PLATO OF ANCYRA

It is difficult to assess the role that philosophy played in that distant era when Christianity was born and spread. Often, its influence was incredibly profound. Thus, if we disregard the Syrian tradition, where the practice of fasting was an original feature of the local Christian ascetic heritage, in the Roman world, abstinence in food and drink came from the philosophers. It was they, the philosophers, who advocated self-control in order to overcome the animal in man, the animal, of course, not in the sense of a particular beast, but in the sense of the animal nature of all human beings. Initially, the upper classes of society fasted outside of Christianity or even biblical monotheism, while the common people were unaware of this practice or simply had no knowledge of it. The Church Fathers, particularly St. Ambrose of Milan (334-397), gradually spread this practice, making it Christian.

It was a beneficial union between Greco-Roman religious genius and biblical wisdom. Pope Benedict XVI spoke about it at length; his famous speech in Regensburg, for which he was often criticized and in which he allegedly criticized Islam, was in fact devoted to the question of whether it was fortuitous that Christianity was initially incarnated not in China, South Africa, or South America, but precisely in the Greco-Roman philosophical world. Of course, it is the great mystery of divine predestination that made it so.

On the first day of winter, the Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of the martyr Plato of Ancyra. He is a saint who suffered for Christ at the beginning of the 4th century. Ancyra, whose name literally translates from Greek as “anchor” and which, more recently, became Angora, named after the wool, is the current Turkish capital, Ankara. It was once a great Christian metropolis, and before that, the place of suffering for many martyrs, but today there is not a single Orthodox church left in the city. Orthodox services are celebrated in the Catholic church thanks to the hospitality of local Christians, which is often practiced in the diaspora.

The martyr Plato was apparently a pagan from birth and childhood, as evidenced by his famous pagan name. When he was brought before the court as a Christian, many already knew about him because his brother was a doctor named Antiochus, who had already died for professing Christianity at that time. He healed people while preaching the Gospel, for which he was beheaded by pagans on charges of godlessness, charlatanism, and magic. The man who judged Plato was named Agrippinus, after a now forgotten but then famous philosopher, and obviously loved philosophy himself. “How can a philosopher judge a philosopher, and how can you kill a man named Plato?” - so, apparently, he reasoned within himself. He meticulously questioned the confessor of the faith, persuaded him, preached to him some of his own pagan traditional values. He showed incredible patience. But at some point, that patience literally exploded. The reason was a smile, when at some point, Saint Plato, listening to pagan wisdom, simply smiled. In response to all his exhortations, he replied in this way. For this, the saint was killed.

God constantly smiles at us Christians, but we do not notice it. Therefore, let us be careful, because sometimes His smile can irritate us. It manifests itself in paradoxical circumstances, in an incomprehensible way, it can reveal itself to us and affect us, especially when a person tries to oppose Him with his own truth. Speaking of the circumstances of the Second Coming, the Lord says in the Gospel that the Kingdom of God comes unnoticed. The Kingdom of God is that unnoticed smile of God, which the saints proclaim in their lives and deeds, in their exploits and testimonies. “Life is given to man in order to learn to say goodbye.” Thus, congratulating us on the beginning of winter, the Church, through these words of one of our contemporaries, now blissfully departed, calls us to reflect on time and on ourselves. “So boundless the cold sea,” sings Rammstein in their song “Seemann” (Sailor). One of the hymns of the Orthodox funeral liturgy describes time as “the sea of ​​life.” Cold, wintry, and dark times are approaching. They remind us that everything is transient. They remind us that everything is temporary and fleeting, that life is not here, and that it is short.