TWO FINAL SAINTS
Well, no requests received so I've
picked the final extracts myself. It did occur to me that all my choices so far
have been men so I thought I'd restore the balance with the stories of two feisty ladies, very different and separated in time by over a thousand
years, but each in her own way a wonderful representative of all that is best
in the Christian community. And that's your lot. If you want to read the other
234 stories, buy the book!
Cassiane, Hymnographer (September 7)
A beautiful and feisty woman, and one
of the great poets and composers of Byzantium, Cassiane* is certainly one of
the more intriguing saints of the Orthodox Church. Add to that a romantic
ending and we have a story worthy of Hollywood.
She was born into a wealthy family in
Constantinople in about 810. She grew up to be a beautiful young woman and was
eventually chosen to participate in the “bride show,” where Emperor Theophilos
was to choose his wife from a group of eligible girls. Theophilos was left with
a final choice between Cassiane and an equally beautiful girl called Theodora.
By tradition, he was to give a golden apple to the girl of his choice. Looking
at the apple, he said to Cassiane, “From woman came the worst in the world”
(referring to Eve). Cassiane looked at him calmly and replied, “From woman also
came the best” (referring to the Virgin
Mary). Not liking to be upstaged by a woman, Theophilos gave the apple to Theodora. In fact, this was no great hardship
for Cassiane as she had for a long time decided to devote her life to the Lord.
In 843, she founded a convent on the outskirts of
Constantinople and became its first
abbess. She was a fierce and outspoken opponent of iconoclasm, a heresy
Theophilos supported, and she was severely punished, including being flogged.
After the restoration of the icons, she was left in peace until her death in
865.
Cassiane further demonstrated her
determination and single-mindedness in the field for which she is mainly
remembered today: hymnography. This was regarded very much as a male preserve
at that time, and she was subject to much scorn for her efforts in writing
hymns. Nevertheless, she persevered, and her critics were confounded when she
began to produce some of the most sublime works of the period. With the encouragement
of Theodore of Studion and most of the leading churchmen of Constantinople, she
wrote a great number of hymns, of which about fifty survive and twenty-three
are still used in Orthodox services. She also wrote many aphorisms and epigrams
which give further insight into her character, for example, “I hate the rich
man moaning as if he were poor.”
Her hymns are of great spiritual
beauty, both in the words and the music.**
George Poulos makes the point that
“from Mozart to the present day, it is difficult to recall a single classical
composer on the distaff side, but hidden among the great hymnographers of all
time is the exceptional female creator of church music whose creations have
been heard for centuries in Orthodox churches, where the members are unaware
that a woman wrote the inspirational melody.” Cassiane’s greatest creation is
The Hymn of Cassiane, which is sung every Holy Tuesday:
Sensing Thy divinity, O Lord, a woman
of many sins
takes it upon herself to become a
myrrh-bearer,
And in deep mourning brings before
Thee fragrant oil
in anticipation of Thy burial, crying:
“Woe to me! For night surrounds me,
dark and moonless,
and stings my lustful passion with the
love of sin.
Receive the wellsprings of my tears,
O Thou who gatherest the waters of the
oceans into clouds.”
And the romantic story? It is said
that Theophilus, towards the end of his life, still felt love for Cassiane and
wanted to see her once more before he died. He rode to the monastery where
Cassiane was writing her hymn, but because she still felt some love for him and
feared this would distract her from her vows, she hid, leaving the hymn on the
table. Theophilus found her cell empty, but noticed the unfinished hymn. He
read through it to the end, where Cassiane had written: “I will kiss Thine
immaculate feet / and dry them with the locks of my hair.” Remembering her
beauty and intelligence and his youthful arrogance, he cried and added the
line, “Those very feet whose sound Eve heard at dusk in Paradise / and hid
herself in fear.” He left, and Cassiane returned to finish the hymn.
* There are many variations on her
name, including Kassia, Kassiane, Ikasia, and
Cassia.
** Several CDs of Cassiane’s hymns are
available.
Maria Skobtsova (Mother Maria of
Paris), Righteous Martyr (July 20)
The story of Maria Skobtsova reminds
us that the Second World War saw the martyrdom of many Christians, including
Orthodox, who in one way or another fought against Nazi oppression. However, as
a twice-married, formerly socialist politician, intellectual, and poet, she is
certainly not a typical Orthodox saint! Born Elizaveta Pilenko into an
aristocratic Latvian family in 1891, she became involved in the turmoil of
radical politics in the lead-up to the 1917 revolution. Her exploits from her
marriage to a Bolshevik in 1910 to her flight from Russia with her second
husband and family in about 1919 read like an adventure story. However, we will
take up the story in 1923, when the family arrived in Paris and were at last
able to settle down.
By 1926, Elizaveta’s marriage had
broken down, and after the death from influenza of her youngest daughter, she
went through a period of deep spiritual anguish. As she emerged from the double
trauma, she found “a new road before me and a new meaning in life, to be a
mother for all, for all who need maternal care, assistance, or protection.” She
set about helping the many destitute Russian refugees in Paris. Granted an
ecclesiastical divorce, she took monastic vows in 1932 with the name Maria. She
rented a house which she turned into a shelter for the refugees, complete with
a chapel and soup kitchen. Her “cell” was a bed behind the boiler in the
basement. Maria’s aim was to build a new kind of “monasticism in the world.”
Together with Fr. Dimitry Klepinin and Ilya Fondaminsky (both also martyred by
the Nazis), she formed the Orthodox Action movement, committed to putting into
action the social implications of the Gospel message. Maria’s work among the
poor and her writings, full of practical and compassionate theology, might
alone have put her among the revered and blessed. But then the Germans invaded
France and occupied Paris.
Although she continued her work with
the poor, Maria now found a new cause, helping the Jews. Along with Fr. Dimitry
and her son Yuri, she organized forged documents and escape routes to the
unoccupied south of France, helped hide Jews from the Nazis, and smuggled food
into the camps for those already rounded up. Well aware that she was under
Gestapo surveillance, Maria continued her activities until, on February 8,
1943, she was arrested, together with Yuri and Fr. Dimitry.
Maria was taken to the women’s
concentration camp at Ravensbrück, where she did her best to continue her work
of looking after the “less fortunate,” maintaining her spiritual life by
reciting passages from the New Testament and some of the services from memory.
Her earlier ascetic lifestyle and her spiritual strength helped her cope with
the terrible privations of the camp, and
she survived almost to the end of the war. Eventually, however, she became so
ill that she could no longer pass the roll call for work. As the Russian troops
were approaching Berlin and gunfire could be heard in the distance, she was
sent to the gas chamber on Holy Saturday 1945. “At the Last Judgment,” she
wrote, “I shall not be asked whether I was successful in my ascetic exercises,
nor how many bows and prostrations I made. Instead I shall be asked, ‘Did I
feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoners?’ That is
all I shall be asked.” On February 11, 2004, Maria was formally added to the
Synaxarion of saints, along with her son Yuri, Fr. Dimitry Klepinin, and Ilia
Fondaminsky. She is also honored by the state of Israel as one of the
“Righteous among the nations.” Metropolitan Anthony Bloom called her “a saint
of our day and for our day, a
woman of flesh and blood, possessed by
the love of God who stands face to face with the problems of this century.”
© Conciliar Press 2013
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