9/11 and Saint Euphrosynus

  • EuphrosynusOn this sev­enth anniver­sary of 9/11, I’m reprint­ing a post I did on 9/11/2005, when the after­math of Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina was in the news. A lit­tle bit about a saint that most peo­ple only know by the icon that hangs in their kitchen. And — for those indus­tri­ous souls who make it all the way to the end — also the rea­son that he’s one of my favorites, the saint that I rec­om­mended to my hus­band as his patron saint, and a saint that is appro­pri­ately com­mem­o­rated on this day.

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    In the Ortho­dox Church cal­en­dar, this Sun­day is the Post-feast of the Nativ­ity of the Theotokos and the Pre-feast of the Ele­va­tion of the Cross. So I can’t really be sur­prised that the feast day of my husband’s patron saint doesn’t attract much atten­tion. And I can’t find it in me to take the over­sight amiss, espe­cially since it seems very pos­si­ble to me that this hum­blest of saints would want it no other way. But my thoughts have been on him, and I find things about him to shed light on the other major news head­lines today.

    Saint Euphrosynus is often called St. Euphrosynos the Cook and may be one of those saints — like St. George — that is bet­ter known for his icon than for his hagiog­ra­phy. The lit­tle kitchen at our last church had an icon of him dis­played, a fairly typ­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of a bearded man with the very unusual dec­o­ra­tion of an apple branch in one hand. The ladies who made the cof­fee and handed out the good­ies didn’t have any idea who he was. I gather many peo­ple don’t, but when I read his hagiog­ra­phy, I was touched by it and men­tioned him to my hus­band when he was about to be ordained as a reader and shop­ping for a patron saint. Greg took me up on the sug­ges­tion and has had the plea­sure of hav­ing a patron saint that priests and bish­ops often mis­pro­nounce at the Eucharist cup, and one that has inspired sev­eral church wags to greet Greg on a cold day by say­ing, “How ya doin’, Your Frozen-ness?” (ha ha) I don’t think St. Euphrosynos would mind that either. He didn’t seem to mind much.

    Here’s the brief hagiog­ra­phy given in my Saint of the Day book:

    As a monk and the cook in the monastery kitchen, Euphrosynos served the brethren with humil­ity and patience. Even so, he suf­fered much abuse from the broth­ers. One night, a priest there had a vision of par­adise. Stand­ing in a beau­ti­ful gar­den, he saw Euphrosynos walk­ing by. When the priest asked what he was doing there, Euphrosynos said that he lived there as well and that he gave to oth­ers the gifts of the gar­den. Euphrosynos then placed three apples in a ker­chief and gave them to the priest. Just then, the semantron awoke the priest for the night ser­vices. How­ever, he found that he still had the fra­grant apples from par­adise on his bed. At the church, he asked Euphrosynos where he had been. Euphrosynos said, “For­give me, Father. I have been in that place where we saw one another.” The priest replied, “What did you give me, Father, in par­adise when I spoke with you?” Euphrosynos answered, “The three fra­grant apples which you have placed on your bed in your cell; but for­give me, Father, for I am a worm and not a man.” Fol­low­ing the church ser­vice, the hum­ble Euphrosynos could not be found again. Flee­ing human glory, he had left the monastery. His brother monks rev­er­ently kept and dis­trib­uted pieces of the apples from Par­adise for bless­ing and for healing.

    So why did I sug­gest him to my hus­band? Because St. Euphrosynus to me is the saint in your midst, the one who sur­prises you, the brother or sis­ter whose depth of spirit and great-heartedness you never know. Greg is a sur­pris­ing per­son like that, and I know there are many oth­ers. There are peo­ple that have passed through my life that I almost didn’t notice and who I now recall with an admi­ra­tion that I’ll never be able to express.

    I didn’t know that today was St. Euphrosynos’ name day, but of course, I’ll never for­get it again because none of us will for­get the date 9/11. And maybe I’m stretch­ing things — prob­a­bly I am — but it seems fit­ting that date is attached to the saint who almost died an unknown kitchen drudge and left when his real spir­i­tual state was known. This is the day of the saints that sur­prise you, the ones you never thought you’d see, the ones who may not have known they were saints them­selves. And like him, those saints are gone — they’ll never attend ban­quets and parades in their honor.

    HelpersLet’s con­tinue to be sur­prised by them, con­tinue to think on the many oth­ers in the cur­rent cri­sis along the Gulf states who may right now be pick­ing the apples of par­adise to dis­trib­ute to those who need them most, and who will dis­ap­pear before any­one can give them thanks.

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    We aren’t hear­ing about Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina any­more, and we don’t have news pho­tos like the one above show­ing the bunches of peo­ple who just came from every­where to help. But we’re in another hur­ri­cane sea­son, we’re still a strug­gling world, and these hid­den heroes are, I think, still in our midst.

    Pray for us, blessed Saint Euphrosynus.


    Related posts:

    1. 9/11, Kat­rina and St. Euphrosynos
    2. No foolin’
    3. Another mur­der­ous saint
    4. St. Mary of Egypt
    5. Read­ing the lives of the saints

    September 11th, 2008 | Grace | 2 Comments |

2 Responses and Counting...

  • Lois 09.11.2008

    Your St.Euphrosynus post was beau­ti­ful and thought pro­vok­ing. I hope to always remem­ber him now, and as fra­grance is a key to mem­ory, the apples will help. It is an honor for us to know a man whose heart cap­tures the spirit of this holy father; and on such a date.

  • Grace

    You warm my heart. Everyone’s got saints’ sto­ries that touch them, and when­ever I get a chance to share one of mine, I feel like I can’t have done a bad thing.

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