Sunday after Elevation of the Holy Cross

On September 20 the Antiochian Orthros synaxarion commemorates holy Great-martyr Eustathios, Theopiste his wife, and their two sons Agapios and Theopistos. The synaxarion verses are blunt: a bronze bull burned up Eustathios’ whole household; and the whole household Thou, O Word of God, savest. On the twentieth Eustathios with family was burned in a bull.

Before his baptism he was Placidas, an illustrious Roman general in the second century. While hunting one day he was converted to the Faith of Christ through the apparition of an uncommonly majestic stag, between whose antlers he saw the Cross of Christ, and through which the Lord spoke to him with a human voice. Upon returning home he learned that his wife Tatiana had also had a similar vision. They sought out the Christian bishop and were baptized—Placidas receiving the name Eustathios, Tatiana the name Theopiste; their two sons were baptized Agapios and Theopistos.

The family was then subjected to such trials as Job endured. When they refused to sacrifice to the idols—a public sacrifice from which no Roman general could be absent—the Emperor Hadrian had them put into a large bronze device in the shape of a bull, which was heated with fire until they died. When their holy bodies were removed, they were found to be without harm. The martyrs suffered in the year 126.

On the Sunday after Elevation, whose Gospel commands every disciple to take up the cross and follow, Eustathios stands as a household that first saw the Cross between a stag’s antlers and then entered a furnace shaped like a bull rather than deny the Crucified. The synaxarion’s opening vision and closing fire are one sermon: the Cross that converts becomes the Cross that costs.

On this day the Antiochian Orthros also commemorates the Venerable-martyr Hilarion of St. Anne Skete on Athos. The Orthros text gives his name and asks Christ’s mercy through the saints; the fuller life is preserved in the Athonite and OCA menologia.

He was from Heraklion in Crete; his secular name was John. Taken to Constantinople by an uncle who neglected him, he later worked as a clerk for a Chiote merchant. Falsely accused of embezzlement and abandoned by his uncle, in fear he accepted the Ethiopian eunuch Mertzan Aga’s offer of safety if he converted to Islam. He was circumcised, given Muslim clothing, and appointed a hodja for instruction. Three days later he came to himself and repented from the heart. After twelve days he escaped by ship to the Crimea, where for ten months his conscience gave him no peace.

Convinced that only martyrdom in the place of his denial could atone for his apostasy, he returned to Constantinople and consulted Elders Symeon and Jeremiah, who sent him instead to Mount Athos. Entering Iviron Monastery, he was directed to the Skete of St. Anna under Hieromonk Bessarion—the elder who had prepared New Martyr Luke the year before. Under a strict rule of asceticism and fasting he received the monastic tonsure with the name Hilarion.

When he told his elder he was ready to confess Christ whom he had denied, Bessarion blessed him, communed him, and accompanied him to Constantinople. Presenting himself to the Aga at the palace, Hilarion said that three days after becoming a Muslim he had repented, abandoned the darkness of error, returned to the light of truth, and cursed their religion: he had been a Christian and was once more. Throwing his turban on the ground, he put on the black monastic skoufia he had concealed under his coat. Tortured until his bones were broken, he was beheaded on September 20, 1804, and received two incorruptible crowns: that of asceticism and that of martyrdom.

Paul’s word for this Sunday—”I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”—is not abstraction in Hilarion’s life. The monk who had once been ashamed enough of the Faith to deny it later refused to be ashamed of the Crucified before the palace that had dressed him in Islam. Mark 8:38 and Galatians 2:20 meet in one beheading.

