The Holy Martyrs Kyrikos and Julitta lived in the city of Iconium in the province of Lykaoneia in Asia Minor. Saint Julitta was descended from an illustrious family and was a Christian. Widowed early on, she raised her three-year old-son Kyrikos. During the emperor Diocletian’s persecution of Christians, Saint Julitta departed the city with her son and two trustworthy servants, leaving behind her home, property, and servants.
Concealing her noble rank, she hid out first at Seleucia, and then at Tarsus. There around the year 305 she was recognized, arrested and brought to trial before the governor, Alexander. Strengthened by the Lord, she fearlessly answered the judge’s questions, and firmly confessed her faith in Christ.
The governor gave orders to beat the saint with rods. During her torments Saint Julitta kept repeating, “I am a Christian, and will not offer sacrifice to demons.”
The little boy Kyrikos cried, seeing his mother being tortured, and wanted to go to her. The governor Alexander tried to sit him on his lap, but the boy broke free and shouted, “Let me go to my mother, I am a Christian.” The governor threw the boy down from the high tribunal and kicked him down the stone steps. The boy struck his head on the sharp edges and died.
Saint Julitta, seeing her lacerated son, gave thanks to God that He had permitted her child to be perfected before her, and to receive the unfading crown of martyrdom. After many cruel tortures Saint Julitta was beheaded with a sword.
The relics of Saints Kyrikos and Julitta were uncovered during the reign of St Constantine the Great (May 21). A monastery was built near Constantinople in honor of these holy martyrs, and a church was built not far from Jerusalem.
We pray to Saints Kyrikos and Julitta for family happiness, and the restoration of sick children to health.”
As evident from the wide range of icons from Greek, Russian and other traditions, Saints Kyrikos and Julitta are honored by many throughout the world, and their relics exist in numerous churches for the healing and support of the faithful. One example: in Siderokastro, Greece, there is a convent dedicated to Saints Kyrikos and Julitta, founded in 1968, and it currently has 55 nuns occupying it.
May Saints Kyrikos and Julitta intercede for us all and help us!
Apolytikion of Saints Kyrikos and Julitta in the Fourth Tone
Blessed Julitta, Christ God’s rational ewe-lamb, with holy Kyrikos, her three-year-old offspring, stood at the judgment seat and with authority and great boldness they proclaimed the true Faith of the Christians. In no wise were they afraid of the threats of the tyrants; and now in Heaven, wearing precious crowns, they both rejoice as they stand before Christ our God.
Kontakion in the Fourth Tone
As the Martyr of Christ God, the chaste Julitta, in her arms bare Kyrikos, she cried out in the stadium with manful courage and boundless joy: Thou art the strength of the Martyrs, O Christ my God.
~Full of Grace and Truth: Saints Kyrikos & Julitta, the Martyrs of Tarsus, http://full-of-grace-and-truth.blogspot.com/2009/07/sts-cyricus-and-julita-martyrs-of.html.
The Holy Great Prince Vladimir, Equal of the Apostles. Few names in the annals of history can compare in significance with the name of St Vladimir, the Baptizer of Rus, who stands at the beginning of the spiritual destiny of the Russian Church and the Russian Orthodox people. Vladimir was the grandson of St Olga.
Though Vladimir indulged himself in a wild, sensuous life, he was far from the libertine that they sometimes portray him as being. He “shepherded his land with truth, valor and reason”, as a good and diligent master, of necessity he extended and defended its boundaries by force of arms, and in returning from military campaigns, he made for his companions and for all Kiev liberal and merry feasts.
But the Lord prepared him for another task. Where sin increases, there, in the words of the Apostle, grace abounds (Rom. 5: 20). “And upon him came visitation of the Most High, and the All-Merciful eye of the Good God gazed upon him, and shone forth the thought in his heart, of understanding the vanity of idolous delusion, and of appealing to the One God, Creator of all things both visible and invisible.” The matter of accepting Baptism was facilitated through external circumstances. The Byzantine Empire was in upheaval under the blows of the mutinous regiments of Bardas Skliros and Bardas Phocas, each of whom sought to gain the imperial throne. In these difficult circumstances the emperors, the coregent brothers Basil the Bulgar-Slayer and Constantine, turned for help to Vladimir.
As a reward for his military help, Vladimir asked for the hand of the emperors’ sister Anna, which for the Byzantines was an unheard of audacity. Princesses of the imperial lineage did not marry “barbarian” rulers, even if they were Christians. However, in Vladimir’s case Constantinople was obliged to consent.
An agreement was concluded, according to which Vladimir had to send the emperors six thousand Varangians, and to accept holy Baptism. Under these conditions he would receive the hand of the imperial daughter Anna. Thus in the strife of human events the will of God directed the entering of Rus into the grace-filled bosom of the Ecumenical Church. Great Prince Vladimir accepted Baptism and sent the military assistance to Byzantium.
Then followed an unforgettable and quite singular event in Russian history: the morning of the Baptism of the Kievans in the waters of the River Dneiper. On the evening before, St Vladimir declared throughout the city: “If anyone does not go into the river tomorrow, be they rich or poor, beggar or slave, that one shall be my enemy.” The sacred wish of the holy Prince was fulfilled without a murmur: “all our land glorified Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit at the same time.”
It is difficult to overestimate the deep spiritual transformation of the Russian people effected by the prayers of St Vladimir, in every aspect of its life and world-view. In the pure Kievan waters, as in a “bath of regeneration”, there was realized a sacramental transfiguration of the Russian spiritual element, the spiritual birth of the nation, called by God to unforeseen deeds of Christian service to mankind.
“Then did the darkness of the idols begin to lift from us and the dawn of Orthodoxy appear, and the Sun of the Gospel illumined our land.” In memory of this sacred event, the regeneration of Rus by water and the Spirit, the Russian Church established the custom of an annual church procession “to the water” on August 1.
Everywhere throughout Holy Rus, from the ancient cities to the far outposts, St Vladimir gave orders to destroy the pagan sanctuaries, to flog the idols, and in their place to clear land in the hilly woods for churches, in which altars would be consecrated for the Bloodless Sacrifice. Churches of God grew up along the face of the earth, at high elevated places, and at the bends of the rivers, along the ancient trail “from the Varangians to the Greeks” figuratively as road signs and lamps of national holiness. Concerning the famed church-building activity of St Vladimir, the Metropolitan of Kiev St Hilarion (author of the “Word on Law and Grace”) exclaimed: “They demolished the pagan temples, and built up churches, they destroyed the idols and produced holy icons, the demons have fled, and the Cross has sanctified the cities.”
To advance the Faith among the newly enlightened people, learned people and schools were needed to help prepare them. Therefore St Vladimir “commanded fathers and mothers to take their young children and send them to schools to learn reading and writing.”
The Metropolitan of Kiev St Hilarion (+ 1053), in his “Word on Law and Grace,” spoken on the day of memory of St Vladimir at the saint’s crypt in the Tithe church, called him “an apostolic sovereign”, like St Constantine, and compared his apostolic evangelisation of the Russian Land to the evangelisation by the holy Apostles.
~ Adapted from the Website of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA): http://oca.org/saints/lives/2013/07/15/102031-equal-of-the-apostles-great-prince-vladimir-in-holy-baptism-basi.
***
