St. Maximus The Confessor Holy Relics
(incorruptable right hand) is for veneration in Varna
Today by God's gracy I was blessed to go to Varna's Cathedral
Church on a small pilgrimage trip to venerate the Holy Relics of
Saint Maximus the Confessor.
As one can read in the saint biography, he is one of the biggest
Orthodox Christian martyr saint from the time before the great
Schizm (he lived in the 7th Century).
St. Maximus the Confessor was a Christian monk and a great Church
scholar. He became a monk choosing willingly to abandon his great
richness and political life because of Christ.
The Saint's title
The Confessor is given because of his
great suffering for Christian faith.
Because of the saint's firm staying in faith during an icon
fighting heresy emperor Hiraclious (Iraklii) slandered the saint
and he was send to a trial where he was immediately vilified as a
state traitor.
A severe beating was ordered to be done on the saint and the whole
ground was sprinkled with his blood, the saint's torturers also cut
his tongue and his right hand was chopped off.
The heretical torturers were ordered to slay down his right hand
and his tongue in order to prevent the saint to confess/preach and
write down about the Orthodox Christian faith.
The descpile of the saint Anasthasius has also faced the same
faith. After the butchery the two saints were walked around the
city streets to mock them publicly behind the shocked crowds
eyes.
Even though the sadistic torments by God's providence saint Maximus
the Confessor did not died immediately but was sent to exile in
today's Dobrudja (Dobrich) region in Bulgaria.
Saint Maximus has died in his old age, aged 82 in August 680 A.D.
Even though being a disabled because of the martyrdom, during his
exile the saint was able to write a lot of treatise books against
heresies and especially against Monotheistic Christian heresy, and
a lot of other writting concerning the proper spiritual christian
life. The saint's major works are titled,
Ambigua An
exploration of difficult passages in the work of Pseudo-Dionysius
and Gregory of Nazianzus, focusing on Christological issues and
Mystagogy - A commentary and reasoning on the Eucharistic
liturgy.
According to Church tradition after the saint's tongue was cut in
order to prevent him to preach the Christian faith correctly, God
did a miracle where even without a tongue he preached the Gospel to
the masses and he heretical emperor who ordered his suffering and
the saint tormentors were publicly disgraced.
Saint Maximus the Confessor is considered a saint also in the Roman
Catholic Church.
The saint was canonized officially about 22 years after his death
on the oecumenical Church saints assembly in year 682.
After Saint Maximus's death on his tomb many healing miracles
occured.
On the place where he was buried three bright lights looking like
candlesticks could be seen burning (a clear miracle atteting of the
Holy Trinity) as the thrurthful one God.
God's great omen on his tomb is also a clear sign that Maximus the
Confessor has been accepted in the eternal paradise with God with
all the rightous.
Let God always strenthen us and help us, to all us who does
venerate the saint. Let God by his Holy prayers deliver us from all
heresies and grant us grace to stay firm in the true Orthodox
Christian faith now and forever.
Amen!