• See that Christ does not compel a man to die on a cross against his own will. Instead He said, Whosoever desireth. (Theophylact)
• I compel no one. I invite him to something good, not to something bad to which he must be forced. (Theophylact)
• He who denies another is he who, when he sees his brother being flogged or even murdered, does not turn towards him and pity him... In this same manner the Lord wants us to show no pity towards our own bodies. (Theophylact)
• Let him take up his cross, that is, accept a most shameful death, for at that time to die on a cross was considered the most shameful of deaths. (Theophylact)
• Although His command that one give oneself over to death seemed hard and cruel, the Lord straightway shows this commandment is given out of love for mankind. (Theophylact)
• No one can exchange money for his salvation... at that time and in that place no such trade can be made. (Theophylact)
• Intellectual faith does not suffice, but confession of faith with one’s mouth is required as well. (Theophylact)
• Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed to confess that the Crucified One is his God, of him also shall the Crucified One be ashamed. (Theophylact)
• A man denies himself when he cares not for his body, so that whether it be scourged, or whatever of like nature it may suffer, he bears it patiently. (Chrysostom)
• It may happen that a man may suffer and yet not follow Christ, that is, when he does not suffer for Christ’s sake. (Chrysostom)

”When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, ‘Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.’”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (c. 1107)

Since Peter had rebuked Him for wanting to be crucified, the Lord called the people unto Him, and said in the hearing of all, but directing His words mostly towards Peter, “Do you find fault with Me, Peter, because I take up the cross? I say to you, that neither you, nor anyone else, will be saved unless you die for the sake of goodness and truth.” See that Christ does not compel a man to die on a cross against his own will. Instead He said, Whosoever desireth. The Lord is saying: “I compel no one. I invite him to something good, not to something bad to which he must be forced. Whoever does not want these things is not worthy of them.” We can learn what it means to deny oneself if we understand what it means to deny another. He who denies another is he who, when he sees his brother, or servant, or father, being flogged or even murdered, does not turn towards him and pity him in his suffering, but acts as if he were a stranger to him. In this same manner the Lord wants us to show no pity towards our own bodies, so that even if we are flogged, or worse, let it make no difference to us. Let him take up his cross, that is, accept a most shameful death, for at that time to die on a cross was considered the most shameful of deaths. But since many were crucified for being bandits, the Lord added to the crucifixion something else: that one ought to have virtue. This is what it means to follow Me.

Saint John Chrysostom (c. 407)

Again He says, “Whosoever wishes to come after Me;” as if He said, I call you to those good things which a man should wish for, I do not force you to evil and burdensome things; for he who does violence to his hearer often stands in his way, but he who leaves him free rather draws him to himself. And a man denies himself when he cares not for his body, so that whether it be scourged, or whatever of like nature it may suffer, he bears it patiently. He says not that a man should not spare himself, but what is more, that he should deny himself, as if he had nothing in common with himself, but face danger and look upon such things as if another were suffering. Again He shows the degree to which a man should deny himself when He says, “And take up his cross,” by which He means even to the most shameful death. And this He says, because it may happen that a man may suffer and yet not follow Christ, that is, when he does not suffer for Christ’s sake; for he follows Christ who walks after Him and conforms himself to His death.

”For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (c. 1107)

Although His command that one give oneself over to death seemed hard and cruel, the Lord straightway shows this commandment is given out of love for mankind. For whosoever shall lose his life for My sake shall find life. (But the death of a condemned man, or of one who hangs himself, is not for Christ’s sake and brings no such reward.) And, on the contrary, he who appears to have saved his life, far from finding life, shall lose it by not remaining steadfast during his time of martyrdom.

Saint John Chrysostom (c. 407)

As if He would say to Peter, Thou indeed dost rebuke Me, who am willing to undergo My passion, but I tell thee that not only is it wrong to prevent Me from suffering, but neither canst thou be saved unless thou thyself diest. Then there follows, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel’s, the same shall save it.”

”For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (c. 1107)

Do not say to Me, “But he has saved his life”—it means nothing. Even if you say that he has gained the whole world as well, it is of no benefit. No one can exchange money for his salvation, for if that were so, a man who had gained the world but lost his soul could, while burning in the flames of hell, use his money to buy innocence. But at that time and in that place no such trade can be made. Here let us shut the mouths of those who say, following Origen, that all the souls in hell will be restored after they have been punished in accordance with their sins. Let them hear that there is no exchange that can be made there for one’s soul. No one is kept in hell as a punishment. Rather, it is the weight of his own sins which holds him there.

