The feast
of the church is given sanctity by a triple virtue: that is, the dedication of
the temple, the transfer of the body of the saint, and his ordination as
bishop. This feast you shall observe four days before the Nones of July [4
July--W.G.], and remember that his burial is the third day before the Ides of
November [11 Nov.--W.G.]. And if you celebrate these faithfully, you will merit
the protection of the blessed bishop both in the present life and that to
come. -- St Gregory of Tours (+594), The History of the Franks, Book II, Ch. 14, http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/gregory-hist.asp,
opened 10 Nov. 2016, © Paul Halsall, December 1997. Dates supplied from Penguin Classics version,
Lewis Thorpe trans., 1974, p. 130.
Donald
Trump has been elected President of the [u]nited States, and the world is on
fire because of it. Whether this is
warranted remains to be seen, but one thing seems certain: Important things will be overlooked with such
intense focus on Trump and Washington
City. So let us take care not to lose sight of at
least one of them: the Feast Day of St
Martin of Tours (+397) on 11 November.
St
Martin’s ceaseless labors enlightened with the Holy Gospel of Christ many
places of Western Europe, both during and
after his life, personally and through his famous monastic center at
Marmoutier, which trained many missionaries.
Let us look at his life and work.
This holy and beloved Western Saint, the patron of France, was born in Pannonia
(modern-day Hungary)
in 316, to a pagan military family stationed there. Soon the family returned
home to Italy,
where Martin grew up. He began to go to church at the age of ten, and became a
catechumen. Though he desired to become a monk, he first entered the army in
obedience to his parents.
One day,
when he was stationed in Amiens in Gaul, he met a poor man shivering for lack of clothing. He had already given all his
money as alms, so he drew his sword, cut his soldier's cloak in half, and gave
half of it to the poor man. That night Christ appeared to him, clothed in the
half-cloak he had given away, and said to His angels, "Martin, though
still a catechumen, has clothed me in this garment." Martin was baptised
soon afterward. Though he still desired to become a monk, he did not obtain his
discharge from the army until many years later, in 356.
He soon
became a disciple of St Hilary of Poitiers
(commemorated January 13), the
"Athanasius of the West." After traveling in Pannonia
and Italy (where he
converted his mother to faith in Christ), he returned to Gaul,
where the Arian heretics were gaining much ground. Not long afterward became
Bishop of Tours, where he shone as a shepherd of the Church: bringing pagans to
the faith, healing the sick, establishing monastic life throughout Gaul, and battling the Arian heresy so widespread
throughout the West. Finding the episcopal residence too grand, he lived in a
rude, isolated wooden hut, even while fulfilling all the duties of a Bishop of
the Church.
His severity
against heresy was always accompanied by love and kindness toward all: he once traveled to plead with the Emperor
Maximus to preserve the lives of some Priscillianist heretics whom the Emperor
meant to execute.
As the holy
Bishop lay dying in 397, the devil appeared to tempt him one last time. The Saint said, "You will find nothing
in me that belongs to you. Abraham's bosom is about to receive me." With
these words he gave up his soul to God.
He is the
first confessor who was not a martyr to be named a Saint in the West. His biographer, Sulpitius Severus, wrote of
him: "Martin never let an hour or a moment go by without giving himself to
prayer or to reading and, even as he read or was otherwise occupied, he never
ceased from prayer to God. He was never seen out of temper or disturbed,
distressed or laughing. Always one and the same, his face invariably shining
with heavenly joy, he seemed to have surpassed human nature. In his mouth was
nothing but the Name of Christ and in his soul nothing but love, peace and
mercy."
Source: http://www.holytrinityorthodox.com/iconoftheday/los/November/11-08.htm,
opened 31 Oct. 2016
. . .
In
the 4th century the fire of Christianity began to burn fiercely in Orthodox
Gaul. This was largely due to the example and inspiration of the growing
monastic movement throughout the Christian world.
Two
of the greatest saints of this time in Gaul were St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Martin of Tours. St. Hilary,
known as the “Athanasius of the West,” was the spiritual father of St. Martin. St. Martin is considered Gaul’s
first great monastic saint. His example of “bloodless martyrdom” through
asceticism was embraced by many.
. . .
a.)
The first true monastery was Marmoutier, founded by St.
Martin. The monks in Marmoutier, who numbered eighty, all lived in
tiny wooden cells built halfway into the natural caves on the side of an
immense cliff along the banks of the Loire
River. One can still see
these caves near Tours.
The monastery of Marmoutier had a strong influence, for many bishops were
chosen from its enclosure. St. Sulpicius Severus speaks of monasticism there in
his Life of St. Martin:
“No
one there had anything which was called his own. It was not allowed to buy or
to sell anything.…
No
art was practiced there, except that of transcribers, and even this was
assigned to the brethren of younger years, while the elders spent their time in
prayer. Rarely did any one of them go beyond the cell. They all took food
together.
Most
of them were clothed in garments of camel’s hair. This must be thought the more
remarkable, because many among them were such as are deemed of noble rank … and
far differently brought up.” (Chapter 10 of St. Martin’s
Life.) St. Martin’s particular expression of
the monastic life at Marmoutier was naturally harmonious to the soul of the
Gauls and served as a catalyst to the spread of Christianity among the people.
b.)
