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Saints&Reading: Sunday, November 20, 2023

november 6_ november 20th

St ELIAS FONDAMINSKY OF PARIS (1942)

Blessed Martyr Elias (Fondaminsky), honoured on the New Calendar today, also known under the nom de guerre of Bunakov, was a close associate and co-martyr of Righteous Martyr Maria (Skobtsova) of Paris, her family and the Paris circle through which she operated the Orthodox Action social charity. A Jew by birth, he was drawn by his ill-fated elder brother Matthew into the same vein of revolutionary politics that Mother Maria was, and felt the same attachment to the narodnichestvo of the Social Revolutionary Party that Mother Maria had, soon becoming one of its leaders. Elias wed his childhood friend, Emily Gavronskiy, in 1903, whose inclinations toward Orthodox Christianity almost certainly influenced him later in his life. In 1906, however, he found himself fleeing - as many left-wing intellectuals of that era did - to France, where he joined the circle of Orthodox activists, clerics and philosophers that included Archimandrite Lev (Gillet), Fr. Sergius Bulgakov, Nicolas Berdyaev and the notorious terrorist-turned-counter-revolutionary Boris Savinkov. He returned to Russia in 1917, barely escaped capture by the Bolsheviks, and took part in the conference at Iași to overthrow the Bolsheviks.

However, in spite of his disillusionment with revolutionary politics, Elias never gave up his commitment to radical politics nor his social service to the poor and disenfranchised. He saw a hope for Russia’s national salvation in what Constantine Skorkin calls, in his brief essay The saintly Eser, an ‘original synthesis of Christianity, socialism and autocracy’. (God bless all such syntheses! Solzhenitsyn’s was just another such, as was that of Saint John of Kronstadt, as was that, albeit in a more amorphous form, of the Slavophils he followed. And not for nothing was Official Nationality founded on a similar three-legged stool!) Maria Skobtsova came to Paris in 1923 with her husband and children and soon immersed herself in charitable work and in the Paris community of Russian émigrés and exiles; she soon befriended Elias Fondaminsky, who shared her politics and religious convictions. Of them their mutual friend Theodore Pianov said: ‘It is difficult to say who had the greater influence on whom, Mother Maria on him or him on Mother Maria.’ He played an active role in the founding of Maria Skobtsova’s Orthodox Action, though the declining health of his wife toward the end of the 1920’s, and her death in 1935, prevented him from doing much active social work.

Given the opportunity to flee for a third time, this time from the advance of the Nazis in 1941, he chose to stay and share the fate of his fellow Jews. This choice meant a life of poverty and eventually his death. Lay theologian George Fedotov remarked about this choice: ‘In his last days he wished to live with the Christians and die with the Jews’;...CONTINUE READING

St Leonard of Noblac was born to the Frankish nobility. He was part of the court of the pagan King Clovis I. He was converted to Christianity by Saint Remigius, Bishop of Reims. During a certain invasion that they were losing, the Queen suggested to Leonard that he invoke the help of God to repel the invading army. He did, and the tide of battle turned, naming Clovis victorious. Saint Remigius, bishop of Rheims, then used this miracle to convert the King, Leonard, and a thousand of their followers to Christianity. Following his conversion, St. Leonard refused the offer of a See from his grandfather, King Clovis I. He then began a life of austerity, sanctification, and preaching. His desire to know God grew so strong that he entered the Orleans monastery. His brother, Saint Lifiard, followed his example and, leaving the King's court, built a monastery at Meun, and lived there. It is said that while King Clovis was hunting nearby, his wife Clothilde went into labor. St Leonard was called to her bedside. He prayed with the King through the night, and through the intercession of his prayers, the Queen and the child were saved. Following the safe delivery, Clovis offered him as much land as he could ride around in one day on a donkey. St Leonard used the land to establish a monastery at Noblac near Limoges, where he became Abbot.

Born: 19 May, Died: 559 AD, Venerated in Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Anglican Church, HE IS Depicted as an Abbot holding chains, fetters or locks, or manacles.He is the patron saint of women in labour, barrel makers, coopers, blacksmiths, captives, prisoners, childbirth, coal miners, coppersmiths, farmers, greengrocers, grocers, horses, locksmiths, miners, and porters, and against burglaries and against robberies or robbers.

EPHESIANS 2:14-22

For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, 15 having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, 16 and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. 17 And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. 18 For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. 19 Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Commentary of the Church Fathers: John Chrysostom AD 407 : Some say that the wall between them is that of the Jews against the Greeks, because it does not allow them to mix. I do not think so. Rather I think that the wall between them is common within both. It is the hostility proceeding within the flesh. This was the midwall cutting them off, as the prophet says, “Do not your sins stand in the midst between you and me?” The midwall was the enmity that God had both toward Jews and toward Greeks. But when the law came this enmity was not dissolved; rather it increased. “For the law,” he says, “works wrath.” .

Tertullian of Carthage AD 220 : For the Creator's righteousness no less than His peace was announced in Christ, as we have often shown already. Therefore he says: "He is our peace, who hath made both one"

LUKE 8:41-56

41 And behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue. And he fell down at Jesus' feet and begged Him to come to his house, 42 for he had an only daughter about twelve years of age, and she was dying. But as He went, the multitudes thronged Him. 43 Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, 44 came from behind and touched the border of His garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped. 45 And Jesus said, "Who touched Me?" When all denied it, Peter and those with him said, "Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, 'Who touched Me?' " 46 But Jesus said, "Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me." 47 Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before Him, she declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately. 48 And He said to her, "Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace." 49 While He was still speaking, someone came from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying to him, "Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the Teacher." 50 But when Jesus heard it, He answered him, saying, "Do not be afraid; only believe, and she will be made well." 51 When He came into the house, He permitted no one to go in except Peter, James, and John, and the father and mother of the girl. 52 Now all wept and mourned for her; but He said, "Do not weep; she is not dead, but sleeping." 53 And they ridiculed Him, knowing that she was dead. 54 But He put them all outside, took her by the hand and called, saying, "Little girl, arise." 55 Then her spirit returned, and she arose immediately. And He commanded that she be given something to eat. 56 And her parents were astonished, but He charged them to tell no one what had happened.

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