MARTYRED HOLY FATHERS AT THE MONASTERY OF SAINT SAVVA

Today we pray on the eve of the day of memory of Saints John, Sergius, Patrick, and others, killed in the monastery of St. Savva. The monastery of St. Savva was plundered at the end of the eighth century by Muslim nomads, whom the life, according to biblical custom, calls “Saracens”. The memory of the saints is celebrated on April 2.

The robbers attacked the monastery twice and inflicted great slaughter on the brethren. A very touching tragic story about this is contained in the life. Monasteries were often plundered, and the monks were exterminated. Thus perished the great ancient Egyptian monasticism. Thus, three of the four Holy Mountains of Byzantium were destroyed: Olympus in Bithynia, Mount Latria and Mount St Auxentius. Only Athos survived, since it was the only one in Europe.

Today’s remembrance is also a collective tribute to the memory of all those God-seers, God-seekers, and ascetics who suffered not from the demons and passions with which they fought, but from the hands of evil people.

Perhaps the most unfortunate thing in this centuries-old history of the extermination of monks and monasteries is that many of them perished not at the hands of infidel conquerors, but from their own brothers. Thus, in the 8th-9th centuries, when the monks of the Lavra of St. Savva, whose memory we honor today, were killed, monasteries in Byzantium itself were destroyed by iconoclasts. They considered themselves Orthodox and destroyed monasteries for two reasons. Firstly, the monasteries were a hiding place for the worshippers of holy icons, and the monks themselves, according to the iconoclasts, avoided military service through monasticism. The iconoclasts needed the army to resist the Arab troops, who also robbed and killed the monks.

The story continued through many centuries. The Bolsheviks began their war with the Church under the pretext of hiding church valuables for the benefit of the starving. Nowadays, the Refectory Church in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, where Metropolitan Vladimir Sabodan (1935-2014), a man of God and confessor who suffered greatly from the schismatics in his time, served and prayed to God, has been confiscated in favor of the state. Secular events and so-called “prayer breakfasts” are held there. By the intercession of the murdered fathers of the monastery of St. Savva, John, Sergius, Patrick, and many others, may the Lord grant patience to the monks. May the Heavenly Powers of the Apocalypse (cf. Rev. 12:7) protect the Orthodox when they are left without protection.