Sermon of His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem at the The Feast of Saint Demetrios the New of Bessarabov
Your Beatitude Patriarch Daniel, beloved concelebrant in the Lord,
Your Eminences,
Your Graces,
Respected members of the government,
Beloved monastics,
Dear sisters and brothers,
We greet you today in this festive celebration, and We bring to you the grace of the Holy Tomb of our Lord Jesus Christ and the prayers of the Christian community of the Church of Jerusalem. It is our deep joy to be with you today and to celebrate this great feast of Saint Demetrios the New of Bessarabov.
Saint Demetrios the New reminds us of the meaning of living for Jesus Christ, and the transformative power of Christ’s love. As a simple shepherd and later a dedicated monk, Saint Demetrios became an imitator of Christ, bearing in mind the words of Saint Paul, “I urge you, be imitators of Me” (1 Cor. 4:16). In doing so he was a witness to the salvific truth of the Incarnate Divine Logos. In his life of devotion, as with the lives of pious saints and martyrs, he was seeking to attain to the glory of Christ, which was manifested on Mount Tabor on the Day of Transfiguration to Christ’s disciples. For in his ascetic commitment, he had renounced the earthly things, listening to Saint Paul, who says, “Our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil. 3:20-21). It is precisely the Apostles’ experience of Christ’s transformation that, like a beacon, inspires perseverance and faithfulness, helping us to navigate a world that succumbs to the death and corruption that is only defeated by the glorious Resurrection of Christ.
In our contemporary time, a new surge of Christian suffering and persecution has cast a dark shadow over many parts of the world, and particularly over the Middle East, which is the cradle of Christianity. While the socio-political developments have incited fear and despair in the hearts of many, we constantly recall the words of Christ, “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). The heavenly divine strength of the saints, even in the face of persecution, suffering and death, is the unfailing love of Jesus Christ. For the path of this Incarnate love is the path of deification (theosis), that is to say, true union with God, and it is the ultimate vocation of every Christian, for as Saint Peter says, we are “to become partakers of the Divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).
We celebrate today, the feast of Saint Demetrios the Pious, patron saint of Bucharest, who is beloved by his compatriots and whose incorrupt relics were presented to this country by Metropolitan Grigorie of Walachia and kept jealously as an invaluable treasure of our living Orthodox faith for the suffering it underwent during war. The Church tree of Romania has taken deep root, for it has been watered by the sacred blood of countless martyrs throughout years of martyrdom, and especially during the decades of the persecution of the Church during the totalitarian regime of our time. Today in fact, “we rejoice in these sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Rom. 5:3), according to Saint Paul. Today, the Church of Romania is harvesting the fruits in the re-birth of faith in your country. We are witnesses of this new life, and witnesses of the assurance of our Lord in the Gospel of Saint Matthew that even the gates of Hades will not prevail against the Church (cf Mt. 16:18).
As we can see by the life of Saint Demetrios, the vocation of asceticism is another form of martyrdom, “for we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand (Eph. 6:12) and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace” (Eph. 6:15).
It is precisely to this gospel of peace and salvation that men and women monastics, by choosing the angelic life, testify. They point us to the attainment of the contemplation of the heavenly kingdom, where “the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven…and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect” (Heb. 12:23).
Every Christian is called to follow in the footsteps of Christ in order to be a living witness. Whether enduring persecution, committing oneself to a monastic life, or living in the married state, the Christian is always a witness of Christ’s light to the world. We emphasize this because our world is enduring terrible suffering and peoples everywhere are crushed by war, poverty, disease, degradation, famine, injustice, indignity, and humiliation. There is everywhere a lack of respect for the human person as created in the image and likeness of God.
In our troubled world, it is the Incarnate Love of God and his resurrection, and of course the incorrupt relics of Christ’s servants like Saint Demetrios the Pious that are our living beacon of hope. The Christian, as a member of the Body of Christ, i.e. the Church, must be a true witness to this love, and on this feast of Saint Demetrios, the patron saint of this historic city, we re-dedicate ourselves to this vocation, striving to imitate him, for according to Saint Basil the Great, the way to honour a saint is to imitate him.
Let us then give praise to our Lord Jesus Christ for the inextinguishable witness of his pious saints. May Christ our God, through the intercessions of our Most Holy, Ever-Virgin Mary and Theotokos, and through the intercessions of Saint Demetrios the New, protect the faithful people of Romania and establish His peace in our world and in our hearts.
Amen.
