The Lives of the Saints - St. Nektarios

[Music] mcdhh arias is one of those saints that for whatever reason even if your reading of his life for the first time you feel a connection to him there's a love those of us who are of Greek descent can think of stories from grandparents and I know I can of some connection that that either they had or relatives of theirs had with Saint Nick Dario this is a man who quite literally in a very rural way touched the life of an entire nation those of us with grandparents from that particular nation are remnants of that tradition I mean we have a living link to Saint Nick Dario's I can say that I was related to someone who knew this man who is touched by this this man and so there's a special connection and I think all of us regardless of what our ethnic background maybe have some sort of connection for whatever reason even if it's it even if it is st. Nick Dario's working some miraculous event in their lives today and he still does signet arias was born in 1846 in Silla Bria which is a town in the air Constantinople and from a young age he was always known as a wonderfully gifted child in the ways of the Lord his parents were the most families and Vasiliki very devout humble poor villagers and every day they would read the scriptures to them and as well as chant hymns of the church so early in Saint Nick Carter says life their faith and theology were were cultivated many times people look back and say yeah right someone was always a Christian boy when you look back but in Sainik arias this case we have the benefit of people living in the early 20th century knowing him and knowing what he was like as a young boy and it's without question that as a young boy he was brought up in a Christian home and wanted from a young age to learn theology and Christianity we want to emphasize you know if people study the Saints it seems to be a pattern where you have pious parents pious home usually a pious mother and usually by the time they were in late teens they had a spiritual experience they gave up their wealth and they gave it to the poor and it's almost standard and it's nice and it makes a lot of sense but there's a lot more to that and the importance is that it isn't that there's a pattern of saints because all saints are human beings and were born with a sin nature Nektarios or - osseous had all of the needs that a young person today at the age of fourteen in school probably had acne probably had pimples and I'm sure that when he went home he had his own issues with his own family but the importance is that there was stability in the home this has a critical importance so to have a saintly family to have a saintly son or daughter is not so much that they need to be perfect is that they need to have the formation that is based on Christ by the age of 14 he had finished his elementary education and there was nothing beyond elementary education in the village in those days in order to get more than a secondary education you had to go to the big city and so nektarios goes to Constantinople to further his education to grow closer to Christ by being educated on his way to Constantinople for his further education folklore tells us that victorious was about to board a ship but realized that he didn't have enough money to pay for the ticket so the captain tells him that therefore he's unable to travel by boat and the captain then goes about preparing to leave safely Talia's upset and ejected sits on a bench on the wharf via the boat was about to pull away but for some reason could not the captain and checking all of the necessary aspects of sailing tried again to have the ship leave from the port but something was holding it back there's no apparent reason why the boat that worked perfectly earlier is not operating properly now at one point the captain of the ship looks over and sees he dejected Nektarios on the bench for some higher reason the captain allowed him on the ship and the ship pulled away from forth freely and easily what's important is this is this ain't a'no que Dios felt he was called for a specific purpose and he was following that path in the course of following that path an obstacle came up in his way and instead of fighting back against that obstacle like many of us would would probably want to do and be frustrated at angry he sat back and he had faith and trust in the Lord and the problem worked out not by God working on him but by God working on the external circumstances around him while on the ship what happens many times that happened many times before but a great storm is tossing the ship all around and many of the passengers are really afraid for their lives and things don't look very well and if you're a village boy and you're on a boat for the first time on a long voyage who is not frightened and seasick and sure enough he clutched his cross he took the cross hog which would be very common at that time he blessed the waters and the cross fell from his hands into the sea and as he calmed and the ship went on its way but during the process of the day there was a great tapping a noise that was happening on the hull of the ship the soldiers couldn't understand whether the engines were going dead or something was happening and upon investigation they found that it's cross attached to the side of the ship banging against it McDonagh has told the story to the captain he was given his cross back and wore it for the rest of his life the important thing is that his faith was in clutching that cross his faith was not in the boat or in the sails his faith was that there was a power beyond the captain and the boat that could deliver him and sure enough the seas were calm and he got to the destination st. Nick audio's when he calmed that sea he did so with faith so why would we question it if he had faith as did Peter to be able to walk on the water certainly he had the same faith that could cause him to calm the Seas in the city of Constantinople he continues with his high school education and being a person always of extreme humility and in great love he takes on beautiful jobs he works in a tobacco shop