Homily

Bishop Benedict is fond of saying there are 4 things which mark a successful and healthy parish: Liturgia, diakonia, koinonia and martyria.

• Liturgia—the Divine Liturgy, but it also include all the other church services.
• Diakonia—the service of the clergy to the people, the service of the people to the clergy and to one another, and to those outside of the parish as well.
• Koinonia is fellowship, praying, working and living as a community.
• Martyria—witness. Witnessing to the love of God, the truth in Christ Jesus and life in the Holy Spirit. Martyrs are witnesses to faith.

The three Ukrainian martyrs we remember today are certainly examples of Christian courage and faithfulness, genuine witnesses to our faith.

Father Andrii Ischak received his Ph.D. in theology and was ordained in 1914. He taught at the Lviv Theological Academy and served as pastor to a village church in Sykhiv, outside the city. At the start of WW II the Bolsheviks arrested him and later in the evening they released him. A parishioner told him that if he was released he should hide to protect himself because the Germans were coming and the Bolsheviks would be leaving. But the priest told him, “Ivan, the shepherd doesn’t abandon his flock. And I can’t leave my parishioners and go into hiding.” Two days later the Bolsheviks came and took him from his house to the parish church. There they shot and stabbed him to death. He was 54 years old.

Fr. Mykola Konrad was born in the Ternopil district, and ordained to the priesthood in 1899. He also received a Ph.D. having studied in Rome. Like Father Andrii he also taught in the Lviv Theological Academy and was pastor of the parish of Stradch, about 14 miles northwest of the city. That church is a shrine where the Mother of God saved the local people from an attack by Mongol-Tatar invaders in the 15th century. (I visited this place when I was in Ukraine.) He was known as a good pastor to his people. Although others were running from the army, he refused to leave. On June 26th, 1941, a woman who was ill asked him to come and hear her confession, so off Father went. Some of his parishioners begged him not to go out as it was too dangerous, but he told them it was his duty and he had to go. As he was returning home he was murdered by the NKVD [the secret police agency of the former Soviet Union].

The third martyr, Volodymyr Pryima graduated from cantor’s school and served as cantor and choir director at Fr. Mykola’s church in Stradch, the Dormition of the Mother of God church. He was a very active member of his parish. When he heard that Fr. Mykola was going out to visit the sick woman, he insisted on going along with him, knowing it could be a dangerous trip for the priest. He was murdered along with Fr. Mykola. Their bodies were found a week later. He had been stabbed by bayonet in the chest many times. Volodymyr was martyred just short of his 35th birthday, leaving behind his wife and two children, aged 3 and 4.

Beaten, tortured, and killed, these three witnesses, these martyrs, never turned away from their Lord, and gave great example to all their people, and even to us today.

These three men had so strengthened themselves by their lives in Christ, even at the chance of their arrest or even death, they still carried on with faith. They still served the faithful, for the love of Christ and for the love of their people. It’s beautiful testament to what Christian life is all about: it’s about love. It’s about love of God and love of neighbor.

If you are old enough, (like me), you might remember a song from the late 1960s: “Come on people, now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try and love one another right now.” It was released a second time in 1969 during the “Summer of Love” when all the hippies and flower children of the world descended on San Francisco. In addition to that, the Woodstock concert also took place that year and these events seemed to assure all of my generation that the Age of Aquarius had arrived and the world would be definitely changed for the better as people truly accepted and loved one another. It was very groovy.

Here we are 50 years later. Not only are people not smiling on their brother it seems that very few Americans are trying to love one another. As I think of the changes in society over the past 50 years, it’s painful to recall the long line of events, attitudes, decisions and actions in our country that have severely damaged family life and a shared understanding of moral values. Where can we look where we do not see someone trying to upend Christian morality in the name of freedom and self-determination?

As people continue to abandon Christian faith in favor of their own values, we will continue to see more and more strife in our nation, and more and more pressure to conform to the values of the day. Without a common foundational understanding of what it means to live a good life, we will continue see the break-down of society as people struggle against one another without seeking the help of God.

The Summer of Love in 1969 could not bring about genuine improvement in our society because it did not have the power to accomplish that. It was a beautiful sentiment, but it could only remain a sentiment because it could not change the human heart. It could not absolve sin. It could not support virtue. It could not show us the true nature of a humanity in need of a Savior. It could not give us a common understanding of how we ought to live and what we ought to value. It did not turn us to seeking our final end in communion with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It could not nourish us with the Body and Blood of Christ. It attempted goodness, but without God it could not sustain the effort. Indeed, without the law of Christ it had no real guide or structure beyond sentiment, and sentiments fade very, very quickly. They certainly did after the Summer of Love.

The Church established by Jesus Christ, in a rather short period of time after Pentecost, became the majority religion of the Roman empire, not by military force, not by political power, but simply by people choosing to follow Christ and obey His law. The law of Christ is love. Not love as some people might think. It is the law of love as seen in Christ’s love for us. And it was Christian love that won the hearts of the people as they chose to place themselves under the rule of Christ. Love of God and love of neighbor. This was same true witness of the martyrs that we remember today. There is nothing sentimental about that.

We must witness to our faith in Christ. We must witness to our belief in real marriage and the importance of family life. We must witness to the importance of genuine care for those in need, and protect our children, as best we can, from anything that would corrupt them. We must witness to the importance of life, before birth, after birth and at the end of earthly life. We must witness to all that is true and renounce all that is false. Of course, we cannot force people to change their minds, but if we do not live as witnesses, they may not even ever know there is a better way to think, and a better way to live.

The three martyrs we remember today were genuine witnesses. They held their faith with great courage in the face of a brutal enemy, even through their torture and to the point of their death. They knew Whom they served, they knew Whom they loved, they died in His service, they received the martyr’s crown. It is our daily decision, just as it was their daily decision, to choose who or what we will love above all other things. No matter what trials may come to us, either from society, or in our personal lives let us choose to love Christ and to put all of our hope in Him. If we do that, then we can also love our neighbor as ourselves, fulfilling the law of Christ and smoothing the way to our eternal home, even as we give example for others to have the same.