In this episode, Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou teaches that instead of being afraid of physical dangers, believers should strengthen their trust in God and the saints, because true safety comes from faith and participating in the Church.
This English translation of the sermon of His Eminence Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou was presented for otelders.org by Porphyrios. The sermon was delivered on 26 October 2020 at the Divine Liturgy on the feast of Saint Demetrios the Myrrh-Streamer, held at the patronal church dedicated to the saint in the community of Saint Dimitrios in Marathasa under the Metropolis of Morphou, Cyprus.
Original source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS7CZ16LRcE (ΟΜΙΛΙΕΣ ΜΗΤΡΟΠΟΛΙΤΟΥ ΜΟΡΦΟΥ)
On Metropolitan Neophytos of Morphou YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh6FfaD0wYw
🔊 Listen to an English narration of this talk on Spotify and Apple Podcasts: https://open.spotify.com/show/02BTr4socgg9gwLbRZPPLE?si=78f8f270eb3c41e7
Met. Neophytos:
[Apolytikion of Saint Dimitrios]
“The entire world has found you to be a great champion in times of peril;
for you put the heathen to flight, O victorious one.
As you brought to naught the boasts of Lyaeus,
and gave courage to Nestor in the stadium,
in the same way, O Holy Great Martyr Dimitrios,
entreat Christ God, that He grant us great mercy.”
May your years be many and blessed, too.
May they be years of repentance,
in order for us to be able to partake all the more in the endless life of the Triune God!
If we receive Holy Communion,
if we receive Holy Water,
if we come to church,
if we venerate the holy icons,
if we venerate the holy relics,
if we receive antidoron,
if we kiss the hand of the priest,
or the hierarch wherever you find him,
[all of these] aim at partaking of the divine life of the Triune God.
We must realize this well deep inside us,
because now with this disease — the coronavirus — people are confused.
This [confusion] is largely attributed to the hierarchs,
wherever we have Orthodox hierarchs.
It’s unheard of to be afraid of Holy Communion,
of thinking that [Holy Communion] is a source of infection.
Holy Communion is a source of life
as it is the Body and Blood of Christ, of God.
Is it possible that the One who conquered death, …
For what do we say on Pascha?
“Christ is risen, trampling down death by death” —
[is it possible then] to be afraid
that if we commune we’ll get sick?
On the contrary!
What smart Christians are doing these days is to commune even more regularly!
More regularly!
Do whatever you can to be forgiven and forgive
those who have saddened and embittered you, or who have quarreled with you
so that you are able to commune as regularly as possible.
Fast to the best of your abilities.
Τhe Church has its days of fasting: every Wednesday and Friday.
Let us try to keep them,
as well as the other days appointed by the Church [for fasting].
In a few days from the 15th of November [2020] and onwards,
a nice, simple, easy fast begins
which prepares us for the great feast,
“the metropolis of all feasts,”
Holy Nativity.
All of this is a way for us to partake of the life of God.
God is offered,
He is “He that offereth and He that is offered,” [quoting the Divine Liturgy].
In every Divine Liturgy,
God Himself comes and says:
“Take, eat […] Drink ye all of it.”
Thus, it’s a pity for our soul
and it’s not respectful to our faith,
to our ancestors who had to go through much, much more difficult circumstances [than us].
Cholera, plagues, wars, poverty, conquerors…
as soon as a conqueror left, another one arrived.
For Cyprus to witness a few years of freedom,
750 years of slavery had to go by.
And yet most of our ancestors didn’t betray their faith.
They kept the faith,
they remained Greek Orthodox
and amidst the conquests,
from time to time an epidemic would [also] plague them.
Still, what is it that they had which has decreased in us?
They had faith and trust in God!
Right away, they rushed to make a procession with their icons.
And wherever they had relics of saints, with their relics, too.
Yesterday [25 October 2020, eve of the feast of Saint Dimitrios] in Thessaloniki
they held several celebrations.
Saint Dimitrios was streaming myrrh unceasingly!
If you go online and type:
“Saint Dimitrios’ Myrrh”
It says that, this past week in Thessaloniki,
where the center of honor for Saint Dimitrios is found,
Thessalonians have never seen so much myrrh coming out of the relics before,
especially from the kara [i.e. skull] of Saint Dimitrios.
