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Comments
St Bishoy answered the Emperor`s self flagellation reminding him of his exile of heretics, pagans and establishing Christianity as a dominant force in the empire. The emperor admitted that God had granted him gifts in paradise for what he had done but incomparable to those of a monk`s.
This reminds us that saints come in levels contingent upon their capacities & deeds here on earth. Granted he may have been baptized by an Arian bishop. But do we know about his last utterance, his repentance, or his acceptance by God? If the church so happens to remove him from the diptych then I`ll obey. I do not argue for or against him. But we need to understand that circumstances unbeknownst to us may have allowed for his sainthood.
Also, I think we need to be cautious in getting carried away whenever we hear of a politician or emperor becoming involved with church affairs & immediately writing it off as the church mixing with politics. These are men too, who happen to be Christian, who want to remain involved with the church just as we are all doing.
This logic deduces that if I`m ever elected to public office I must sever all church services or at least ones bearing influence on the general laity as to avoid that dreaded label. They may act as they`ve always acted notwithstanding their political life.
Granted, it`s a hard balance & perhaps impossible in this broken world but I believe its pursuance isn`t a sin or contrary to the Gospel so long as my political vocation ends where my spiritual one begins. I am to subdue myself to all church hierarchy whether I`m a King or president. However, I retain my right to issue my concerns like any laity member.
I understand Constantine did much more than issue concerns but he isn`t the only politician to be involved with church affairs. They come in different levels & depths that are sometimes ok and sometimes not. That`s for the church to decide, in hope of guidance by the Holy Spirit.
Glory to God who transformed us from non-existence into existence with the physical birth, and who granted us birth of [both] water and spirit through the second birth [of baptism], and accomplished [this] for us through the gift of baptism and resurrection of the mortal body, and adorned us with this spiritual gift which incited the magistrate* (Lit, nashshatat al-wali. The context of this statement is otherwise ambiguous.) and brought back the lost! We glorify Him for what He has given us through the gift of adoption, which is the highest of gifts, and we praise Him for the grace that He has poured out upon us through the baptism that forgives [our] sin, and apportioned His goodness in order to prepare us for the inheritance of eternal life. We praise him and glorify Him for this grace that came upon us as aid to those who are devoted [to Him].
We address you, O bearer of this happy, innocent-mannered, and noble child! The noble men and the [—] are joined with the virtues of fatherhood and maternal and paternal unclehood, by what you yourself see of this grace which Christ showered upon us, with its gifts such as forgiveness and kindness. By it* (That is, by this grace.) he moved the masses of the nations from disbelief to faith, and he purchased them by the most precious of souls and the costliest of costs, and took it upon himself so that we might experience it, and to take over the beginning of our lives in our place, [that we might] be protected from the sins which rob us of the grace of perfection, as the heavy burdens of the laws of repentance and their works pass judgment on us.
So bring up your child in the upbringing of a wise and emancipated man, and nurse him from childhood with the magnanimity of one who is worthy and liberated. Start teaching him in the vigor of his life with his education in the ways of knowledge of the faith, and in memorization of the writings of the church and the rules of sacred law, and place in his breast the grace of this gift: make it the best means before God! Instruct him to befriend the best young men and the holiest monks, and [to seek] the companionship of noble scholars from among the elders and young men, in order to divert him away from acquaintance with the riffraff and [from] thievery, from abiding in the path of sinners, and from hanging out with those who charm with their speech. Control the energy of his youth with the bond of marriage while he is still in his prime: it is the best medicine—the habit of masters and the master of habits!—for the child is unaccustomed to the strong medicine that he needs.
