Today is the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, held in Nicaea in 325. The Church also commemorates the Martyrs Justin the Philosopher, Justus, Chariton, and Charita.
Justin was born in Flavia Neapolis (modern Nablus), Palestine, in AD 100. His Greek parents ensured that he received an excellent upbringing and a thorough philosophical education. However, secular learning failed to provide answers to the questions that troubled his anxious soul.
Seeing the sincerity of his search, God responded favorably. While walking by the sea, Justin met an old man who was well-versed in the tradition of the Church. Through him, he was introduced to the depth of Christian teaching, eventually becoming a great ecclesiastical writer.
Justin later traveled to Rome during the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius. There, he submitted an Apology to the emperor, in which he outlined the fundamental teachings of Christianity and exposed the fallacies of idolatry, using arguments drawn from both the Old and New Testaments. Because of this bold defense of the faith, he became known as the Apologist of the Orthodox Faith.
His courageous stand enraged the pagans, especially because he cited the truth of God’s word as it appeared even in the works of ancient Greek authors and philosophers. As the Apostle Paul says: “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves” (cf. Romans 2:14–15).
Justin was arrested, tortured, and beheaded in 165 AD. He thus became both an apologist and a martyr of the Church, for the love of the Risen Christ.
In the narthexes of monastic churches, we often find depictions of prominent figures of antiquity, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. This is because, through their ethos, asceticism, and philosophical work, they are considered “Christians before Christ.”
Today, we are reminded that for 1700 years, we have lived with the theology shaped by the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council. Among them, we commemorate Saint Athanasius the Great of Alexandria, Saint Nicholas of Myra in Lycia, and Saint Spyridon of Trimythous.
Source: Church of Cyprus
