Who are celebrating? today March 28 according to the calendar: Saint Eustratios the Faster the Holy Martyr, Apostle and Martyr Herodion, bishop of Patras, Saint Hilarion the new abbot of Pelekiti monastery
*Holy Eustratios, descendant of a wealthy family of Kiev, gave all his wealth to the poor and retired to the Lavra of the Caves of Kiev, where he dedicated himself to exercise and fasting. In the images he is described with light colored hair, a sparse beard, dressed in the loner’s cassock and barefoot.
As soon as Osios became a monk, he began to fight once morest carnal passions and the devil with the weapons of light, vigil, prayer and above all Christlike fasting. By struggle and severe self-restraint, he humbled the demons and neutralized their insults.
He always remembered that his Lord, Jesus Christ, with His forty-day fasting and prayer, subdued the wicked, while on the contrary, the first-created Adam, due to his failure to show self-control, fell and was banished from Paradise. Thus the brave Eustratius actually melted his body by the strict fast, but with it he also melted the passions and dissolved the demonic entanglements. That is why he was called the Faster.
The Life of St. Efstrati describes, with particular care, the circumstances of his martyrdom. On July 20 of the year 1096 AD, the Lavra of the Caves of Kiev suddenly became the target of an attack by the Polofskys, who, led by Bonyak the Filargyro, looted the monastery and captured its monks and workers and sold them as slaves to Byzantium city of Hersonissos, in Taurida.
Saint Eustratius and fifty other captives were bought by a Jew of the Peninsula, who, in order to force them to embrace the Jewish faith, left them to suffer from hunger and thirst. As acceptance of Judaism meant freedom from slavery, following six years of hard servitude, the captives were ready to deny Christ. Saint Eustratios, however, convinced them not to deny the promise they made with baptism. After fourteen days they all died of hunger and thirst, except Saint Eustratios, who was used to fasting for many days.
The Crucifixion and the Holy Relic of the Saint
So the owner, angry, blamed him for the death of his companions and ordered him to be crucified on the day of the Christian Easter. According to Bio, Saint Eustratius lived for fifteen more days on the cross and found the strength to discuss with the Jewish owner whether death on the cross was a dishonor or a privilege and to prophesy for his slaves an impending doom. As soon as he said this, he was stabbed.
The innocent crusaders took down the holy relic from the cross and threw it into the sea. The unexplored economy of God transported the honest tabernacle miraculously, without human intervention, to the caves of the Kiev Lavra. There it was found with amazement and awe by the monks, those who had been saved and had returned to the monastery following the passage of the Polofskys and buried it with honors and eulogies. In this place it remains to this day, indestructible and glorified, performing innumerable miracles to the faithful.
Source: ekklisiaonline.gr
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