A true “Myrrh – Streamer!”
A true “Myrrh – Streamer!”
The archimandrite who was holding the kara [of the saint],
had his whole phelonion wet with the myrrh that was streaming.
If you think [purely] rationally, what is the kara of a saint?
Naked bones…
Υet they are full of grace,
full of the energy of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!
They are filled with the life of God.
I went to confess to Saint Porphyrios [of Kavsokalyvia] and told him,
“Geronda, I want to become a monk,
but everyone tells me to become a hieromonk.
Just as Father Dositheos was ordained a deacon yesterday
and as Father Iakovos.
I asked him, “Do I have what it takes?
“Does the Church allow me to?”
“Do you allow me to examine what sins you’ve committed?” he asked me.
I was 22 or 23 years old at the time.
The saint started asking me,
“Did you do this, did you do that?”
At first he was asking simple things, easy ones.
As soon as we finished with the “heavy ones”
and I took heart,
he says to me,
“Of course you can become one.”
He followed,
“Wait a moment, let’s go a little deeper.”
“How much deeper?” I asked.
“Inside your soul, my child.”
“I now see things that you don’t.”
And he began asking me:
“Did this cross your mind?
“Did you desire that thing?
“In what way did it cross your mind,
“in what way did you desire it?”
Details of details… such minute things!
I was ashamed.
He was asking difficult questions.
What did I find out though?
The more I struggled…
and I am a person who confesses with honesty, with straightforwardness.
Glory to God, I possess these character traits
I can’t pretend.
Let alone before a saint such as Saint Porphyrios!
Suddenly, I realized something:
The more honest and revealing I was in my confession,
the more the cell of Saint Porphyrios became filled with fragrance!
“Lord have mercy!” I thought to myself.
“The fragrance [must be] coming from Saint Porphyrios, from his body.”
He read my thought and said,
“Don’t go and tell people that Porphyrios became fragrant during my confession.
“It is not me who is fragrant, my child.”
I have some relics of saints here,
and when a clean, sincere confession takes place, they rejoice.
How does a relic of a saint exhibit its joy?
Either through fragrance,
or through myrrh-streaming, as in the case of St. Dimitrios.
How will a holy icon show its joy?
Since it is pleased by our veneration, by our prayer, by our presence,
by our humble phronema, our forgiving phronema.
Ιt will either exude fragrance or it will stream myrrh.
If the holy icon wants to show us that it is not happy,
it will start shedding tears,
as is the case with a holy icon of the Theotokos in Vyronas, Athens
which is constantly crying for 45 days now.
It is crying constantly!
The past Holy Week [of 2020]
when all the churches in Athens were closed
because of the little faith of archpriests, priests and people…
the churches were closed.
The Crucified One [kept in the church] of the nursing home in Athens was bleeding.
To show us that we made Him bleed.
We showed little faith in Him.
What did our ancestors do?
Especially here in Marathasa, this custom is kept until today, at least in Moutoullas.
Once an incurable disease struck,
or one accidental death after another struck their village,
they would say,
“Let us have a procession of the holy icons throughout the whole village.
“From chapel to chapel, to sanctify the streets, the air!”
What did we do [instead]?
Did you hear of a procession taking place anywhere?
We wanted to do a procession with the icon of Saint Herakleidios,
which also has a relic [of him attached to his icon],
to get it from Skouriotissa to where the saint was baptized in Lambadistis.
We were all well-prepared.
On the day before, the police told us,
“We cannot allow that…
“we don’t have that many police officers to patrol [the procession],
“because people will come to venerate and a virus transmission might occur.”
Therefore, they did not allow the procession to take place.
In Saint Dimitrios [church in Thessaloniki],
the saint has been streaming myrrh for a week now.
It flows unceasingly.
His myrrh [is streaming] like a fountain, like a faucet.
And yet, the state comes and says:
“The procession of the Saint’s relic must not take place,
because there will be overcrowding
and there might be a lot of transmission and many cases [of Covid-19].”
I am asking you, “Shouldn’t God ‘ring the bell’ after all these [events]?”
