St. Panteleimon the Great Martyr and Healer: His Life and Miracles

 

“O Champion and Martyr of God,

imitating the Merciful and bearing from Him the grace of healing,

cure our spiritual ills by your prayers,

and set free from the temptation of the eternal enemy,

those who ceaselessly cry out, "Save us, O Lord."

 

I was scrolling through YouTube as I have been the past few days I recover from medical issues and came across a few miracles by St. Panteleimon.  I have heard of St. Panteleimon but was unsure of who he really was. Instead of just recounting his life, I will be both doing that and a recounting a few miracles associated with him. This wonderful saint of which so many have witnessed his love for Christ is true example to us all.

            The first thing I want to say is that he was born to a pagan family though his mother is St. Eubula, his father was a pagan. Raised a pagan he eventually was Christianized and took the name by which we associate with him today. He was an exceptionally good doctor, healing people all across the city. Mostly Christians, these people would come to him for help, and he would not accept payment, doing this out of the kindness of his heart. Because of the many healings he performed through the power of Jesus Christ, the rest of city began to turn away from the pagan practitioners of medicine and sought him exclusively. When this occurred the many pagans turned against him and sought his life. Eventually St. Panteleimon was brought before the Emperor Maximian and confessed to being a Christian. A wonderful example of his testimony is recorded about his life in the following statement, "[He] suggested that a sick person, for whom the doctors held out no hope, should be brought before the emperor. Then the doctors could invoke their gods, and Panteleimon would pray to his God to heal the man. A man paralyzed for many years was brought in, and pagan priests who knew the art of medicine invoked their gods without success. Then, before the very eyes of the emperor, the saint healed the paralytic by calling on the name of Jesus Christ. The ferocious Maximian executed the healed man, and gave St. Panteleimon over to fierce torture." These tortures were beyond the control of any mere man, but through the gift of grace from God Panteleimon withstood them. His three brothers in Christ Hermolaus, Hermippus, and Hermocrates who had survived the killing 20,000 Christians earlier in their lives were brought before the Emperor and beheaded, but Panteleimon remained unafraid and unharmed. Because of his witness, the Emperor was enraged and ordered that he too was to be beheaded. According to the sources surrounding his life, it is said that Panteleimon was taken to an olive tree by the Roman soldiers and was sentenced to death. There he was tied to the tree and the sword swung to take his head. When the sword reached the tree, it melted as if it were wax because he was praying. Panteleimon finished his prayer and heard a voice from heaven calling him home and that he was to be a passion-bearer. He instructed the soldiers who were afraid of him to rise to their feet and to complete the execution. They did so and Panteleimon surrendered his soul into the care of God. 

            The first miracle that is associated with Panteleimon occurred shortly after his death. The pagans in their pure hatred for the saint took his body to the fire to burn the remains as they did not want anyone to venerate his relics. When the relics were placed on the fire, they did not burn. The local Christians of the area took his body down from the fire and buried him on the Island of Andros at the Panachrantos Monastery.  Another miracle occurred while the saint was still living. He had seen a young boy on the street who had been killed by a venomous snake. He prayed to God that he might revive the boy and destroy the snake. When God did, he immediately went and became a Christian. His father, the pagan I discussed, witnessed his son healing a blind man. The man was healed by invoking the name of Jesus Christ and both the blind man and St. Panteleimon’s own father and the blind man who’s sight was restored were both baptized into the Christian faith because of this miracle. The tortures that I described are another miracle of St. Panteleimon through God. They scraped him with iron hooks, threw him into a cauldron of boiling tar, burned him with fire, and stretched him on a rack. All of these as I stated left St. Panteleimon unharmed. Prince Izyaslav a prince in the Russian part of the church had an icon of the saint on his helmet and survived a particularly vicious battle in the year 1151. On the feast day of the saint, the Russians have won two important naval battles against the Swedish forces, one in 1714, and the other in 1720.  I also read about a miraculous healing a woman without a heartbeat at a hospital in Athens that was very recent. People seek pilgrimages to Andros to pray at the relics of St. Panteleimon and some of his relics were transferred to Romania where they remain.

            From the life of St. Panteleimon, we can understand what it is like to be a Christian. We understand that St. Panteleimon was a great healer. He is invoked in the rights of healing of the Orthodox Church and he is also sometimes considered the patron saint of soldiers. St. Panteleimon is a witness for us all when we see the tortures of this world surrounding us. Instead of fleeing, Panteleimon accepted his torture willingly even commanding the soldiers to conduct the beheading though he would repose in the Lord. As a passion bearer we know that there will be times that come in our future where our own lives will be asked of us. If we are strong in our faith as St. Panteleimon, we can withstand any tortures the enemy throws at us. May St. Panteleimon guide us and protect us through his intercession to Our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ.

            Amen.

A World of Wonder: Orthodox Miracles and Prophecies

 

First before we start, I would like to congratulate newly elected Bishop Alexis of Alaska. His election marks the beginning of a new era in Alaska, one that I pray will be full of blessings and renewal of the Orthodox Faith in the land of Alaska. With that said today we are going to look at something that has been on my mind the past few days. Miracles, Miracles, and more miracles. Oh, and some prophecy too.  We know that God works everything for our good and does not that will harm us or hurt us in any way. Those that blame God for their problems and troubles in life are nothing more than denying their own reality in the fact that they have rejected God and fled far from him. We also know that God only does things that will benefit our salvation. In a time when people are searching for signs and revelations from God in an increasingly bizarre and worsening world, people look to signs to give them comfort, confirmation, or belief. Unfortunately, most of the people searching for these signs are also trying their best to disprove the existence of God.

