اول تسالونیکیان ۲.۱-۸ (رساله)

۱ای برادران، خود می‌دانید که آمدن ما نزد شما بیهوده نبوده است، ۲بلکه هرچند پیشتر در شهر فیلیپی آزار و اهانت بر ما رفت، چنانکه می‌دانید، امّا به مدد خدای خود دلیری کردیم تا انجیل خدا را با وجود مخالفتهای بسیار به شما برسانیم. ۳زیرا اگر ترغیبتان می‌کنیم، از گمراهی یا انگیزه‌های ناپاک نیست، و قصد فریبتان را نیز نداریم، ۴بلکه چون کسانی سخن می‌گوییم که خدا بر آنها مُهر تأیید زده و انجیل را بدیشان به امانت سپرده است. ما در پی خشنود ساختن مردم نیستیم، بلکه خشنودی خدایی را طالبیم که دلهای ما را می‌آزماید. ۵شما نیک می‌دانید که ما هرگز به چاپلوسی متوسّل نشدیم، و از ظاهرسازی چون سرپوشی برای طمع سود نجستیم - خدا گواه ماست. ۶و نیز جویای ستایش از انسانها نبوده‌ایم، چه از شما و چه از دیگران. هرچند در مقام رسولان مسیح حقی بر گردن شما داشتیم، ۷امّا همچون مادری شیرده که از کودکان خود نگهداری می‌کند، با شما به نرمی رفتار کردیم. ۸شدت علاقۀ ما به شما چنان بود که شادمانه حاضر بودیم نه تنها انجیل خدا را به شما برسانیم، بلکه از جان خود نیز در راه شما بگذریم، چندان که ما را عزیز گشته بودید.

لوقا ۱۱.۴۲-۴۶ (انجیل)

۴۲«وای بر شما ای فَریسیان! شما از نعناع و سُداب و هر گونه سبزی ده‌یک می‌دهید، امّا عدالت را نادیده می‌گیرید و از محبت خدا غافلید. اینها را می‌بایست به جای می‌آوردید و آنها را نیز فراموش نمی‌کردید. ۴۳وای بر شما ای فَریسیان! زیرا دوست دارید در بهترین جای کنیسه‌ها بنشینید و مردم در کوچه و بازار شما را سلام گویند. ۴۴وای بر شما! زیرا همچون گورهایی ناپیدایید که مردم ندانسته بر آنها راه می‌روند.» ۴۵یکی از فقیهان در پاسخ گفت: «استاد، تو با این سخنان به ما نیز اهانت می‌کنی.» ۴۶عیسی فرمود: «وای بر شما نیز، ای فقیهان، که بارهایی توانفرسا بر دوش مردم می‌نهید، امّا خود حاضر نیستید حتی انگشتی برای کمک بجنبانید.

قدیس یوآنیکیوس کبیر (۸۴۶)

He was born in Bithynia of peasant stock. He worked as a swineherd, then became an officer in the Imperial army, where he served with such distinction in the war against the Bulgars that the Emperor Constantine VI wanted to take him into his personal service. “But the sight of massacres and horrors of war had brought home to him the vanity of this life. He asked leave of the Emperor to retire from the service, in order to wage unseen warfare in the ranks of the angelic army” (Synaxarion). In the coming years he traveled widely, sometimes living as a hermit, sometimes living in monasteries, more than once founding a monastic community. Wherever he went he lived in stillness, solitude and strict asceticism. He was famed for his spiritual counsel, his prophecies, his many miracles of healing ailments bodily and spiritual, and for his friendship with animals. Once a monk who doubted the Saint’s miracles was eating at table with him when a large bear burst in upon them. Joannicius called the bear and it came and lay at his feet; he then told it to lie at the feet of his frightened guest and said “At their creation, the animals looked with veneration on man, who is made in the image of God, and he had no fear of them. We are afraid of them now because we have transgressed God’s commandments. If we love the Lord Jesus and keep his commandments, no animal will be able to do us any harm.” The monk departed greatly edified.

In the last years of Joannicius’ life, when he was about ninety years old, the Emperor Theophilus sought his counsel on the veneration of icons. The Saint’s answer was pointed: “Whoever refuses due honor to the images of Christ, of the Mother of God and of the Saints, will not be received into the Kingdom of Heaven, even if he has lived an otherwise blameless life.”

Once Joannicius traveled to Constantinople to aid the Patriarch in some matters concerning the order of the Church. When he returned to his hermitage, he found that some jealous monks had set it on fire. Knowing who they were, he nevertheless addressed them kindly and invited them to share with him some food that he had managed to salvage from the fire. He did not attempt to rebuild his hermitage, but, taking the fire as a sign of his impending departure from this life, he traveled to the monastery of Antidion, where he had first entered into the monastic life and there, having predicted the day of his death, he reposed in peace. At the moment of his death, the monks of Mt Olympus saw a pillar of fire ascending from the earth to the sky.

The Saint’s relics have been the source of many miracles. His skull is kept and venerated at the Monastery of the Pantocrator on Mt Athos. The widely-used prayer “My hope is the Father; my refuge is the Son; my shelter is the Holy Spirit; O Holy Trinity, glory be to Thee!” is attributed to St Joannicius.