Feast Day: October 21st
The Life of Saint John: But Saint John did not even taste the food, but Prayed to the Virgin Mary to help him not to break the Fast, preferring to be killed than to spoil his fasting…
+
“Every eve of the fast of the Fifteenth of August I remember Saint John of Monemvasiotis. A 14-year-old child with a tortured life, enslaved from a young age by Turkish masters. I remember him because he was forced to deny his Faith. He was not asked to insult anything Holy and Holy person. He was simply asked to “spoil” the Fast of the Fifteenth of August for the Virgin Mary. And he did not recover despite his master’s pleadings, despite his mother’s pleas, despite the excruciating hunger from the many-day abstinence from animal food. He stood firm and Martyred to remain faithful…”
Prayers
Apolytikion: Divine offspring of Monemvasia, who grew and bore the fruit of Faith by Grace, O John; who kept the Commandments of the Fathers, and put to shame those of Hagar by your struggle. O Glorious Martyr, entreat Christ God to grant to us the Great Mercy.
A Verse: You longed to keep the laws of the time of the Fast, sacrificing your life O Blessed John.
Saint John was the son of a Priest and he always helped his father work in the Church. His father was killed, and Saint John and his mother were enslaved. Saint John was constantly persuaded to become a Muslim by flatteries, magic and evil seductions. However Saint John was protected by the Divine Grace of God and remained pure because he had God in him, he was 15 years old at the time.
“I am not a Turk, I am a Christian and I want to die as a Christian.”
+
Soon came the Fifteen Days of Fasting before the Dormition of the Theotokos. The Turk realized that Saint John did not want to spoil the Fast, so he locked him up in a barn. He kept him there for the entire fifteen days and hung him up, lit fire to the straw to cause smoke, and hit him with a sword, all the while trying to make him eat and to spoil the Fast. But Saint John did not even taste the food, but Prayed to the Virgin Mary to help him not to break the Fast, preferring to be killed than to spoil his fasting.
The master, seeing that he remained unconvinced, left him without food for two and three days. His mother, on seeing him deadened by the tortures and the fasting, tried to convince him to give in, saying: “Eat from these dishes my son so you won’t die, and God and the Panagia will forgive you, because they’re not your wishes, for you are doing them out of necessity. Console me, your poor and upset mother, and don’t seek death and leave me alone in this slavery and exile.”
To his mother’s pleas, Saint John replied: “Why are you doing this mother, and why are you crying? Why don’t you emulate the Patriarch Abraham, who for the love of God wanted to sacrifice his only son, but you only cry and weep. I am a Priest’s son and I should be keeping the laws and customs of our Church more than the sons of lay-people, for when we don’t keep the small things [of the Faith], how can we keep the large things?”
Soon after this response the furious Turk, on 19 October 1773, gave him a fatal stab in the heart. After two days Saint John died and received the Crown of Martyrdom.
Icons
