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PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN

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Reflections and Daily Inspiration
The Greatest Need of Man

Everyone, ancients and moderns, in East and West, has need of the fullness of grace which is offered liturgically by the Orthodox Church and which saves man.

Man is not created to worship idols. Nor can he be nourished with “husks” (see Lk 15:16). He is created to become god by grace, to live in freedom. “You were called to freedom, brethren” (Gal 5:13). Try not to hide the truth. Not to say that you believe, when you are experiencing doubts. Not to give the name of faith to the idol of belief in an idea. You should act like the Apostle Thomas, who did not believe insincerely but asked to see and touch. He saw and believed.

Whether a prison has iron bars or golden ones, it is the same thing: hell. Man is not seeking some amelioration in the terms of his sentence, but the abolition of death.
- Elder Vasileios  
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FROM THE NEWS
SAINT OF THE DAY
APRIL 27 / APRIL 14

Saint Martin the Confessor, Pope of Rome (655)

Martin became pope on July 5, 649, at the time of the furious debates between the Orthodox and the Monothelite heretics, who held to the belief in a single will in Christ. Reigning at that time was Constans II, the grandson of Heraclius. The Patriarch of Constantinople was Paul. In order to establish peace in the Church, the emperor compiled a small volume entitled the “Typos,” which was very favorable to the heretics. Pope Martin convoked a Council of 105 bishops, which condemned this book of the emperor. At the same time, the pope wrote a letter to Patriarch Paul, imploring him to adhere to the purity of the Orthodox Faith and to counsel the emperor to renounce this heretical sophistry. This letter angered both the emperor and the patriarch. The emperor dispatched Olympius, one of his commanders, to Rome to bring the pope to Constantinople in bonds. The commander did not dare to bind the pope, but bribed a soldier to slay him in church with a sword. When the soldier entered the church with the concealed sword, he was instantly blinded. Thus, by the providence of God, Martin escaped death. At that time the Saracens attacked Sicily, and Olympius was ordered to Sicily, where he died. Then, through the intrigues of the heretical Patriarch Paul, the emperor dispatched Theodore, another commander, to bind the pope and bring him to Constantinople, under the accusation that he, Pope Martin, was in collaboration with the Saracens and did not honor the All-pure Mother of God. When the commander arrived in Rome and read the accusation against Pope Martin, the latter responded that this was slanderous and that he had no association with the Saracens, the adversaries of Christianity: “And as regards the All-pure Mother of God, if one does not honor her and does not confess her and does not reverence her, let him be cursed in this world and in the next.” However, this did not alter the decision of the commander. Pope Martin was bound and brought to Constantinople, where he lay for a long time in prison, painfully ill, suffering from grief and hunger, until he was finally sentenced to exile in Cherson. Pope Martin lived for two years in exile. He died in the year 655, offering his soul to the Lord, for Whom he had suffered much. Two years prior to Pope Mar- tin’s death, the repentant Paul died. When the emperor visited him before his death, Paul turned his face toward the wall and wept, confessing that he had greatly sinned against Pope Martin, and begging the emperor to release Martin.