Miracles have existed since time began. Miracles occurred throughout scripture, beginning with the creation of the world, the exit of Adam and Eve out of the Garden, the mark placed on Cain after he killed Abel, the flood and so on. Miracles were then sent by God to either pronounce judgement or blessing on the people of Israel throughout both the judges period and the kingship period. After this we reach the New Testament where Christ begins his earthly ministry with the changing of water into wine, the healing of blind men, the healing of leprosy and many others that I do not have the time to recount here. The biggest miracle scripturally is the focal point of all Christianity, the raising of Jesus Christ from the dead on the third on Holy Pascha. We also witness the apostles in the book of Acts performing signs and miracles bringing the pagans and Jews out of idolatry and into everlasting life with Jesus Christ. Paul himself uses handkerchiefs and aprons that would heal the sick from illnesses and disease. (by the way noting this it is one of the many examples you can find within scripture in regards to relics being venerated a vital part of Orthodox Christianity) We see that miracles have been performed by the saints of old, and the early church in drawing people to Christ through these wonders and yet people today dismiss them as being only performed in the bible, that miracles today do not happen. I believe this is because people’s faith is not what it once was. People have forsaken the truth found in Holy Orthodoxy and the scriptures for science and the faith of man. They reject anything that they cannot tangibly hold in their hands or explain with reason.

               I would like then to offer another point of view here. The Orthodox Church has never believed that miracles have ceased to exist. In fact if you look closely you will find miracles all around us. I have been delving into a few that I found interesting that have happened in recent years. Many of these are easily accessible on the internet, and in fact there is a whole YouTube channel dedicated to them that I find very interesting. One such miracle I heard about recently being performed was that of witnessing the Passion of the Christ (not the movie the actual passion) at the site of Golgotha. The person who witnessed this miracle recorded the whole experience and when one watches the video, you can hear the breathing of Christ, the whipping of Christ, the dragging of the cross across the surface of the rock and his heartbeat. I was given chills when I watched the video. I also recently watched a video in which the Eucharist, or Holy Communion, was transformed into the flesh of Christ by the spirit in the form of a dove, and if it was not the same video a very similar video in which the Eucharist was transformed into the broken and disfigured face of Christ. All these miracles have occurred for our benefit, allowing us to see the power of God within the world and to not be scared or frightened of the future no matter what the New World Order and rulers of this world say. Continuing with the miracles that I have recently seen on video, I recently saw a photograph taken by a layman who was swimming in the ocean when a large group of fish began congregating near the bottom of the sea. The person took a photo of the location and when he went to look, there at the bottom of the ocean resting on the sea floor was an elder monk, prayer rope in hand praying for the whole world. Which elder this is I cannot say, some have said St. Kosmas, others St. Paisios. 

Perhaps the most famous Orthodox miracle that I can point to and there are several videos on it, is the Holy Fire of Jerusalem, that occurs on Pascha every year celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Holy Fire only appears on Holy Saturday and has appeared for centuries. The Patriarch of Jerusalem enters the tomb, but only after a non-orthodox Christian checks the entire church for signs that no oil or flames have been left burning so that the Patriarch cannot be accused of lighting it himself. Once the Patriarch has been given the go ahead, he prays special prayers inside the tomb and the Holy Fire descends from Heaven. This fire is described as blue, then regular flame, and it can neither burn nor hurt you. People have put it up to their faces without the faintest hint of a singe. The Holy Fire of Jerusalem is a miracle I personally want to witness myself in person one day. If I could ever get to Jerusalem. Before we talk about prophecies to end this article today, I would like to mention that the first miracle I heard about when inquiring about Orthodoxy was that of the Snakes of Kefalonia. These snakes appear on August 6^TH the feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord, and stay until the 15^TH of August at the Dormition of the Theotokos. They are not seen again until the following year. While I could continue on there are too many miracles to count and I would be here all day. So let’s discuss prophecy

I want to discuss prophecies that have been fulfilled in recent years. Especially those of St. Paisios. St. Paisios was a beloved man and elder of our Church who died a few years after I was born. He was gifted with the ability of foresight and knew what was to come. Now we understand that only God knows when the time is that prophecy will be fulfilled and some due to repentance or failure to repent may not come at all. St. Paisios, however of note has two prophecies that I would like to expand on here. The first is that of the Hagia Sophia. As many of this blog will note, the Hagia Sophia was the largest church in the world before its capture by the Muslims in 1453 and transformation into a mosque. At the fall of the Ottoman Empire it was transformed again into a museum so that neither Christians, nor Muslims could claim it as their own. However in 2020, in the midst of Covid-19 it was rededicated as a mosque for use in Islamic worship. St. Paisios predicted this would come to pass and that it was sign that Turkey was going to be brought to its knees. The second prophecy also regarding Turkey is that of the Six-Mile. In recent years there has been talk of extending the Six-Mile to 12 miles and thus the water borders of Greece would be extended further. St. Paisios discussed this at length and said that the time you hear of this, it would not be long before then that the war would begin. In this he also discusses Turkey being separated into three parts, one part killed, one part Christianized, and one part fleeing to the very depths of Turkey never to be a nation again. In this same prophecy he talks about the city of Constantinople being given back to the Greeks and the restoration of the Hagia Sophia. All of this has yet to take place at the time of writing so I could be decades and years away, though personally I think we are closer than anyone knows. I say this because if you look this up, my facts are easily fact checkable. So if you want please do.

There are many signs and wonders in the world today, many of which people leave unnoticed because of the hustle and bustle of the world. I believe if we just would slow down and look at the world we would see a world full of wonder, a world full of beauty, and a world filled with God.

Amen.