One of the immediate spiritual fruits of St. Martin’s
example was the famous monastery of Lerins. The founding of the monastery on
the Isle of Lerins in 410 was the work of St. Honoratus, the future bishop of Arles. The
monastery served as a spiritual school for bishops and ecclesiastical writers,
such as St. Faustus of Riez, St. Eucherius of Lyons,
St. Vincent of Lerins, St. Hilary and St. Caesarius of Arles, and St. Patrick of Ireland. The
information that has come down to us about the life of the monastery of Lerins
can be found primarily in the Life of its founder, St. Honoratus, and in St.
Eucherius of Lyons’
In Praise of the Desert. From these sources one can see that most of the monks
lived in community, while the more experienced struggled in an eremitic or
partially eremitic way of life. Lerins-style monasticism (which held the
anchoritic life in the desert as its highest ideal) spread throughout all of
southeastern Gaul, notably in the Jura
mountains with Sts. Romanus and Lupicinus, and in the Valais, where the
monastery of St. Maurice of Agaune would remain an important spiritual center
for centuries to come.
. . .
Source: Monk
Nicodemus, http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/7364.htm,
opened 10 Nov. 2016
. . .
By
the 4th century Christianity had reached all the Celtic peoples, and this "leaven"
was preparing people's hearts to receive the second burst of Christian
missionary outreach to the Celts, through St. Hilary and St.
Martin.
The
seeds that St. Irenaeus planted bore abundant fruit in the person of St. Hilary
of Poitiers, who, having lived in Asia Minor, would be the link between East and West,
transmitting Orthodoxy in its fullness to the Celtic peoples. He was not only a
great defender of the Faith, but also a great lover of monasticism. This
Orthodox Faith and love for monasticism was poured into a fitting
vessel—Hilary's disciple, St. Martin of Tours, who was to become the spiritual
forefather of the Irish people. What Saints Athanasius and Anthony the Great
were to Christianity in the East, Saints Hilary and Martin were to the West.
By
the 4th century an ascetic/monastic revival was occurring throughout
Christendom, and in the West this revival was being led by St.
Martin. The Monastery of Marmoutier which St. Martin founded near Tours (on the Loire in western France) served as the training
ground for generations of monastic aspirants drawn from the Romano-Celtic
nobility. It was also the spiritual school that bred the first great
missionaries to the British Isles. The way of
life led at Marmoutier harmonized perfectly with the Celtic soul. Martin and
his followers were contemplatives, yet they alternated their times of silence
and prayer with periods of active labor out of love for their neighbor.
Some
of the monks who were formed in St. Martin's "school" brought this
pattern back to their Celtic homelands in Britain,
Scotland and Wales. Such
missionaries included Publicius, a son of the Roman emperor Maximus who was
converted by St. Martin, and who went on to found the Llanbeblig Monastery in
Wales—among the first of over 500 Welsh monasteries. Another famous disciple of
St. Martin was St. Ninian,
who traveled to Gaul to receive monastic training at St. Martin's feet, and
then returned to Scotland,
where he established Candida Casa at Whithorn, with its church dedicated to St. Martin. The waterways between Ireland and Britain
had been continually traversed by Celtic merchants, travelers, raiders and
slave-traders for many centuries past, so the Irish immediately heard the Good
News brought to Wales and Scotland by
these disciples of Ninian.
About
the same time that the missionaries were traveling to and from Candida Casa
amidst all this maritime activity, a young man named Patrick
was captured by an Irish raiding party that sacked the far northwestern coasts
of Britain, and he was
carried back to Ireland
to be sold as a slave. While suffering in exile in conditions of slavery for
years, this deacon's son awoke to the Christian faith he had been reared in.
His zeal was so strong that, after God granted him freedom in a miraculous way,
his heart was fired with a deep love for the people he had lived among, and he
yearned to bring them to the light of the Gospel Truth. After spending some
time in the land
of Gaul in the Monastery
of Lerins, St. Patrick (451), was consecrated to the episcopacy. He returned to
Ireland
and preached with great fervor throughout the land, converting many local
chieftains and forming many monastic communities, especially convents.
. . .
Source: Monk
Nicodemus, http://oodegr.co/english/istorika/britain/history_irish_church.htm,
opened 10 Nov. 2016
Clearly,
St Martin had a tremendous influence on Western Europe. Though his labors have been largely undone by
the Roman Catholic Great Schism of 1054 and the Protestant Reformation and
their fruits of scholasticism, agnosticism and atheism, rationalism and
emotionalism, etc., repentance is always possible. For those concerned with the future of
Western civilization, your return to the Church that made St
Martin and the whole of the First Europe, the Orthodox Church, is
the first and crucial step.
As
the South is descended from nations very deeply affected by St Martin’s work
like Scotland, Ireland, and France, we should be at the forefront of those
venerating him on his principal feast days of 11 November and 4 July (yes, this
celebration, together with the commemoration of the Holy Royal Martyrs of
Russia, should be given preeminence over that of America’s Independence Day).
A
service to St Martin may be found here under 12 October (which is the date for St Martin on the Slavic calendar of Saints):
May
hymns to our father in the Faith St Martin always rise from the South, a couple
more of which are here:
Holy
Martin of Tours,
pray for us sinners at the South!
(Icon
from https://oca.org/saints/lives/2016/10/12/205432-st-martin-the-merciful-the-bishop-of-tours,
opened 11 Nov. 2016)
--
Holy
Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the
Souð!
Anathema
to the Union!
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