After the little faith shown by the rulers
and, unfortunately, followed by many of the hierarchs, priests and then the people?
Whatever the leaders do, the people will follow.
I say all this to make us reflect.
God sent us this year and the next one coming in order to take exams on faith.
All of us, all over the world!
Not just the Greeks, the whole world!
Some of God’s people say that another disease is coming,
not coronavirus,
and that will be the great and actual disease.
Because we took the exams and failed.
We were proven to have little faith!
We thought that masks would save us.
Masks are used at carnivals,
they don’t belong in the Divine Liturgy.
For we enter [the church] with faith,
that is, with trust in the grace, in the energy of God.
Whomever may believe!
Christ is able to do His work with a few [people] as well.
He said,
“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” [Matthew 18:20].
He said neither 22, nor 102.
But “Two or three.”
Keep these in mind.
Because, as you heard today, it’s not just the feast of Saint Dimitrios,
it’s also the anniversary of a great earthquake
that took place in the years of the Byzantine period.
Earthquakes are surrounding us,
as you must have seen lately around the world.
God’s people say that many, many great earthquakes are coming to our region.
Therefore, I ask through your love to first increase your repentance, your confession.
Let our confession be as sincere and clean as possible,
so that the relics and the holy icons rejoice and become fragrant.
For our souls to stream myrrh,
so that we can prepare ourselves for the eternal life,
so that we can partake of the divine life of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
I pray this for you,
pray it for us, [too].
May Saint Dimitrios strengthen our patience and our faith.
Repeat in prayer what all modern saints have said,
“My Christ, grant me the patience and the faith of the saints.”
Because as it has become evident in our time,
the patience and the faith of both clergy and laity have decreased.
By faith, [I mean] our trust in the mercy,
in the therapeutic power of the grace of the Triune God.
When we want something, we go and buy it.
The Church doesn’t ask for money,
the Church asks, first and foremost, for faith.
If someone has money and is willing to donate,
they are welcome and, as you can see, we make good use of it — at least here.
However, money isn’t everything.
Faith is everything!
When we realize that,
either fear increases within us, or faith decreases, for various reasons,
this too is a sin.
So, let us ask Christ:
“Forgive me, my Christ!
“Increase my faith,”
“Increase our faith” [Luke 17:5].
This is how we should talk to Him.
“Christ, grant me the patience and the faith of the saints.”
We are not saints, that’s why we have little faith, that’s why we have fear.
Still, let us humble ourselves.
I’m glad that you’re attending all of our services [in these times of Covid-19].
Let each one attend according [to the measure of] his faith.
But let no one, no one — first of all myself — rest on what we have.
Always ask for more!
“My Christ, strengthen my patience. Strengthen my faith.
“So that it can perform miracles.
“To have the Holy Spirit.
“To have the power, the grace of Saint Dimitrios.”
When his disciple, Saint Nestor, needed strength,
he went and asked for his blessing in prison.
Saint Nestor wrestled with whom?
With the giant of the time, Lyaeus.
And little Nestor defeated him.
By shouting a prayer:
“God of Dimitrios, help me!”
Are you listening to what Saint Nestor told Him
before he entered the stadium to fight?
“God of Dimitrios, help me!”
And the God of Saint Dimitrios did help him.
And one saint is celebrated on one day [October 26]
and the other, Nestor, on the following day [October 27].
Many blessed years and may our years be streaming myrrh of the faith and patience of Christ.
“By the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy upon us and save us.”
[Doxastikon of the Vespers of Saint Demetrios]:
“Today the worldwide festival of the Champion calls us together.
Come then, all who are fond of feasts,
let us radiantly celebrate his memorial, and salute him, saying:
‘Rejoice, you who by faith tore apart the tunic of impiety,
and robed yourself in the courage of the Spirit.
Rejoice, you who destroyed the plans of the iniquitous with the strength that was given you by the only God.
Rejoice, for when your limbs were pierced by the lance, you spiritually depicted for us the blessed Passion of Christ.
Implore Him, O Dimitrios, you ornament of Athletes,
and pray that He rescue us from visible and invisible enemies, and that He save our souls.”
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