever he knew in his childlike way. One night, a man was passing out-side the church late and heard chanting. Out of natural curiosity he got down from his mount to see what was going on, and there he saw Papa-Nicholas -- a little boy then -- chanting!
Once Father Nicholas was telling stories from his childhood. He told us that one winter night, when they were sitting close to the fire, he said to his father, "Papa, just now our ship Evangelistria sank outside of Constantinople." "Our father was filled with fear," he told us, "and he said to my mother, 'Woman, what is the boy saying?' And truly, at that moment our ship sank. . . ." And to put the notion of holy clairvoyance out of our heads (since he didn't have any teeth at all, he spoke like a little child), he said to us, "All wittle childwen are cwairvoyant."
His father died young, leaving him at fourteen years old. His mother took him together with his sister and they came to Athens. His mother made him marry when he was seventeen. He lived with his wife for a very short time-just until they had a child. Afterwards, on the twenty-eighth of July 1879, he was ordained deacon in the Church of the Transfiguration in Plaka, Athens. Five years later, in 1884, he was ordained priest in the Church of the Prophet Elisseus. I forgot to say that, after his ordination to the diaconate, he divided his property with his sister. Not much time went by before one of his fellow-countrymen begged him to take pity on him, as his property was being jeopardized by debt. Immediately the sympathetic deacon offered to put up his own property as security to save his neighbor, until finally they took it from him and left him in peace. Freed, therefore, from the cares of the world and of possessions, in the middle of the bustling city of Athens he completely devoted himself soul and body to the life of the great ascetics of the desert.
First he was parish priest at Saint Panteleimon's, in Neos Kosmos. His parish consisted of -- thirteen families! During his term as parish priest, another priest without a parish visited him and asked to concelebrate in the Liturgy, and he, good and simple as he was, accepted him wholeheartedly. However, this priest made an agreement with the then churchwardens of Saint Panteleimon's; they fired Papa-Nicholas and sent him to the Church of Saint John ("the Hunter," as they called the church in those days) on Vouliagmeni Road. The parish of this church consisted of -- eight families! And the priest's salary was a piece of meat from the lamb of Meat-fare Sunday or Christmas. That didn't bother him at all; he thought fasting was the corner-stone of virtue. It was enough that he had a church so that he could serve the Liturgy.
His dismissal from the Church of Saint Panteleimon caused him great spiritual sorrow. One night, as he left Saint John's to go home, he was weeping on the road. The place was deserted at that hour. Suddenly, he saw on the road a fine young man who said to him, "Why do you weep, my Father?"
"I weep, my child, because they chased me out of Saint Panteleimon's."
"Don't be grieved, my Father. I am always with you."
Papa-Nicholas said, "Who are you, my child?"
"I," he said, "am Panteleimon, who lives at Neos Kosmos." And immediately he disappeared from in front of him.
He himself described this vision word for word to a daughter of his synodia.
For fifty years he celebrated Liturgy daily from eight in the morning till three in the afternoon, in snowstorms, in revolutions . . . Not even with the invasion of the English and French, which took place in 1917, did he interrupt the sequence of his Liturgies. In sun-drenched little chapels on the Acropolis, in cramped quarters, at two o'clock in the afternoon, in the month of July, he would celebrate in churches that had only a tiny door and all the sun coming in, and the sweat would settle like froth on the sacred vestments of this true laborer in the vineyard of Christ!
He ate every evening. He would abstain from oil during all the fasts, as well as for that of the Cross: he kept this fast from the first until the fourteenth of September; also, for the Holy Archangels, from the first of the month till the eighth of November. As a father-confessor, he was not strict about fasting; however, with himself, he was very strict. One day we gave him a bit of chocolate and told him that it was "fast" food. He took it in his hand, looked it over closely, and said, "Just to make sure, take it back."
He would commemorate names for hours on end. First, deceased patriarchs, metropolitans, priests, deacons, monastics, and -- the people of Naxos and of Athens. The names which they gave him he would commemorate regularly for many months. In order to give him a little rest, his spiritual children would secretly take the old ones and tear them up, because he took them with him to all the churches where he used to go. He would put them in two big handkerchiefs and tie them up into a bundle of sorts, and carry them in his bosom; they would press against his heart. When he finally managed to come home around five o'clock in the afternoon and relieve himself of the burden that he had on his chest--because he had two bundles, the names and a little box with holy relics -- we would say to him, "What are these bundles?" And he would answer, "My invoices and my contracts."
He was exceedingly simple, like a little child, but he was also to the point in his philosophical answers. Someone would say to him, "Goodness, Father, aren't you tired? When are you going to rest?" He would cross his hands and with great humility would say, "I will chant to my God for as long as I have my being!" He wasn't one for much talk. Someone else would say to him, "But why do you stay so long in church?" "You," he would tell him, "when you open your shop, don't you sit inside all day? And for me, church is the same."
Yet still another incident shows the unsurpassed faith and piety which he had in carrying out his sacred duties. There in his parish, in a narrow little alley, hid a man who was in an advanced state of leprosy. His lips had been eaten away by this terrible disease. Once Father went to give him Communion, but his decayed mouth could not receive the Holy Body of the Lord, and it fell a little to one side of his mouth. Without any hesitation whatever -- absolutely none -- Father leaned over and with his mouth took the Divine Pearl Which had fallen, and consumed It! Let those who find it hard to receive Communion because they're afraid of germs take a look at this! . . . Actually, it is a great blasphemy: that the One God of the living and the dead, the Creator of heaven and earth, could be contaminated by germs! The ravings of mentally-darkened unbelievers!
As for that sick man, he was found out by the police and sent to the leper-colony together with his daughter, who had also become afflicted and had her fingers eaten away. In spite of this, Father suffered nothing.
Ed. note: St. Nicholas fell asleep in the Lord in 1932 after several months of illness. He worked many miracles during his life, and continues working them to this day. Through his holy prayers, may our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us, and save us!