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| Sketch for Icon of Hieromartyr Barnabas |
As the bishop of the Resava-Shumadia eparchy of the Serbian
TOC, I call upon the believing people of St. Sava’s Church and all Orthodox
Christians to bring forth from the shadows the radiant and holy memory of the
Serbian Patriarch-Martyr Barnabas (Rosich).
Patriarch Barnabas’ confessing life and work, already during
his life, and following his martyric death, were deservedly put on a saint’s
pedestal of a great fighter on behalf of Orthodoxy, Orthodox monarchy, and
Slavophilism, due to his great merit and tireless battle not only for the
Serbian Church and Svetosavlje, i.e.
Serbian Orthodoxy, but also for the confessing Russian emigration.
After the Second World War, however, and the fall of the
Serbian Church into Communist and later Ecumenist slavery, his luminous memory
was quietly extinguished.
His struggles – from his heartfelt patronage in the creation
of the Karlovci Synod of the confessing Russian Church Abroad, as well asthe non-recognition
of the canonicity of the authority of the Sergianist MP, to his firm stance in
rejecting a concordat with the Vatican, from which arose a sharp conflict in
the Church and State which culminated in the brutal persecution of the
priesthood and faithful, and the violent death of the Patriarch himself –
already for decades have not been pleasing to certain people.
Hieromartyr Barnabas paid for his unwavering stand in the
defense of Orthodoxy with his life. Patriarch Barnabas’ martyric death represents,
it could be said, a kind of ritual killing: “I will smite the shepherd, and the
sheep of the flock shall be scattered.” (Mat. 26:31) This great blow was designed to defeat the
Orthodox Serbian spirit, to break the will of the people, and to plunge the
Serbian nation into desperate sadness. And thus it was. With the removal of the
confessing Patriarch Barnabas, and before him, the Orthodox monarch, the
martyrically-killed King Alexander Karageorgevich I, dark powers in Serbia
(then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) began a new chapter of the mystery of
iniquity, with which the doors of the great apostasy of the last times (Col.
2:2) were opened wide.
The Churchhas always dealt with the preservation of the
memory and veneration of the saints carefully, with fear and respect. The glorification of the saints is considered
a very weighty and important event. Furthermore, the veneration of the saints
is an obligation for all of us. When the remembrance of a God-pleaser slips
into forgetfulness, the Lord Himself shows men in dreams or in miraculous
visions their heavenly intercessor whom they have forgotten. People wholived a spiritual life truly sorrowed
when a God-pleaser was forgotten. They gave everything from themselves for the
memory of a righteous one to be reestablished and kept, for the sake of their
prayerful intersession on Heaven for the Church on earth. Thus St. John of
Shanghai worked for the reestablishment of the veneration of the Western saints
who had been undeservedly forgotten. His relationship with the saints should
inspire us as well to a careful and pious regard for the struggles and merits
of our intercessor before the throne of God, Patriarch-Martyr Barnabas.
Martyric sacrifice is immediately apparent. The violent
death of an Orthodox bishop for the sake of confession and defense of the
Orthodox Faith has always been considered a sufficient basis for his veneration
as a hieromartyr. The veneration ofhieromartyrs often began immediately after
their martyric deaths. Pious Christians prayed at their graves and addressed
them as saints. Unlike Roman Catholics, for whom canonization is the work of
the church jurisdiction,forforhe Orthodox Church the source of a saint’s
glorification is the Holy Spirit, Who moves the hearts of God’s people to
supplicate a God-pleaser, for he served Him in thought, word and deed. A saint
does not become such with an administrative decision: an episcopal council only
“numbers among the saints” someone who has already long been seen by the people
as a God-pleaser. The Hieromartyr Patriarch Barnabas of Serbia was greatly
respected already during his life both bythe Serbs and by the Russian ChurchAbroad,
and after his martyric end many started to consider him a holy sufferer for the
Orthodox Faith. As a sign of their remembrance of their benefactor and martyr
for the faith, the Russian Church Abroad placed an icon of the Apostle
Barnabas, the Patriarch’s heavenly intercessor, on the left side of the
iconostas in the Russian Holy Trinity Church in Belgrade.
The essential importance of respecting our holy father
Hieromartyr Barnabas consists in the following: It moves us to follow in his
footsteps, lifting us to the heights of his unwavering battle for Holy
Orthodoxy, and it summons us to follow him on the way of his confession,
especially in today’s confusing times of pan-apostasy. Along with this, he
teaches us repentance, reminding us of zeal for the faith and the past glory of
the Serbian Church which we lost due to national carelessness and indifference
towards questions of the faith. The return of Hieromartyr Barnabas as a hero of
the faith, a fighter against the God-fighting communists and the political
powers in general who are not interested in the benefit of the Serbian Church,
and a renewal of prayerful veneration of him among St. Sava’s people – this is
the lofty and mysterious vocation of the Church directed to our souls darkened
by sin.
Serbia today is no longer the pious land it once was, which
gave birth to holy people. For a long time already, a ruthless war has been
waged, which is taking away the last remnants of light in the Serbian soulthat
have been preserved through many decades of oppression. And the light of the Serbian soul, the light
of every Christian soul, is holiness. The veneration of the saints and their
glorification is a call to holiness. If
every one of us began to weep for his sins – which certainly contribute to an
even greater destruction of our fatherland and ancestral church by the apostasy
of Sergianism and the pan-heresy of Ecumenism – from that weeping would be born
a prayerful veneration of our fatherland’s saints and new martyrs, at the head
of whom is holy Patriarch Barnabas, and with this, a true love for our
once-glorious and Orthodox fatherland.
No one can love his fatherland if he does not strive to
cleanse his sinful soul, because the one who sows the passions and reaps
spiritual death, could pour the last decisive drop into God’s cup of wrath,
which, overflowing, would sweep away His longsuffering. There is no greater
love for one’s fatherland than the wish to save her soul through one’s own sacrifice,
and there is no more terrible hatred for fatherland than to kill her soul. And
our dearest and much-suffering fatherland – that is my and your soul, the soul
of our children and parents, the soul of our ancestors and those who are yet to
be born. The true love for that soul is the day-and-night work for her
salvation. Every one of our personal
sins shames and humiliates our fatherland. Every one of us individually bears
the responsibility for her destiny.
The Serbian saints are the light of our people’s soul – the
light which shines in the darkness of contemporary pan-apostasy. They are the
hope in our desperation. The prayerful veneration of Hieromartyr Barnabas, one
of the last great lights of our people, and his glorification, would give us a
firm foundation on the immovable rock of right faith and right life. This would
be a visible sign that “…God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor
of love, which ye have showed toward His name, in that ye have ministered to
the saints, and do minister” (Heb. 6:10).
May our sacrifice of thanks, that is, the fruit of lips which confess
the name of God Who dwells in the saints, move our holy Patriarch Barnabas to
more powerful prayer before the throne of the Highest for his much-suffering
Serbian people.
O Hieromartyr, Our Father Barnabas, pray to God for us!
Great Lent 2012
Bishop Akakije
The editors of the blog here offer one possible version of a
Troparion to the Saint:
Troparion to St. Barnabas
Eighth Tone
The praise of Serbian Patriarchs, pillar of Orthodoxy, benefactor
of the Russian diaspora, thou wast killed defending the patristic right faith
and the flock entrusted to thee – the Serbian people. O Hieromartyr Barnabas, pray to the First
Pastor Christ, to deem us who worthily venerate thy memory to stand at his
right hand.
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