but he finds a way to express his faith even there by writing little passages on the tobacco loose and other packages of tobacco that he sells to people my favorite part of the Macario story of course is they got a job in a tobacco shop and if someone who has been a cigar smoker since the mid 1970s I thought that was wonderful now I can overly relate to Signet audience at age 20 macario's goes to he us to teach elementary school and it is there where he is exposed to monasticism a nearby monastery enables him to understand and to grow in his faith through the teachings in the directions of these months he spends this in the following seven years in that monastery learning a lot studying a lot in becoming a novice which basically means a student saying that carios came to value monastic life he came to see it as one of the primary values within the life of the church as a whole at this point he leaves the monastery because his brain desires to learn more about his faith he leaves to go to Athens to get a degree in theology probably the foremost institution of theology of the times it took another bold step for him to apply for a scholarship available to those wanting to study the elders of the university understood him on a very humanistic basis and they granted him the scholarship and many people will say that well this was a young man who was evidently close to God if God loved him why wouldn't he make it easier for him well the fact is is when God loves us he will make us earn with our own freewill we don't God doesn't want spoil children many parents today spoil their children by giving them everything that they want for Saint Nick tarios he had to work with what he for what he got we have a tendency sometimes to see the Saints only in images church walls with halos that's that's after the fact the fact is they went through this process that we call life and it was everyday and it was doing the ordinary in extraordinary ways together with that scholarship he receives some financial help from a person of heõs named John for Tamizh who from an early point saw something special in st. Macarius to me that's a miracle see this is how God works God brings people to people at the right time for the right need and so the miracle is is that the wealthy merchants showed up and presented him the financial means so that he could fulfill himself and fulfill his desire for study and there he finished his degree in theology I think it's important for people to know that Nektarios valued education that our Saints are not ignorant Saints but educated Saints men and women who valued the fact that to be educated was an important step in their growth in Christ and moving towards Christ our church can't be built on ignorance it has to be built not just simply on faith but on knowledge john Academies then takes st. nick tarios Deacon the carios to the Patriarchate of Alexandria where he introduces him to his personal friend patriarch Sophronia's and he did such outstanding work for him and because of his spirituality his humility he was ordained a priest at the age of 40 I think it's fantastic that he wasn't ordained a priest till he was 40 I was ordained a priest when I was 25 I look back now 20 years later as a priest and I can't believe that I was ordained at 25 knowing now what I know from the very beginning the patriarch sees what a committed priest what a committed cleric he has here with state Mikado so he loves him very very much and his fame starts to build because he is such a like a mother Theresa type of character who was generally caring for people and people unanimously proclaimed this man's humility his love his kindness he's always there for people he build homes for the poor culpa Tegea he had the equivalent today of soup kitchens he gathered clothing and other material needs from the wealthier parishioners and distributed to the poor three years only three years after he has been ordained a priest in 1889 the patriarch elevates him as a bishop and installs him and Thrones him as the Metropolitan of Penta police in Egypt what happens when you have great love and great good out of it can come fruit a good or food of evil many clerics being jealous of Natalia's whispered in the ear of the patriarch that this man was becoming more powerful and more important than even the patriarch himself yes what your holiness attitude this manic Terriers that you feel so fond of is really doing all this not because he loves the Lord not because he genuinely wants to imitate Christ he wants to replace you he's looking to throw you out and put himself in and of course patriarch wanted to preserve himself immediately believed the last word he heard jealousy was created and what was most painful to NIC Dario's is that he had to encounter the jealousy and the bitterness and even the hatred of his brother priests his brother clergy and sometimes we wonder how can that be these are supposed to be priests they're supposed to be fully people no not clergy are human beings we have the same temptations and the same weaknesses as other people sometimes we give in to that more than anytime we give in to that it's more than it should be and that's a continuous struggle for the clergy just like it is for anyone else to rise above the conditions around us so the Hubble nektarios who now as we said has been trying to put his theology in action has his priesthood relegated to menial duties and it seems almost startling today they almost put him up we would say today house arrest they had him in his own room or in his own cell there at the patriarchy they wouldn't allow him up because he was so popular I can't even begin to imagine how that must have tormented the heart of a Nick Dario's who indeed was the priest the priests the charge of Jesus to become like him to become christ-like the theosis of the individual was Nektarios his dream was his motivating factor and was his direction but it also brought on his difficulties the word was spreading that the people wanted Nektarios metropolitan LaPenta Pauli's to be their next patriarch and so these individuals who opposed it macario's