The Inheritance of the Saints and Martyrs of the Orthodox Church

By Jackie Morfesis

Every faithful Orthodox Christian and every visitor to an Orthodox Church sees and learns about saints. Most visually striking is the iconostasis, the icon wall, in every church. When we have church tours during our Greek festivals, the beautiful iconography of our church is highlighted, explained, and indeed marveled upon. I know that I have frequently shared with awe struck visitors not only the visual riches of the church but our spiritual riches.

We also celebrate the feast days of our saints. Many times, Orthodox children are named after a saint, and if not named after a saint, they are baptized with a saint’s name. We venerate the icons of the saints and may each have a special saint that we relate to spiritually, a closeness, a special bond.

My mother, Lucia, memory eternal, a faithful woman, called on St. Phanourios when my father was in the emergency room at a hospital in New Jersey. The ER physician pulled back the curtain and walked to my mother and I and said: “I’m sorry. Peter’s kidneys are shutting down. There is nothing left to do.” He then walked back to my father. My mother and I were sitting next to each other. She said: “Who is the saint of lost things and lost causes?” She said: “Pray with me to St. Phanourios.” We both prayed. I kid you not, within minutes, the doctor came out again, this time with a shocked look on his face, a huge smile, and a sense of relief. He said: “I don’t know what happened, but everything came back. That is one strong man.”

We knew what happened. My mother’s bold faith. And the intercession of the saints. I have never met anyone who prayed for others the way my mother prayed. “Can I pray for you?” was something she said multiple times a day to people she had even just met. When she passed into eternity, her hospice room miraculously filled with thick incense, frankincense and myrrh, just like in our churches. You could visually see and feel the smoke – and it was filled with an overwhelming indescribable peace. After first discerning it was not a fire, the hospice nurses reported it to the administration because it was so unusual. More than one person described my mother as saintly during her life. She would “mother” strangers. I was her daughter – but there were others who called her mother and momma, including Egyptians that she befriended in New Jersey and an extended family from India.

I have a personal affiliation to St. Dionysius because he visited me at my bedside when I was a counselor at Ionian Village in Greece. We visited his body enshrined at a chapel on the island of Zakynthos, Greece. When we returned to our cabin that night, I was alone lying in my bed. I looked to the side of my bed, and St. Dionysius in his long black vestments, with a priestly head covering, and eyes of swirling flames of fire, stood by my bed. He thanked me for caring for God’s children at the camp and for venerating him. Something most unusual happened, I literally poured water from my body, my long hair became soaked. I was not asleep. It was a waking vision. When it was over, I remember going to our shower room and ringing the water from my long hair in the sink. This was one of many mystical visions I had during my service as a counselor at Ionian Village.

My home is filled with the icons of the saints. I also have a special bond to St. John the Baptist, “the voice crying in the wilderness”. For my whole life, I have been and continue to be one who speaks up when others are silent. St. Ambrose whose Feast Day, December 7^th is my birthday, said, “We will be held accountable for every idle word and for every silence.” I am unafraid of the consequences of my words if I am defending my Lord and God’s Holy Word. I know who I serve, and it is not man. I will never be silent in the face of persecution to my church or God’s children.

PHOTO: Archimandrite Fr. Anthony Morfessis

My father’s cousin was the head monk at Panagia Kathriotissa Monastery also known as Kathara Monastery in Ithaki, Greece. We visited with him when I went to Ithaki as a child. He was a joyous man, loved by all, and filled with the Holy Spirit. My cousin Archimandrite Fr. Anthony Morfessis of blessed memory (he spelled his last name with two Ss’), of Pennsylvania was also a cousin. His life was touched by the miraculous. Especially when he was miraculously saved from his car plunging into the Stony Creek River on March 26, 1982, known as the “Miracle on Stony Creek River” which occurred on the feast day of Archangel Gabriel who rescued him in a dream prior to the accident. Father Anthony pastored St. Mary’s Greek Orthodox Church in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, where miraculous healings also took place.

A dear friend, an Orthodox scholar, theologian, and spiritual mentor of mine, has always reminded me that I have bold faith because I am in the lineage of Ft. Anthony, a holy man. Another spiritual mentor of mine, an Orthodox monastic, asked me if I was related to Archimandrite Fr. Anthony, for she knew him personally. She also commented on his holiness and bold faith.

I adored the film “Man of God” on the life of St. Nectarios which I saw at a local movie theater in Charleston, South Carolina. For me, the whole film was a prayer. I literally sat in my seat and felt as if I was in holy space, being witness to the life of a holy man. Memory eternal. As is common with the saints, they are persecuted. Even persecuted within their own churches and by church authorities and hierarchy. They are the embodiment of living in the spirit of Christ but not with a distorted and religious spirit. “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:13-14).

PHOTO: My father and his cousin the head monk at the Panaghia Kathariotissa Monastery, Ithaki, Greece. 

The tradition of honoring our saints is part of my family tradition and I am sure this is true to all Orthodox Christians. Yet, given all the beautiful inheritance within the Orthodox Church of our saints and martyrs, what does it mean for us personally? What does it truly mean for us? I propose that it is more than adornment. It is even more than calling upon the saints in our times of need. It is even more than celebrating the feast days and naming our children after a favored saint. It is having the same Light of Christ within us and walking in their footsteps. Having “our steps ordered by the Lord” (Psalm 37:23).

We are so invested in the past. With good reason. It has been over 2,000 years since our Lord and Savior walked the earth and brought the good news of salvation to the world. He is with us still. He promised that He “would not leave us as orphans” (John 14:18). Yet, it seems that too many times we forget that we have the very same Light, the very same fire, the same Holy Spirit, that was given to the disciples at Pentecost. We are the inheritors of the same Light.

When we see the beautiful inconostasis, when we hear stories of the saints’ bold faith, courage, persecution, and martyrdom, when we hear of how they served those in need, had mercy and compassion, let us stop thinking of them in terms of a beautiful story embedded in the past. Let us see them as a mirror of the Light of Christ, the same Light that is in each of us as His disciple.

As I said, I adored the movie “Man of God”, but in addition to honoring the lives of the saints of our church in history, I want to hear new stories. For “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). God’s miracles are still working over our lives. He is still sanctifying his saints. I want to hear stories of the miracles today. Stories of repentance, forgiveness, salvation, deliverance, healing, and transformation. Of complete burning, remolding, and being remade in the fire of God’s love and mercy. “Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction” (Isaiah 48:10).

This is how we honor our saints. This is how we honor our martyrs. By surrendering our lives the way they surrendered their lives. By being unafraid the way they were unafraid, by knowing “He that is in me is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

I am unafraid. That is a bold statement. But it is a true statement. I am unafraid to stand up at an Orthodox Church General Assembly meeting where we are being falsely educated that the “church is a business” and say “The church is not a business. The church is God’s house.” I am unafraid. I am unafraid to advocate for the hungry, the homeless, the imprisoned, the orphans, as instructed in Matthew 25:35. Unafraid to bring someone experiencing homelessness into our church instead of believing that “we have done enough – what more can we do?” I am unafraid to show my own vulnerability, to lay my life bare, to testify to the goodness of God, knowing that I am continually being made and remade into the person that God has ordained me to be to serve His holy purpose.

It is time as Orthodox Christians to stop seeing our saints as a beautiful church inheritance and claiming our inheritance, knowing that we are the church, and are all called to be saints. To be a saint is to follow God’s commandments and the faith that is Jesus Christ. “Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus” (Revelation 14:12-14). We best honor and venerate our saints when we stop seeing them as a piece of historical significance and religious inheritance but as a living force inside our own hearts, on fire, on fire for God.