9/11, Katrina and St. Euphrosynos

  • EuphrosynusSome days don’t have much impor­tance attached to them. This date might have too much. It’s the fourth anniver­sary of the attacks that I can still remem­ber as if they hap­pened yes­ter­day. And we’re all still reel­ing from the reports from the areas affected by Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina. 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.


    Related posts:

    1. St. Mary of Egypt
    2. After Kat­rina
    3. French­ness

    September 11th, 2005 | Grace | 5 Comments |

5 Responses and Counting...

  • Martha 09.11.2005

    Hello there!
    I was very sur­prised read­ing your arti­cle because even though I am a Greek Ortho­dox, I was not aware of St. Eyphrosi­nos´ exis­tence!
    Any­way, I m glad to find Ortho­dox around the world!

  • Dea­con Nikolai

    A good place to learn more about Saint Euphrosynos is http://www.EuphrosynosCafe.com

  • Grace

    What a neat site that is! I’ll add you to my blogroll.

  • Patri­cia

    What a beau­ti­ful post­ing! I’ve been think­ing much recently of the hid­den gems in every­day life, so your reflec­tions on St. Euphrosynos and his way of liv­ing the gospel res­onate con­sid­er­ably. Thank you so much for alert­ing us to him and his echoes in the life around us.

  • This Side of Glory » Blog Archive » 9/11 anniver­saries and St. Euphrosynus

    […] A com­menter reminded me of this post I wrote in 2005 and the rea­son why I don’t think it’s an acci­dent that a rel­a­tively unknown saint is cel­e­brated on 9/11. […]

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