MARTYR ANTHUSA AT ROME

At the winter solstice, when the day is the shortest of the year and the night is the longest, the Wandering Church in history reminds itself of the words of the Apostle Paul to the Romans: “The night is past, but the day is near” (Rom. 13:12). At the same time, it celebrates the memory of the holy martyr Anthusa of Rome.

The saint was a student of St. Ambrose of Milan. The bishop of Milan baptized Anthusa, after which she, being of royal origin, continued her life at court. At that time, there were many Arian heretics in the ruling elites of the western part of the Empire, especially in Milan. No additional information has been preserved about Anthusa’s life. What is known is that she was killed for professing the Orthodox faith. As the day of her memory, the Church chose the day following the celebration in honor of Ambrose himself, whose memory was the day before - December 20.

This absence of any information about the specific circumstances and even dates of the martyr’s life symbolically reveal the basis for which the saints of the Ancient Church neglected life itself in their readiness to suffer for faith in Christ.

This is the belief that time will soon end (cf. Rev. 10:6). Chronological time will end, and the Messianic Time, by which the Church already lives, is advancing rapidly, but is not aging. It does not kill, but, in the words of the litany on the Day of Epiphany, it ‘leads to eternal life’, like the Waters of Baptism. The day of the Second Coming of Christ has approached. In the words of the Apocalypse, or, better, the Lord Jesus Christ himself: “Behold, I am coming quickly; take hold of what you have, lest anyone take your crown” (Rev. 3:11).

Belief in the Second Coming of Christ is a dogma. It is proclaimed daily in the Creed with the words: “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ. He will come again with glory, to judge the living and the dead. There will be no end to His Kingdom.” Being a dogmatic truth, waiting for the Lord’s Coming is obligatory for every believer.

According to the Gospel, in response to the request of the disciples to ‘teach us to pray’ (Luke 11:1), the Lord Jesus said the prayer ‘Our Father’. This prayer of prayers, the invocation of God as Heavenly Father, is both a petition and a profession of faith. Every word of it contains a dogmatic truth that needs to be reflected on. ‘The law of prayer is the law of faith’ - this was the axiom about this in the mouths of the Holy Fathers. ‘Thy Kingdom come – is a confession, prayer and… demand’. Surprisingly, the prayers are pronounced in the imperative mood. The Church asks God to hasten the Coming of Christ.

The expectation of the Second Coming of Christ places us, the Church, as a community of believers, in the period between two Comings: our earthly Christmas, as a memory of the Coming of God into the World, and that great Coming of the Lord, which, finally and irrevocably, will become the Birth of us and the new heaven and the new earth in God, which is soon to happen.

Christ the Messiah will return in glory with all the saints. The Lord will resurrect every person who has ever lived since the creation of the Universe. “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. When this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. 15:53-54).

For a correct, orthodox understanding of holiness, it is especially important to realize that saints are not only intercessors who help us. They are in the Church with us. At the same time, after the Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord Jesus, the One and Only Great Witness (Rev. 3:14), that is, literally from Greek, “Martyr and Saint”, having already been born in the Kingdom of the Father, they become the forerunners of His Second Glorious Coming. As it is mysteriously said in the Gospel of Matthew: “And the tombs were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were resurrected and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, they entered the Holy City and appeared to many” (Matthew 27:51-53).

The martyr Anthusa of Rome, a disciple of Ambrose, became such a resurrected one, emerging from the graves as the “Harbinger of the Coming of Christ” for the Holy City of God - the Church and the Universe. Together with them, Ambrose and Anthusa, these ‘two lamps standing before God’ (Rev. 11:4), the faithful turn in prayer to bring the Coming closer and to end the night.