THE VENERABLE MARTYR PACHOMIUS

May 21

From the Prologue

Pachomius was born in Little Russia. The Tartars captured him in his youth and sold him to a Turkish furrier as a slave. He spent twenty-seven years in slavery in the town of Usaki in Asia Minor. He was forced to become a Muslim. He went to Mt. Athos, was tonsured a monk and spent twelve years in the monastery of St. Paul. He decided to suffer for Christ. His spiritual father, the Elder Joseph, accompanied him to Usaki where Pachomius presented himself to his former master as a Christian in the monastic habit. The Turks subjected him to tortures, threw him into prison and beheaded him on the Feast Day of the Ascension, May 8, 1730 A.D. Many miracles occurred from his blood and relics. Pachomius was buried on the island of Patmos in the Church of St. John the Theologian. Thus this Little Russian peasant became a martyr and wreath-bearer in the kingdom of Christ.

HYMN OF PRAISE

SAINT CONSTANTINE

To Constantine, the shining Cross appeared,

Constantine saw it and glorified God.

From the Son of God, that sign was,

There is none more beautiful, than this sign.

The sign of suffering, and temporary misery

But also, the sign of final victory.

With this sign, the doer of miracles,

Constantine started out and everywhere conquered.

In the midst of pagan Rome, the Cross-persecuter,

The Cross on high he raised, the glory of the Savior.

Which for three centuries was fractured and cursed,

That, now for Rome, became great and holy!

For three centuries, the Cross was spat upon,

In the blood of the saints, the earth was bathed.

Empires and emperors, arrogant and odious,

Similar to a weak reed, were destroyed one by one,

And the sign of the Cross, upright remained

Miraculously and gloriously shone to the world.

Constantine recognized it and raised it even higher,

That is why, in the calendar, his name is written in red.




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