”For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (c. 1107)

Intellectual faith does not suffice, but confession of faith with one’s mouth is required as well. Since man himself is two-fold, let his sanctification be two-fold as well. The soul is sanctified by faith, but the body is sanctified by confessing. Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed to confess that the Crucified One is his God, of him also shall the Crucified One be ashamed. For the Lord shall judge that man to be an unworthy servant, when He comes with glory, escorted by the angels, and no longer in lowly form. At the second coming He will not appear, as He did before, to be of base origin and circumstance, and an object of scorn.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria (c. 444)

He who as God was beyond suffering, suffered in his own flesh as a human being. When he became flesh, being God, he did not in any way cease to be God. Precisely as he entered into the created order, he remained above creation. He remained as giver of the law when he came to serve “under the law.” He retained the inviolable divine dignity precisely when he took on “the form of a slave.” It was precisely as only begotten Son that he became “the firstborn among many brothers,” while still remaining the only begotten. So why should it seem so strange that he should suffer in the flesh according to his humanity, even while transcending suffering according to his divinity? Thus the ever astute Paul says that the Word himself who is “in the form of God” and equal to God the Father “became obedient even unto death, death of the cross.”

”And He said to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power.’”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (c. 1107)

Since He speaks of His own glory, He desires to show that He is not vainly boasting, and says, There be some of them that stand here, namely, Peter, James, and John, who shall not die until I have shown them at the Transfiguration the glory with which I shall appear at the second coming. For the Transfiguration was nothing less than a foreshadowing of the second coming, and as He appeared in radiance then, so will He shine at the second coming, as will also all the righteous.

Source: The Explanation of the Gospel of St. Mark on Mark 8:34—9:1 (full continuous commentary; OrthoChristian reprint)

Beyond the verse cuts above, Theophylact’s continuous treatment is the clearest Eastern pastoral grammar for this Sunday: the call is voluntary (“whosoever desireth”); self-denial is illustrated by the refusal to pity one’s own body as one might refuse to pity a stranger under the lash; the cross means shameful death plus virtue (“follow Me”); loss of life for Christ finds life, while suicide and criminal execution do not; world-gain cannot buy a soul in hell; Origenist apokatastasis is rejected; faith must become oral confession; and Mark 9:1 is read as the Transfiguration preview of the second coming’s glory. For a preacher who wants one Father to carry the pericope end to end, Theophylact is the safest single voice.

Source: Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 55 (on the parallel to Mark 8:34—38), as excerpted in the Catena tradition under these Mark verses

Chrysostom’s pastoral heat matches Theophylact’s precision. He answers Peter’s rebuke by insisting that not only must Christ suffer, but the disciple must also die; he stresses the voluntariness of the invitation; he defines self-denial as patient endurance of bodily scourging as if another were suffering; and he distinguishes mere suffering from following Christ—only suffering for Christ’s sake is discipleship. Read beside Galatians 2:20, Chrysostom supplies the moral psychology of co-crucifixion: the “I” that no longer lives is the self that still flinches from the shame of the Cross.

Source: Thoughts for Each Day of the Year, Sunday after the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Mark 8:34—9:1), as carried on johnsanidopoulos.com

Theophan compresses the Sunday into a single pastoral axiom: it is impossible to follow the Crucified Lord without a cross, and all who follow Him follow with a cross. The cross is “all sorts of inconveniences, hardships and sorrows, both from the outside and from within, on the path of conscientious fulfillment of the commandments of the Lord.” Such a cross is so fused with a Christian that where there is a Christian there is this cross, and where there is no such cross there is no Christian. Comprehensive privileges and a life of pleasure are not natural to the true Christian. His counsel ends in hope: rejoice when you feel the cross on yourself, for this is a sign that you are following the Lord on the path of salvation to paradise. A little patience. Here is the end and the crowns.

Source: Letter 55, To Anastasius and the Monks (Catena extract under Mark 8:38)

Cyril’s Christology keeps the shame of the Cross from becoming a denial of divinity. The Word suffers in the flesh without ceasing to be God; He serves under the law without ceasing to be Lawgiver; He takes the form of a slave without losing divine dignity. The preacher who must answer the congregation’s instinct that a crucified God is somehow less than God has Cyril’s sentence ready: why should it seem strange that He should suffer according to His humanity while transcending suffering according to His divinity?