decided we have to remove him in 1890 for what was called medical reasons McTavish was discharged from Egypt to Greece he was obedient he was faithful he remained steadfast and his devotion to the Lord and knowing and he was a man of true wisdom that he knew the Lord and carry the day and he remained faithful and kept quiet he was penniless he was hungry he even wrote a letter in the meantime to patriarch Sophronia's asking for help and for a humble man like that to ask for help he must have been in really bad shape the letter said something like you know I'm living a miserable existence he can you imagine this wasn't that long ago 1890 was a hundred and ten years or so ago but we allow a bishop or priest today to be wandering the streets homeless when victorious was eventually sent back to his homeland it indeed turned out not to be his homeland he was not received as a bishop he was not even received as a fellow Greek but here was a man who was literally in his own homeland sent into exile sometimes many of us in our own lives feel like our best friends have turned their backs on us we've lost jobs we've lost families we've lost relationships and we say God where are you when I need you I'm sure Natalia said the same thing God where are you when I need you say nektarios found himself in a position of feeling perhaps even abandoned by God and abandoned by his church and a lack of acceptance of his position in his life and his scholarly work say nektarios had a vision of the Theotokos appearing to him with st. basil st. Gregory Palamas which assured him that his path his position that he was following was the right one and gave him the strength to endure and go forward as he must and these kinds of things happen to all of us if we just listen and allow the Lord to speak to us at the moment we're at our lowest lowest point following that dream Saint Nick tarios then composes poems to the Virgin Mary called a fail to carry on and later those who are turned into hymns eventually think atados is given a position of preacher so he goes first to the west of athens and preachers then he is sent to one of the largest Greek islands which is north of Athens Avia where he goes there and preaches there as well afterwards he comes back to Athens continues to preach and then in 1904 st. Nick tarios is given the position of Dean at a seminary at the ecclesiastical School of Rosario's where he is there for 14 years he loved his students very much in fact he loved them so much that when something went wrong in relationships between the students he would fast and he would pray and he would go into seclusion for those students instead of punishing them that's what Nick tarios did to his students and as students loved him but the administrators don't know what to make of this person who they know was a bishop still as a bishop but a bishop and out of a diocese didn't know what to make of this this humble person he cleaned his own vestments and those of his colleagues he swept floors he mopped he did all the things that a custodian would do today because he never forgotten where he came from and what service really meant again much like in Egypt and the gutters his fame spread throughout the cities and people came to his liturgies by the droves came to listen to him came to see this man that everybody Harold it is a holy man it was so packed then after the wild they had to issue in a sense tickets people to get in to maintain the order he was that loved not I don't want to use the word popular because popularity comes and popularity goes he was loved at the school of Rosario saw Saint Elias was the father confessor to many people a group of women asked him if he would start a monastery for them so that they can have a monastic relationship I mean think about it here's a man in his 60s which one of us at that age would want to again go into unchartered waters would want to take that chance especially coming from young people with these grand visions Nick Dario's remains open to the fact that God still had a plan for him in 1908 Saint Nick arduous offers his official retirement from the school so he can go back to a unit and stay there permanently can help with the monastery so he goes and establishes this monastery himself doing much of the building much of the hauling of dirt in the digging of dirt himself and people are shocked how could a bishop possibly be doing all this they don't expect that kind of humility from their bishops many had commented look at this former bishop now digging trenches I don't think he cared when we look in the gospel and we see when Christ went to heal the blind man I spit in an ax and the dirt and it said he made up mud out of it and put it in the eyes of the blind man and said go wash yourself couldn t have healed them without that couldn't Jesus have said receive your sight and it would have happened obviously yes well then what was the value and making the mud and putting in his eye and say go to the pool and wash yourself and as he went people mocked him - he didn't care because he knew he was going to get his sight and I think the same dynamic was at work with Saint Nick audios he didn't care because he knew this is what he had to do and this is what had to be done and was willing to suffer shame for Christ's sake just like the blind man during his time at the monastery then there is a girl who runs away from home runs to st. Nick tarios for assistance guidance Nektarios seeing that she had been physically and emotionally abused after receiving permission from the Metropolitan's Inn in Athens allowed her to be pumped become a part of the convent her mentally ill mother was very upset that nektarios had intervened the very mother of the child accuses notorious of sleeping with this young girl the girl who he aided in took care of it took finally an examination by physicians of the young girl and her status to find out that she was a virgin and of course when that was established he was completely completely exonerated so all this all these years and all that he suffered emotionally and spiritually and physically we're now taking