A pure sacrifice to the Lord you have brought yourself to the White City by the hand of your seller Reiz, for in his ship you have confessed godly truths, and, inspired by the Holy Spirit, you have shown him the depths of theology, so that he has remained without a word of opposition before you...[1]
Truly, many and heavy torments did St. John the New endure for Christ. When the pagan eparch saw that he could not persuade the merchant John to worship the sun, to serve the fire and to sacrifice to the star, he ordered the soldiers to strip him naked and beat him with rods.
Though they stripped him of his clothes, St. John was clothed with Christ. Though they tried to frighten him with rods, St. John endured and adorned himself with wounds, as if he did not feel the terrible pain. Moreover, he urged the tyrant not to delay his torments:
- Do not hope to hear from my lips any other words than words of praise for Christ the Lord and Savior, from whom nothing in the world shall separate me. Know, O persecutor, that neither tribulation, nor distress, nor famine, nor sword, nor any other danger shall separate me from Christ.[1]
St. John testified these things with a serene face and a joyful soul, which was far beyond the comprehension of the ighemon of the city. Not only did he not renounce the Orthodox faith, but St. John urged the eparch to renounce the pagan law and follow Christ-God. Often, stretching out his hands to him, St. John would say:
- Why do you labor, you who have no shame? For in my affliction you make my garment bright, and death the crown of immortality. I count my torments flowers of sweet savor, and the shedding of my blood the bath of Baptism.[2]
The tyrannical Cadian, being enraged and thinking that the merchant John had humiliated him and blasphemed his faith, ordered the soldiers to keep on beating him with their rods. To understand how cruel was this scene of the suffering of St. John, it is enough to note that the soldiers were tired and exchanged among themselves, the flesh stuck to the rods, and the ground was reddened with the blood of the Great Martyr.
The tyrants did not cease their torment, and the Saint prayed:
- I thank thee, O Lord my God, that thou hast washed me by baptizing me with my own blood, and hast made me clean from my transgressions, which I have committed before thee through human weakness... Strengthen me, O God, to confess thee to the end, and help me to stand firm in the torment by which the heathen seek to crush my decaying body.[3]
When they heard the whispers of prayer, the soldiers beat St. John until he was speechless, then bound him in chains and threw him in the dungeon. The next day, astonished that the Great Martyr was still alive in such a wounded body, the city's eparch resorted to a final lure:
- Do you not see, O Joan, to what shame your stubbornness has brought you, that even the life which is dear and dear to all of us, there is little that you cannot escape! But if thou wilt obey my counsel, thou shalt soon, in a few days, recover the health of thy marrow, which is crushed; for we have many and very skillful sorcerers brought from India and Persia. And if you do not heed my counsel, but remain in your Christianity, then know that many evils still await you.
But St. John does not delay to answer and confesses with manhood:
- O cadias, O tyrant judge, for the bruising and wounds of my body, I care not the least: for as our outward man is decayed, so is our inward man renewed, as the great apostle Paul says. I have no other care than that I endure to the end the labors that will be laid upon me from you for Christ who strengthens me. For he himself says: <>. Therefore, if thou hast thought, and hast found other labors, newer and more grievous, lay them upon me: for the former wounds which thou hast inflicted upon me I count for nothing. [4]
The crowd witnessing those scenes, horrified by the savagery of the judge, began to protest against him. In his pride, the eparch not only did not give up in tormenting the Saint, even though his wise words had shamed him, but moreover, the crowd's revolt blinded him and made him go to the end. So he orders the soldiers to tie the feet of the Monk to the tail of an untrained horse and drag him through the streets of the city.
Having Jesus Christ fully in your soul and mind, having kept the faith and journey, long patient, when your torments were almost at an end, one of the unbelievers cut off your honorable head, and you received the crown of the martyr from the hands of the One you desired.[5]
Next ...
Arhim. Valerian RADU
[1] Deac. Vasile M. Demciuc, St. John the New from Suceava, Doxologia, Iași, 2012, p. 20.
[2] Deiac. Vasile M. Demciuc, op. cit., p. 21.
[3] Pr. Anton I. Popescu, The life, sufferings and miracles of St. John the New said to be from Suceava, Tipografia Sfintei Mitropolii a Olteniei, Craiova, 1943, p. 25.
[4] Metropolitan Varlaam, „The Mystery of the holy and glorious great martyr St. John the New from Soceava, which is celebrated on the Thursday after Pentecost”, in: Cazania, Romanian Academy Publishing House, Bucharest, 1996, p. 456.
[5] Life and Homage of St. John the New of Suceava (June 2), The Sixth Icosul, Crimca Publishing House, Suceava, 2021, pp. 40-41.
[1] Life and Homage of St. John the New of Suceava (June 2), Icosul al 2-lea, Crimca Publishing House, Suceava, 2021, p. 33.
photo credit: fresco from the Archiepiscopal Cathedral of Suceava
