Metropolitan Cyprian II of Oropos and Phyle | May 7/21, 2015 | Stockholm
Your Grace, Bishop Johannes of
Makarioupolis;
Venerable Fathers, Mothers,
Brothers and Sisters;
Beloved Children in the Lord:
Christ is in our midst! May our
All-Holy Mother and Theotokos and our elder Brothers, the Choirs of the
Holy Angels and the Saints of the Church, ever be our guides, patrons, and
comforters on our journey to the Kingdom of Heaven.
The great Feast of the Holy and
Glorious God-crowned Monarchs Constantine and Helen, Equals to the Apostles,
has gathered us yet again this year in this historic missionary Church
dedicated to them, in order that we might render them honor and thanksgiving,
to the glory of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!
***
It is truly edifying and salutary
to render honor to the Royal Saints Constantine and Helen; moreover, it is an
exceptional blessing to do so here, at the northern extremity of Western
Europe: Europe, which has never been favorably disposed towards St. Constantine
the Great; Europe, which not only has denied his glory in Heaven, but even
turned against him—and continues to do so—with impassioned prejudice, sullying
this crowning figure of the Orthodox Church and of worldwide civilization.
Our much-revered Bishop Johannes,
the pioneer of our Orthodox mission here in Western Europe, was truly
enlightened by God in his decision to dedicate the Church he built to St.
Constantine, thereby turning away, with discernment and wisdom, from western
rationalism, which, under the cloak of science, has contributed to the
emergence of a new barbarity, a moral degeneration without precedent.
Yes, St. Constantine the Great is
the great historic, spiritual, and ecclesiastical figure that constitutes a response
to the atheistic, amoral, Marxist, Papist, and Protestant scholarship of
Europe; he was and is a response, not simply as the first Christian Emperor of
a vast Empire, but also as the one who, in the fourth century, with consistency
of word and deed, combining action and vision (praxis and theoria),
radically overturned the pagan foundation and perspective of the social
landscape, and reformed, in like manner to the Apostles, the entire
institutional network of public life, aspiring to imbue it with an
ecclesiastical ethos, having the Cross and Christ at its center.
***
The Cathedral of the Holy Diocese
of Stockholm, in which we honor today the Holy Equals to the Apostles,
constitutes a luminous podium of Orthodoxy, that is, of True Evangelical
Faith, but also of the vision of St. Constantine the Great for the
Christianization of the Empire and the creation of a Christian civilization in
Europe.
Europe tries to trivialize,
literally to demolish, the importance of the Holy Equal to the Apostles. It has
aptly been said that “no other leader in the West has been subject to harsher
and graver accusations than St. Constantine the Great.”
The West long ago rejected two
fundamental elements of the great figure of St. Constantine: first, the “foolishness”
of the Cross and the ethos of the Cross; second, the Truth of the
Faith, and in particular the Divinity of Christ our Savior.
• With regard to the first
element, it has been incontrovertibly and historically documented that the
Precious Cross was revealed to St. Constantine the Great along with the Divine
exhortation: “By this sign shalt thou conquer.” This sign from God constituted
a turning-point in his life, yet also, when instantiated as the “ethos of the
Cross,” permeated his entire life, as a mindset, as vision (theoria),
and as action (praxis). His humble attitude, his humble speech, and his
humble and merciful manners astonished the Christians of his day, who until
that time had suffered the consequences of the tyranny of previous emperors.
Directly bound up with the ethos
of the Cross, which the degenerate West rejects, are austerity and modesty of
morals: the truly farseeing St. Constantine, understanding that powerful
nations and states are not brought down by external enemies but rather by
internal degeneration and moral decay, worked to adapt the laws of the Empire
to the principles of the Gospel; in particular, he outlawed concubinage, took
measures to strengthen the institution of the family, ordained the death
penalty for a man who committed the offense of adultery with a married woman,
called for extremely harsh punishments for the crimes of abducting children and
virgins and for sexual offenses.
• With regard to the second
element—the Truth of the Faith—the contribution of St. Constantine the Great to
the struggle of the Church to safeguard dogmatic faith in the Divinity of the
Word is well known and indisputable. Just as at the First Œcumenical Synod
(325), so until his repose (337), he remained faithful to the dogma of the
Consubstantiality of Christ our Savior with God the Father and was
unambiguously anti-Arian.
His adherence to the Truth of the
Faith underscored with exceptional emphasis that the Gospel has substantial
meaning and serves as “glad tidings” only when it is proclaimed and put into
practice with our Crucified God, the Son and Word of God who was Incarnate,
Crucified, and Resurrected and is consubstantial with the Father, at its
center.
Western theology and philosophy
in our days wants a Christ without Divinity and without the Cross. The West has
surpassed even the impiety of Arios, in that it wishes to invest with Christian
authority every kind of perversity and degeneration. The West passes over in
silence the Mystery of the Deification and Christification of man in the Cross
and by means of the Cross and Resurrection, which is the ethos of the Church.
Europe adheres to a secular humanism that is becoming ever more colorless,
contrary to the Gospel and the Cross, and, ultimately, anti-human.
***
My beloved Brothers and
Sisters in Christ,
This Cathedral of ours, named in
honor of the Saints who were crowned by God, calls us today, on its Patronal
Feast, to examine our duty in greater depth: We, its parishioners, ought to
show forth our Church as a living vessel and an ever-flowing wellspring of the
perpetually new, ageless civilization envisioned by St. Constantine the Great.
Yes, Europe today needs to be
re-evangelized, with the help of the Orthodox communities of the Genuine Church
of Christ, which communities will manifest and bear witness to Orthodox Truth.
Our responsibility is very great
to our brothers in the West, of whom the well-disposed yearn for the
authenticity of Orthodox Truth and the Orthodox ethos.
When we venerate the Holy Icon of
the Holy Equals to the Apostles, we also kiss the Precious Cross in between the
two Saints. This is something that should rouse us and instill in us the
essence of the Orthodox ethos; that is, that the Cross is the center of our
lives and only when we are crucified is it possible for us to give witness to
the Truth and Life, “that the world might believe.”
Kissing the Holy Icon with such
an insight will allow us to chant the Apolytikion of our Saints with
understanding:
Thou wast first to be a Divine
bastion among emperors, having received the gift of the True Faith from Heaven;
wherefore, thou didst make manifest the Cross of Christ and didst spread the
Orthodox Faith. O Constantine, Equal to the Apostles, together with thy mother
Helen, intercede on behalf of our souls.
***
May the prayers of our Elder and
Father, Metropolitan Cyprian of blessed memory († 17.5.2013) sustain us in
Orthodox piety, and may the Power of the Precious Cross strengthen us and give
us unswerving steadfastness in Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy.
Let us not forget that the word
“Constantine” is of Latin origin (Constantinus) and means “constancy” or
“standing firm” (constantia). In other words, the name of the Saint
serves for all of the faithful as a constant reminder that we must have a regal
mindset, a steadfast mindset, which means that we should stand firm,
well and profoundly entrenched and founded on our Crucified Christ, to Whom are
due glory, honor, and worship, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
unto the ages. Amen!
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