their toll on the saint in 1919 he becomes really quite ill and is unable to do a lot that he was able to do before in 1920 finally the nuns convinced him to go to the hospital up until this time they would beg him to permit them to take him to the hospital and he would refuse however in the fall of 1920 he is so ill that he acquiesced and they take him to Athens and when he has taken to the hospital he's not taken to the higher wards where important people might be sent but he's taken into a Third Ward where peasants were sent which meant you are lucky to even get a bed you were lucky to even get a bed in a hallway you were lucky to even be seen and he dies late evening of November 8th after say nektarios passes away they of course begin to D rope him and they casually throw a portion of his clothing on the bed of a paralyzed man what happens then is truly miraculous of the paralysis subsides this man is able to get up this man is able to walk and here we have the first to come of something truly miraculous happening after his death and then eventually his body is taken back to Edina where he is buried at his beloved monastery six months after his death in order to honor their former Dean the school of Rosario sent a delegation to his tomb in order to place a tombstone and in order to do so they had to dig up the body and they found his body was preserved it hadn't decomposed and it was uncorrupted and the whole convent permeates with this spiritual sweet fragrance of st. Macarius he is reburied they realize now they're indeed the Holy One is there and their presence they Ribery the Saints placed the tombstone there and then as is customary in Greece three years later they exhume the body again and is still incorrupt this goes on for a number of years until 20 years later when they exhumed the Saint we the body has disintegrated by his grave there was a stream and people would climb the mountains all day long and bring food with them many of them came up there with ailments and infirmities by drinking the water of the stream that crossed over his grave they would be healed they nuns at the monastery began to record all of these happenings these miracles that were taking place one after another until volumes and volumes were produced and they presented all these volumes to the Patriarchate only after the proclamation of the people had risen soon after his death to the Orthodox world at large that this was no ordinary priest this indeed was a holy man this indeed was a saintly man at the beginning of the century I believe the statistics state that one in twenty five people had cancer today it's one in four st. nick titus is a patron saint of cancer there's been many healings through his intercessions of people who are stricken with cancer I really think he can't become for us the saint of our age as a intercessor to help us fight the scourge of cancer and by 1961 the Patriarchate was convinced that with all these volumes of miracles that took place at this monastery at the tomb at the place where he where he was buried that this individual is indeed a saint and they proclaimed him the saint in 1961 it usually happens after three generations but in this case this individuals fame was so incredibly in the forethought of the conscience of the Orthodox world that Patriarchate did not wait for the next generation to approve it on April 20th 1961 the ecumenical Patriarchate recognized in canonized Saint Nick tarios as a saint and finally and for the first time recognized his monastery and in agonized a legitimate monastery under the ecumenical Patriarchate and finally also recognized him as a bishop and when he was canonized a saint he was canonized as a bishop the Patriarchate of Alexandria where he was deposed recently a few years ago wrote a letter which stated that it was asking forgiveness of the saint the letter was actually written to st. Nick tarios posthumously and the patriarch ade asked st. Nick tarios to forgive the fellow brother bishops and patriarchs and priests we know that through Sanok arias is loved hearing these words we are sure that he would have accepted the words of the president patriarch the fascinating thing and this puts us back to the fourth century if we were living in the fourth century people who had lived with Saints were actually able to depict them in in name drawings with Saint Nick tarios people who had lived with him had taken snapshots of him had photographs of him so the first time four people alive at this time we can actually see icons and compare them to photographs the first thing that comes to mind when I look at that picture is humility the humility that's almost incomprehensible humility and a peacefulness in that picture always turning the other cheek always forgiving all that he had suffered because of these rumors he'd suffered throughout his entire life often times we say things which are not true and don't realize how much damage these things can do those of us of Greek Orthodox heritage indeed have few role models Greek role models like McDyess to emulate he was a Greek of modern Greece not of ancient Greece not of biblical times but of today st. Paul and the New Testament speaks of the race and that we need to run the race and to run it with endurance and that's what he did he imitated Christ and in imitating Christ that is what is saintly but here was a man who understood and acknowledged what his gifts were from God who acknowledged I'm sure what his shortcomings were before God but who above all knew that he was infinitely loved by infinite God [Music] Lonnegan easy on neck orienting me so men Beastie Boys and fair one flare up on the crease cool on of leaves is Garbi Isis bangles are pores t7 love or scrub the sluicey for inside toys and hooks or Sun decreased or boy toy course a thumb of my store Sunday likes I'm going little one DVI so I sing [Music]

Channel: Jan Kowalski

Views: 36,055

Rating: 4.9271069 out of 5

Keywords: St. Nektarios, St. Nektarios of Aegina, The Lives of the Saints

Id: QafMOK1317c

Length: 30min 24sec (1824 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 29 2018