Kastoria, November 14, 2016
Metropolitan Chariton
On Thursday November 10, 2016, at the Byzantine Chapel of the Entry of the Most Holy Mother of God into the Temple in the Greek town of Kastoria Vespers was celebrated in honor of the Holy Great Martyr and Wonderworker Menas, the patron and liberator of Kastoria. The service was headed by Metropolitan Chariton of Elassona, reports the Greek portal Romfea.
In his sermon His Eminence Metropolitan Chariton mentioned the exploits of the great martyr and soldier St. Menas who excelled not only in strength and courage, but also in wisdom and abstinence, whose source is faith in Christ. He witnessed to Christ. Although St. Menas lived many centuries before us, his continuous veneration and today’s piety of the faithful is compelling evidence that there are still saints among us.
“The Lives of the martyrs testify to the words of Christ: If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you (John 15:20). The persecutions against the Church are not over. And we live in the epoch of martyrs. Any believer must witness to Jesus Christ today as well.
At present the Church is experiencing a new drama and is again being persecuted by its own children who never were true Christians and have lapsed from it. The modern enemies of the Church who have deadly hatred for it declare that the Church, Christ and any religious belief in God should be necessarily excluded from peoples’ lives. In these individuals’ view, he who persecutes and murders Christians, he who mocks priests in the name of the new religion – the religion of atheism – is virtuous,” Metropolitan Chariton said.
Ending his sermon, the metropolitan expressed the wish that God, through the prayers of Great Martyr Menas, might save us from a multitude of different dangers, heal our spiritual and physical ailments and restrain the threats of the enemies of the Church.
