Seraphim

🔸 November 1 - Saint David of Evia 🔸 St David was born in the late 15th century and was the son of a priest. At age 3, he beheld a vision of John the Forerunner who led him to a nearby church dedicated in his honor. There, the child remained barefoot for 6 days before the Saint’s icon. At 15, David left home and was ordained a monk by his spiritual father Hieromonk Akakios, later Bishop of Arta. David showed perfect obedience; once, after being reprimanded for accepting shoes from a Christian without a blessing, he walked barefoot back to Arta to return them. He became Abbot of the Monastery of the Mother of God in Varnakova where he founded a secret school to teach Orthodoxy during Ottoman rule. Due to the monks’ disobedience, he reluctantly left the monastery. The Lord led him to Mt Steiris where he continued his ascetic struggles. Accused of sheltering a runaway slave, David was arrested and tortured by the Turks. The Saint patiently endured his trials, and Christians paid a bribe for his release. When a sailor refused to take him across to the island of Evia, the Saint placed his robe on the sea, made the Sign of the Cross, and miraculously sailed across. Seeing this, the sailor begged for forgiveness, and David blessed him from afar. In Evia he built a small church to the Transfiguration of the Savior. His holiness drew many monks, so he journeyed to Russia seeking funds for a new monastery. With the help of the Greek community in Russia, he gathered a large sum of money. Sealing the tunds inside a hollowed log, he cast into the river. When he returned to Evia, he saw that the log had been found by fishermen in Rovies, but their axes broke when they stuck it. David revealed to them that it held the monastery funds, and would open only by God’s will. Builders ignored St David’s instruction to construct the monastery atop the mountain, and instead built it near the Transfiguration church because there was no water up high. The Saint went up the mountain and prayed to the Mother of God, and miraculously a spring gushed forth. Thus, the Monastery of St David was founded in 1540. He guided the monks here until his repose in 1589.

🔸 November 1 - Saint Helen of Sinope 🔸 Today, we also commemorate the Holy Virgin-Martyr Saint Helen of Sinope. St Helen was the daughter of the pious Bekiary family and lived in the 18th century in Sinope, the oldest city of Pontus. Her parents raised her in the fear of God, and implanted in her heart a pure love for Christ. She was especially influenced by her uncle who taught in a secret Greek school. She was graced with great beauty and distinguished for her obedience to her parents. When she was 15, her mother sent her one day to buy embroidery thread from the shop. On her way, she passed the house of Ukuzoglu Pasha, the Turkish Governor of Sinope, who saw Helen from his window. Her beauty attracted his licentious soul and he thought to defile her. The Pasha ordered that she be brought to him, but each time he tried to defile her, an invisible force pushed him back. An invisible wall was protecting the girl - a wall forged by her prayers. The Pasha had her imprisoned in his house, but Helen managed to escape and return home. The Pasha flew into rage upon discovering this, and summoned the Sinope council of elders, demanding that they bring Helen to him or otherwise a massacre of all Greeks in the city would follow. The elders pressured Helen’s father to hand over his daughter, and after much pain and tears, he eventually submitted. The despicable Pasha received the beautiful Helen with delight, hoping to fully satisfy his lustful desires. But again, an unforeseen force prevented him from defiling the Saint as she sang the Six Psalms which she had learned from her uncle. After many more failed attempts to assault the gir, the Pasha ordered for her to be tortured and put to death, after which her body was put in a sack and thrown into the Black Sea. But instead of sinking, the Martyr’s relics floated, while a heavenly light beamed down upon them. When her holy relics were retrieved by Greek sailors who saw that a nail had been driven through her skull. In 1924 during the Greece-Turkey population exchange, her hold head was taken to the Church of the Great Martyr Marina in Ano Touba, Thessaloniki, where it is kept to this day.