Saint Tikhon the Wonderworker

 

On June 29, the Church commemorates Saint Tikhon of Amathus.

The great saint of the Russian Church, Tikhon of Zadonsk, Bishop of Voronezh, was named in honor of Saint Tikhon of Amathus. 

Saint Tikhon is one of the two great wonderworkers of Cyprus, together with Saint Spyridon of Trimythous. Even the names of their episcopal sees—Trimythous and Amathus—sound as though they echo one another.

The city of Amathus is located in the southern part of Cyprus. Today, it is the village of Agios Tychon and surrounding ancient ruins. Trimythous lay in the central part of the island; the distance between them is about 60 kilometers.

Saints Tikhon and Spyridon were separated from one another by eight decades. In the middle of the fourth century, Spyridon reposed, and in 425 Tikhon departed to the Lord.

The life of Saint Tikhon was written down by the Patriarch of Alexandria, John the Merciful (c. 556–619), who was the last patriarch to have lived in the era when Alexandria was still a Christian Orthodox city. John was born in Amathus and reposed there as well. Thus, he was a compatriot of Tikhon and preserved his memory.

Unlike Spyridon, about whose miracles much is known, only two accounts of miracles of Tikhon have been preserved in his hagiography. One is from his youth, when he miraculously multiplied bread in his father’s granary; the other is the miracle of the vine, when, already a bishop, he gathered dried vine branches, planted them, prayed, and the vine came back to life and bore fruit. 

The miracle of Saint Tikhon with the vine is usually understood literally. However, if both of these miracles—the bread and the vine—are interpreted in the light of the biblical reading of history, then in the first miracle he becomes like the Lord Jesus Christ, who multiplied loaves for the feeding of the people, and in the second he reveals a prototype of the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is the wine of the age to come, the Blood of the risen Lord. That is, the Eucharist anticipates what is to come at the end of history. It seems to hasten forward, preceding time itself. Likewise, the vineyard of Saint Tikhon bore fruit before its appointed time, as the hagiography testifies.

Perhaps for this reason, the bread and wine that become the Body and Blood of the Lord require human care. The Church carefully preserves the Reserved Holy Gifts upon the altar, protecting them from all external influence and decay. For eternity before the Second Coming of the Lord is still too fragile within history.