دوم تسالونیکیان ۱.۱۰-۲.۲ (رساله)

۱۰در آن روز که او می‌آید تا در مقدسین خود تمجید شود و در میان همۀ آنان که ایمان آورده‌اند، مایۀ شگفتی گردد. این شامل شما نیز خواهد بود، چرا که به شهادت ما ایمان آورده‌اید. ۱۱از همین رو، پیوسته برای شما دعا می‌کنیم تا خدای ما شما را شایستۀ دعوت خود شمارد و به نیروی خود هر قصد نیکو و هر عملی را که از ایمان شما سرچشمه می‌گیرد، به انجام رساند، ۱۲و تا نام خداوند ما عیسی در شما جلال یابد، و شما نیز در او جلال یابید، بر حسب فیض خدای ما و خداوندْ عیسی مسیح. ۱ای برادران، دربارۀ آمدن خداوند ما عیسی مسیح و گِرد آمدن ما نزد او، استدعا داریم ۲از پیام نبوّتی یا گفته یا نامه‌ای که گویا از ما باشد، بدین مضمون که روز خداوند هم‌اکنون فرا رسیده است، زود متزلزل یا مشوّش مشوید.

لوقا ۱۱.۳۴-۴۱ (انجیل)

۳۴چشم تو، چراغ بدن توست. اگر چشمت سالم باشد، تمام وجودت روشن خواهد بود. امّا اگر چشمت فاسد باشد، تمام وجودت را تاریکی فرا خواهد گرفت. ۳۵پس به‌هوش باش مبادا نوری که در توست، تاریکی باشد. ۳۶چه اگر تمام وجودت روشن باشد و هیچ جزئی از آن تاریک نباشد، آنگاه همچون زمانی که نورِ چراغ بر تو می‌تابد، به‌تمامی در روشنایی خواهی بود.» ۳۷چون عیسی سخنان خود را به پایان رسانید، یکی از فَریسیان او را به صرف غذا دعوت کرد. پس به خانۀ او رفت و بنشست. ۳۸امّا فَریسی چون دید که عیسی دستهایش را پیش از غذا نشست، تعجب کرد. ۳۹آنگاه خداوند خطاب به او گفت: «شما فَریسیان بیرونِ پیاله و بشقاب را پاک می‌کنید، امّا از درون آکنده از طمع و خباثت هستید! ۴۰ای نادانان، آیا آن که بیرون را آفرید، درون را نیز نیافرید؟ ۴۱پس از آنچه در درون است صدقه دهید تا همه چیز برایتان پاک باشد.

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.