I move on by saying this: accustom him to straight behavior, and protect his hearing from listening to shameful things—and the same with his tongue and all of his senses. Discuss with him everything big and small, strive for his emulation [of them], and obey what the beloved and truthful apostle said: O Fathers, raise your children in righteous good manners that will be eternally fruitful in obtaining the fruits of grace, so that you might be eternally gifted with His kindness, for without it, mercy dries out. Do away with carelessness, transgressions, and negligence, and avoid the situation of embarrassment and the place of reprimand: you [should] see him before you as the most noble, rational soul, who is connected to the body and the best image [of Christ]. For as long as you have done the good deed, do not forsake him, so that when he enters into [the presence of] God’s throne of judgment and truth, [it will not be as the Gospel says:] “you will not be out until you have paid the last penny you owe him!”(Matthew 5:26)
You, O man of perfect mind and religion, have come to learn that you are a protecting guardian for this precious jewel, committed to making him one of the people of the Right.*(That is, the right hand of God.) Relieve him of this obligation and [instead] attend to his needs yourself: hearing [about something] is not the same as witnessing [it]! May God Exalted thus bless him with the blessings of the sons of the promise, and protect him today and tomorrow until the Last Day. [May God] grant him the righteous upbringing for which he hopes, and cultivate him with the Spirit and the grace of [God’s] power.
[May God] cover his thoughts with knowledge in the way that He might cover a shining mirror with that which is spoken from the mouths of babes; and bejewel him with worship and holiness, by his listening to [John] the Baptist, the first of the evangelists and witnesses of God’s Incarnation.
The blessings of the Patriarchal Father, the shepherd of the people of St. Mark and their head, amen."
From pages 146 -148 of Kurt J. Werthmuller's Coptic Identity and Ayyubid Politics in Egypt 1218-1250 published by The American University in Cairo Press, 2010.
So truth needs to be said on that part. Did he repent for the way he treated St. Athanasius? Maybe. I'm not against venerating him, but we still should remember the truth, and since many members in the church sought for imperial law to make Christianity the rule of law as righteous, I'm very sympathetic to his sainthood while I am also understandable of the repercussions the Church had to learn from it to be reminded, hopefully, never again should we advocate for a Christian emperor.
If I'm to take Fr Arseny, the priest, who was imprisoned in communist Russia, and tell of his vision of the prisoners' hearts aflame for God, whether murderers or thieves, it would also be just as damning by modern secular wisdom but we don't offer our suspicion for this one since it happened mere decades ago and a dozen men helped write and corroborate this story.
The oral tradition of the monastics is the same way; granted there may not have been such a 'scholarly' astuteness since paper wasn't a luxury and stories were kept secret until the fathers' departure. But i see no issue in taking them, after prayer and research by the Church, as a reality once lived by the saints who surpassed us in most things, and that we should long to reach such a level of unity with God.
God bless and keep me in your prayers please.
"...The largely negative take on Aquinas in recent Orthodox theology has certainly had its upside. It has tended to go hand-in-hand with a welcome re-affirmation of the patristic tradition, with the accent on its mystical and ascetic dimensions. All this is profoundly salutary and its importance must not be underestimated. But there is a very grave risk that in this process of re-affirmation and retrieval such essential elements of the Orthodox experience may be taken to stand for the whole. Mysticism has an essential role to play within Orthodox theology, but so does reason. The apophatic and cataphatic ways are not opposites, but complementary and interdependent; pure apophaticism, if such a thing were possible, is tantamount to obfuscation. Asceticism, too, is a vital and distinctive manifestation of Orthodox tradition but it is not, and has never been, the sole reference point for Orthodox theology. Modern Orthodoxy too often presents a rather partial account of itself, one that fails to do justice to its own substantial scholastic inheritance, an inheritance going back almost a thousand years before 1354 and which enabled many Byzantines to recognize Thomas as one of their own..."
"...Such an appropriation would serve to explode the very human and time-bound construct of an East-West dichotomy and to demonstrate the fundamental congruity and, so to say, consanguinity of Greek and Latin theological traditions. Such an appropriation would, in so doing, enable Orthodoxy to be true to itself, true to its inherent catholicity and to an orthodoxy neither occidental nor oriental but 'one in Christ Jesus.'"
In Marcus Plested's "Orthodox Readings of Aquinas" pages 226 to 228