دوم قرنتیان ۱۳.۳-۱۴ (رساله)

۳زیرا شما حجّت می‌خواهید بر اینکه مسیح در من سخن می‌گوید. او در قبال شما ضعیف نیست، بلکه در میان شما تواناست. ۴زیرا هرچند در ضعف بر صلیب شد، امّا به قدرت خدا زیست می‌کند. به همین‌سان، ما نیز در او ضعیفیم، امّا با او در قبال شما به قدرت خدا زیست خواهیم کرد. ۵خود را بیازمایید تا ببینید آیا در ایمان هستید یا نه. خود را مَحَک بزنید. آیا درنمی‌یابید که عیسی مسیح در شماست؟ مگر آنکه در این آزمایش مردود بشوید! ۶و امیدوارم پی ببرید که ما مردود نشده‌ایم. ۷دعای ما به درگاه خدا این است که مرتکب خطایی نشوید؛ نه تا معلوم شود که ما از آزمایش سرافراز بیرون آمده‌ایم، بلکه تا شما آنچه را که درست است، انجام دهید، حتی اگر به نظر آید که ما مردود شده‌ایم. ۸زیرا نمی‌توانیم هیچ عملی برخلاف حقیقت انجام دهیم، بلکه هرآنچه می‌کنیم برای حقیقت است. ۹زیرا هر گاه ما ضعیف باشیم و شما قوی، موجب شادیمان خواهد بود، و دعای ما این است که شما احیا شوید. ۱۰به همین خاطر، در غیابم این مطالب را به شما می‌نویسم تا وقتی نزدتان آمدم، مجبور نباشم از اقتدار خود با شدتِ عمل استفاده کنم، اقتداری که خداوند نه برای ویران کردن، بلکه برای بنا به من داده است. ۱۱در خاتمه، ای برادران، شاد باشید؛ احیا شوید؛ پند گیرید؛ همرأی باشید؛ و در صلح و صفا زندگی کنید، که خدای محبت و صلح و صفا با شما خواهد بود. ۱۲یکدیگر را به بوسه‌ای مقدّس سلام گویید. ۱۳همۀ مقدسین، شما را سلام می‌فرستند. ۱۴فیض خداوندْ عیسی مسیح، محبت خدا و رفاقتِ روح‌القدس با همۀ شما باد.

مرقس ۴.۳۵-۴۱ (انجیل)

۳۵آن روز چون غروب فرا رسید، عیسی به شاگردان خود گفت: «به آن سوی دریا برویم.» ۳۶آنها جمعیت را ترک گفتند و عیسی را در همان قایقی که بود، با خود بردند. چند قایق دیگر نیز او را همراهی می‌کرد. ۳۷ناگاه تندبادی شدید برخاست. امواج چنان به قایق برمی‌خورد که نزدیک بود از آب پر شود. ۳۸امّا عیسی در عقب قایق، سر بر بالشی نهاده و خفته بود. شاگردان او را بیدار کردند و گفتند: «استاد، تو را باکی نیست که غرق شویم؟» ۳۹عیسی برخاست و باد را نهیب زد و به دریا فرمود: «ساکت شو! آرام باش!» آنگاه باد فرو نشست و آرامش کامل حکمفرما شد. ۴۰سپس به شاگردان خود گفت: «چرا این‌چنین ترسانید؟ آیا هنوز ایمان ندارید؟» ۴۱آنها بسیار هراسان شده، به یکدیگر می‌گفتند: «این کیست که حتی باد و دریا هم از او فرمان می‌برند!»

معجزه فرشته اعظم میکائیل در کولوسای

In Colossae in Phrygia there were a church and a holy spring dedicated to the Archangel Michael. Malicious pagans diverted the course of two rivers so that they would inundate the church. But the Archangel appeared, bringing with him an earthquake that shook the whole area and opened a fissure into which the waters plunged, sparing the church. The place was thereafter called “Chonae” Greek for “funnels” instead of Colossae.

نبی مقدس زکریا و عادل الیزابت (سده ۱), والدین قدیس یوحنا پیشرو

The story of the holy parents of the Forerunner is told in the first chapters of Luke’s Gospel. Several of the Fathers say that Zacharias is the one who, the Lord said, was slain between the temple and the altar (Matthew 23:35); because he continued to call the Mary the Mother of God a virgin even after she bore Christ; and because his son had escaped the slaughter of the innocents ordered by Herod. St Elizabeth had hidden him in a cave in the desert; he remained in the wilderness from that time until he began to preach by the Jordan.

قدیس ماکسیم (ساندوویچ), شهید لمکوس, چکسلواکی (۱۹۱۴) (۲۴ اوت ت.ق)

St Maxim was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1888. At this time all Orthodox Churches had been captured and subjected to the “Unia,” by which, though keeping the Orthodox liturgical rites, they were united to the Roman Catholic Church. Many of the Carpatho-Russian people were ignorant of the change and what it meant; others were unhappy with it but, in their subject condition, saw no alternative. Maxim’s farmer parents, at great personal sacrifice, obtained an education for him that enabled him to study for the priesthood at the Basilian seminary in Krakow. Here he discerned the un-Orthodox nature of the “Greek Catholic” training there and traveled to Russia, where he became a novice at the Great Lavra of Pochaev and met Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky), who encouraged him in his quest for Orthodoxy. (Archbishop Anthony, after the Russian Revolution, became the first Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad). He entered seminary in Russia in 1905 and was ordained to the Priesthood in 1911.Metropolitan Anthony, knowing the hardships and persecutions that awaited any Orthodox priest in Austro-Hungary, offered to find Maxim a parish in Russia. But Maxim was already aware of the hunger for Orthodoxy among many of the Carpatho-Russian people; several people from his village had travelled to America and while there had attended Orthodox Churches and confessed to Orthodox priests. They begged him to return to his country and establish an Orthodox parish there.

When he returned to his native village of Zhdynia, the polish authorities, seeing him in the riassa, beard and uncut hair of an Orthodox priest, mocked him, saying “Look, Saint Nicholas has come to the Carpathians!” But the people of nearby Hrab sent a delegation asking him to set up an Orthodox parish in their village. This he did, setting up a house-church in the residence that the people gave him. Almost immediately, he and his people began to be harassed and persecuted, first at the instigation of “Greek Catholic” priests, then of the government. His rectory/church was closed, and he and several of his parishioners were repeatedly jailed, sometimes on trumped-up charges of sedition. (The Carpatho-Russian people were always suspected of pro-Russian political sympathies by the Austrian and Polish authorities).

Despite these persecutions, through Fr Maxim’s labors a wave of desire for Orthodoxy spread through the region, with many Carpatho-Russians openly identifying themselves as Orthodox. The government issued orders to regional mayors to forbid those who had identified themselves as Orthodox to gather and, in 1913, appointed a special commissioner whose task was to force the people to return to Catholicism.

In 1914, war broke out between Russia and Austro-Hungary. Despite lack of any evidence that Fr Maxim had engaged in pro-Russian political activity — he once said “My only politics is the Gospel” — he was arrested and executed on September 6 by the Papal calendar, August 24 by the Church Calendar. He was denied any form of Church burial, and his father buried him with his own hands.

Following the First World War, Orthodoxy became legal in the new Polish Republic, and a monument was placed over Fr Maxim’s grave in his home town of Zhdynia. In 1994, the Orthodox Church of Poland officially glorified St Maxim.