SAINT THOMAS OF CONSTANTINOPLE

On the day of the spring equinox according to the Julian calendar, which is April 3 in churches that adhere to the old calendar style, the Orthodox Church honors the memory of St. Thomas of Constantinople. Thomas was Ecumenical Patriarch during the last Roman-Persian war (602-628), the last head of the Orthodox Church before the Arab conquests and the rapid spread of Islam.

His patriarchate was extremely short, lasting only three years from 607 to 610, and was marked by an apocalyptic vision witnessed by participants in a mass procession in one of the cities of Asia Minor. The essence of the vision was that the huge crosses that participated in the procession suddenly began to sway, collide with each other, and break. Hagiography interprets this vision as an indication of the tragic course of the Persian-Roman war, the imminent fall of Jerusalem, and the capture of the Holy Cross by the Persians.

Of course, Saint Thomas could have ignored this story, but he chose to consult with Theodore the Sykeote (550-613). This great bishop and miracle worker got the grace of prophecy and was the spiritual father of the emperors. After Theodore interpreted the vision of the Crosses in a tragic, apocalyptic sense, Saint Thomas asked him to intercede before God so that he would not live to see all these calamities. “Age is given to us so that we may learn to say goodbye,” said one of our religious leaders. Almost one and a half millennia earlier, Saint Thomas of Constantinople had already confirmed the accuracy of these words.

After Thomas’ death, Emperor Heraclius ascended the throne. His attempt to restore the unity of Eastern Orthodoxy by uniting the opponents and supporters of the Council of Chalcedon (451) through the “invention” of the Monothelite heresy failed, thus becoming the final sentence on Christian unity. The churches of Alexandria and Constantinople considered only themselves to be Orthodox, standing under the banner of the Cross of the Lord, but in reality they were crushing each other. When the Arab armies entered Egypt, the Monophysite Christians, who were the absolute majority among the Orthodox there, literally opened the gates of their cities, because they believed that the new conquerors would bring relief from the oppression of “the harsh imperial Orthodoxy of Constantinople.”