The Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian
Commemorated on September 26 and May 8
The Holy Apostle
and Evangelist John the Theologian was the son of Zebedee and Salomia – a
daughter of Saint Joseph the Betrothed. Together at the same time with his
elder brother James, he was called by our Lord Jesus Christ to be numbered
amongst His Apostles, which took place at Lake Gennesareth (i.e. the Sea of
Galilee). Leaving behind their father, both brothers followed the Lord.
The Apostle John was
especially beloved by the Saviour for his sacrificial love and his virginal
purity. After his calling, the Apostle John did not part from the Lord, and he
was one of the three apostles, who were particularly close to Him. Saint John
the Theologian was present when the Lord resuscitated to life the daughter of
Jairus, and he was a witness to the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor.
During the time of the Last Supper, he reclined next to the Lord, and at a
gesture from the Apostle Peter, he pressed nigh to the bosom of the Saviour and
asked the name of the betrayer. The Apostle John followed after the Lord, when
they led Him bound from the Garden of Gethsemane to the court of the iniquitous
high-priests Annas and Caiphas. He was there in the courtyard of the
high-priest during the interrogations of his Divine Teacher and he resolutely
followed after him on the way of the Cross, grieving with all his heart. At the
foot of the Cross he went together with the Mother of God and heard addressed
to Her from atop the Cross the words of the Crucified Lord: "Woman, behold
Thy son" and to him "Behold thy Mother" (Jn. 19: 26-27). And from
that moment the Apostle John, like a loving son, concerned himself over the
Most Holy Virgin Mary, and he served Her until Her Dormition
("Falling-Asleep" or "Uspenie"), never leaving Jerusalem.
After the Dormition of the Mother of God the Apostle John, in accord with the
lot that had befallen him, set off to Ephesus and other cities of Asia Minor to
preach the Gospel, taking with him his own disciple Prokhoros. They set off
upon their on a ship, which floundered during the time of a terrible tempest.
All the travellers were cast up upon dry ground, and only the Apostle John
remained in the depths of the sea. Prokhoros wept bitterly, bereft of his
spiritual father and guide, and he went on towards Ephesus alone. On the
fourteenth day of his journey he stood at the shore of the sea and beheld, that
the waves had cast ashore a man. Going up to him, he recognised the Apostle
John, whom the Lord had preserved alive for fourteen days in the deeps of the
sea. Teacher and student set off to Ephesus, where the Apostle John preached
incessantly to the pagans about Christ. His preaching was accompanied by
numerous and great miracles, such that the number of believers increased with
each day. During this time there had begun a persecution against Christians
under the emperor Nero (56-68). They took away the Apostle John for trial at
Rome. The Apostle John was sentenced to death for his confession of faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ, but the Lord preserved His chosen one. The apostle drank
out of a cup prepared for him with deadly poison but he remained alive, and
later he emerged unharmed from a cauldron of boiling oil, into which he had
been thrown on orders from the torturer. After this, they sent the Apostle John
off to imprisonment to the island of Patmos, where he spent many years.
Proceeding along on his way to the place of exile, the Apostle John worked many
miracles. On the island of Patmos, his preaching accompanied by miracles
attracted to him all the inhabitants of the island, and he enlightened them
with the light of the Gospel. He cast out many a devil from the pagan-idol
temples, and he healed a great multitude of the sick. Sorcerer-magicians with
diverse demonic powers showed great hostility to the preaching of the holy
apostle. He gave especial fright to the chief sorcerer of them all, named
Kinops, who boasted that they would destroy the apostle. But the great John –
the Son of Thunder, as the Lord Himself had named him, and by the grace of God
acting through him – destroyed all the demonic artifices to which Kinops
resorted, and the haughty sorcerer perished exhausted in the depths of the sea.
The Apostle John
withdrew with his disciple Prokhoros to a desolate height, where he imposed
upon himself a three-day fast. During the time of the Apostle John's prayer the
earth quaked and thunder boomed. Prokhoros in fright fell to the ground. The
Apostle John lifted him up and bid him to write down, that which he was to
speak. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the
Lord, Which is and Which was and Which is to come, the Almighty" (Rev. 1:
8), – proclaimed the Spirit of God through the Apostle John. Thus in about the
year 67 was written the Book of Revelation ("Otkrovenie", known also
as the "Apocalypse") of the holy Apostle John the Theologian. In this
Book was a revealing of the tribulations of the Church and of the end of the
world.
After his prolonged
exile, the Apostle John received his freedom and returned to Ephesus, where he
continued with his activity, instructing Christians to guard against
false-teachers and their false-teachings. In about the year 95, the Apostle
John wrote his Gospel at Ephesus. He called for all Christians to love the Lord
and one another, and by this to fulfill the commands of Christ. The Church
entitles Saint John the "Apostle of Love", since he constantly
taught, that without love man cannot come nigh to God. In his three Epistles,
written by the Apostle John, he speaks about the significance of love for God
and for neighbour. Already in his old age, and having learned of a youth who
had strayed from the true path to begin following the leader of a band of
robbers, the Apostle John went out into the wilderness to seek him. Catching
sight of the holy elder, the culprit tried to hide himself, but the Apostle
John ran after him and besought him to stop, and promising to take the sins of
the youth upon himself, if only he should but repent and not bring ruination
upon his soul. Shaken by the intense love of the holy elder, the youth actually
did repent and turn his life around.
The holy Apostle John
died at more than an hundred years old. he far out-lived the other remaining
eye-witnesses of the Lord, and for a long time he remained the sole remaining
eye-witness of the earthly paths of the Saviour.
When it became time
for the departure of the Apostle John, he withdrew out beyond the city-limits
of Ephesus, being together with the families of his disciples. He bid them
prepare for him a cross-shaped grave, in which he lay, telling his disciples
that they should cover him over with the soil. The students with tears kissed
their beloved teacher, but not wanting to be disobedient, they fulfilled his
bidding. They covered the face of the saint with a cloth and filled in the
grave. Learning of this, other students of the Apostle John came to the place
of his burial, but opening the grave they found it empty.
Each year from the
grave of the holy Apostle John on 8 May there came forth a fine ash-dust, which
believers gathered up and were healed of sicknesses by it. Therefore the Church
celebrates the memory of the holy Apostle John the Theologian still even also
on 8 May.
The Lord bestowed on
His beloved disciple John and John's brother James the name "Sons of
Thunder" – as an awesome messenger in its cleansing power of the heavenly
fire. And precisely by this the Saviour pointed out the flaming, fiery, sacrificial
character of Christian love, – the preacher of which was the Apostle John the
Theologian. The eagle – symbol of the lofty soaring of his theological thought
– is the iconographic symbol of the Evangelist John the Theologian. The
appellation "Theologian" is bestown by Holy Church only to Saint John
among the immediate Disciples and Apostles of Christ, as being the seer of the
mysteried Judgements of God.
© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.