The Sunday after Elevation will not let the feast remain a spectacle of wood. Christ’s three verbs—deny, take up, follow—are the afterfeast’s theology of discipleship. Theophylact insists the call is voluntary and that “follow Me” adds virtue to mere crucifixion, lest bandits’ deaths be confused with martyrdom. Chrysostom adds that suffering without reference to Christ is not discipleship. The Cross elevated on September 14 becomes, on September 20, the pattern of a life: not admiration of Christ’s Cross alone, but consent to one’s own.

Verses 35—37 overturn the world’s ledger. The life clutched is the life lost; the life surrendered for Christ and the Gospel is the life found. Theophylact’s hell-market image—no money can buy innocence in the flames—shuts every Origenist and every worldly bargain. Christ’s question, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” is the feast’s answer to every attempt to use the Cross for earthly gain. The soul has no exchange rate.

Mark 8:38 and Galatians 2:20 interpret one another. Intellectual faith is not enough; the body must confess what the soul believes (Theophylact). Paul does not merely admire the Cross; he is crucified with Christ so that “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” Hilarion of Athos is the synaxarion’s enacted commentary: the man who once denied under fear later threw down the turban and put on the skoufia in the palace. The afterfeast asks whether the congregation that kissed the Cross last Sunday will still confess the Crucified when confession costs.

The Epistle refuses justification by works of the law and then immediately defines the faith that justifies as a life: co-crucifixion, Christ living in the believer, faith in the Son who loved me and gave Himself for me. The Sunday after Elevation therefore pairs Mark’s ethics of the Cross with Paul’s ontology of the Cross. Self-denial is not moral athleticism competing with grace; it is the shape grace takes when Christ lives in the flesh of the baptized.

”Thou didst abolish death by Thy Cross; Thou didst open Paradise to the thief; Thou didst transform the myrrh-bearers’ lamentation, and didst bid Thine Apostles to preach that Thou art risen, O Christ God, granting great mercy to the world.”

Even the week’s resurrectional hymn begins with the Cross that abolishes death—the same Cross the Gospel now commands disciples to take up.

”O Lord, save Thy people and bless Thine inheritance, granting to Thy people victory over all their enemies, and by the power of Thy Cross preserving Thy commonwealth.”

Still sung throughout the afterfeast, this apolytikion keeps the elevated Cross as the Church’s weapon and preservation—victory that Mark 8 will redefine as losing one’s life for Christ’s sake.

”Do Thou, Who of Thine own good will was lifted up upon the Cross, O Christ our God, bestow Thy bounties upon the new Nation which is called by Thy Name; make glad in Thy might those who lawfully govern, that with them we may be led to victory over our adversaries, having in Thine aid a weapon of peace and a trophy invincible.”

Appointed from the READ sheet for this Sunday (not the ordinary-time Kontakion of the Theotokos): the Cross is Christ’s voluntary lifting-up, a weapon of peace, and a trophy invincible—the liturgical twin of the Gospel’s call to take up one’s own cross.

”A cross did Moses inscribe, when with an upright stroke of his rod he divided the Red Sea for Israel, who went on foot; then he turned and smote the sea, once again uniting it o’er Pharaoh’s chariots, with transverse stroke portraying the invincible weapon. Wherefore, let us praise in song Christ our God; for He truly is glorified.”

Orthros still sings the Cross as Moses’ inscribed weapon—the afterfeast’s typological bridge between Elevation and the Sunday call to follow the Crucified.

”No longer will the dominion of death be able to keep men captive; for Christ hath descended, destroying and dispelling the powers thereof. Hades is bound; the Prophets rejoice with one accord, saying: The Savior hath come for them that have faith. Come forth, ye faithful, for the Resurrection.”

The Tone 7 kontakion answers Mark 9:1’s promise of the Kingdom come with power: Hades bound, the faithful summoned out for the Resurrection that the Cross has already won.