غلاطیان ۵.۱۱-۲۱ (رساله)

۱۱ای برادران، اگر من هنوز ختنه را موعظه می‌کردم، چرا دیگر آزار می‌دیدم؟ زیرا در آن صورت، ناخوشایندی صلیب از میان می‌رفت. ۱۲و امّا در خصوص آنان که شما را مشوش می‌سازند، کاش‌که کار را تمام می‌کردند و خود را یکباره از مردی می‌انداختند! ۱۳ای برادران، شما به آزادی فرا خوانده شده‌اید، امّا آزادی خود را فرصتی برای ارضای نَفْس مسازید، بلکه با محبت، یکدیگر را خدمت کنید. ۱۴زیرا تمام شریعت در یک حکم خلاصه می‌شود و آن اینکه «همسایه‌ات را همچون خویشتن محبت کن.» ۱۵ولی اگر به گزیدن و دریدن یکدیگر ادامه دهید، مواظب باشید که به دست یکدیگر از میان نروید. ۱۶امّا می‌گویم به روح رفتار کنید که تمایلات نَفْس را به جا نخواهید آورد. ۱۷زیرا تمایلات نَفْس برخلاف روح است و تمایلات روح برخلاف نَفْس؛ و این دو بر ضد هم‌اند، به گونه‌ای که دیگر نمی‌توانید هرآنچه را که می‌خواهید، به جا آورید. ۱۸امّا اگر از روح هدایت شوید، دیگر زیر شریعت نخواهید بود. ۱۹اعمال نَفْس روشن است: بی‌عفتی، ناپاکی، و هرزگی؛ ۲۰بت‌پرستی و جادوگری؛ دشمنی، ستیزه‌جویی، رشک، خشم؛ جاه‌طلبی، نفاق، دسته‌بندی، ۲۱حسد؛ مستی، عیاشی و مانند اینها. چنانکه پیشتر به شما هشدار دادم، باز می‌گویم که کنندگان چنین کارها پادشاهی خدا را به میراث نخواهند برد.

مرقس ۷.۵-۱۶ (انجیل)

۵پس فَریسیان و علمای دین از عیسی پرسیدند: «چرا شاگردان تو طبق سنّت مشایخ رفتار نمی‌کنند، و با دستهای نجس غذا می‌خورند؟» ۶او پاسخ داد: «اِشعیا دربارۀ شما ریاکاران چه خوب پیشگویی کرد! چنانکه نوشته شده است، «”این قوم با لبهای خود مرا حرمت می‌دارند، امّا دلشان از من دور است. ۷آنان بیهوده مرا عبادت می‌کنند، و تعلیمشان چیزی جز فرایض بشری نیست.“ ۸شما احکام خدا را کنار گذاشته‌اید و سنّتهای بشری را نگاه می‌دارید.» ۹سپس گفت: «شما زیرکانه حکم خدا را کنار می‌گذارید تا سنّت خود را استوار سازید! ۱۰زیرا موسی گفت، ”پدر و مادر خود را گرامی دار،“ و نیز ”هر که پدر یا مادر خود را ناسزا گوید، البته باید کشته شود.“ ۱۱امّا شما می‌گویید شخص می‌تواند به پدر یا مادرش بگوید: ”هر کمکی که ممکن بود از من دریافت کنید، قربان - یعنی وقف خدا - است“ ۱۲و بدین‌گونه نمی‌گذارید هیچ کاری برای پدر یا مادرش بکند. ۱۳شما این‌چنین با سنّتهای خود، که آنها را به دیگران نیز منتقل می‌کنید، کلام خدا را باطل می‌شمارید و از این‌گونه کارها بسیار انجام می‌دهید.» ۱۴عیسی دیگر بار آن جماعت را نزد خود فرا خواند و گفت: «همۀ شما به من گوش فرا دهید و این را دریابید: ۱۵هیچ چیزی بیرون از آدمی نیست که بتواند با داخل شدن به او، وی را نجس سازد، بلکه آنچه از درونِ آدمی بیرون می‌آید، وی را نجس می‌سازد. [ ۱۶هر که گوش شنوا دارد، بشنود!]»

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.