ON SAINT EUTHYMIUS, MARTYR, BISHOP OF SARDIS IN ASIA,
AROUND THE YEAR 840.
A HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Euthymius, Martyr, Bishop of Sardis in Asia (Saint)
[1] Sardis, or Sardes, the metropolis of Lydia, situated at the foot of Mount Tmolus, was one of the seven cities of Asia which first received the faith of Christ. Saint John, as he writes in chapter 3 of his Apocalypse, found in Sardis Saint Euthymius, Bishop of Sardis "those who had not defiled their garments, and they were to be clothed in white garments, and their name was not to be blotted out from the book of life." Such a Bishop, Euthymius, flourished there in the ninth century: concerning whom in the tables of the Roman Martyrology there is this encomium for the eleventh of March: "At Sardis, of Saint Euthymius the Bishop, venerated on 11 March who, on account of the cult of the holy images, was sent into exile by the Emperor Michael the Iconoclast, and at length, under the Emperor Theophilus, consummated his martyrdom." Baronius adds in his annotations that the Greeks also treat of him in the Menologion on this day. But that must necessarily be a different Menologion from the one brought to light by the efforts of Canisius: in which neither on this day nor on any other is his name revealed. But the Greeks in the great Menaea and in Maximus of Cythera, in his Lives of the Saints, celebrate his sacred memory on the twenty-sixth of December, and transmit this illustrious eulogy. and 26 December.
[2] "Memory of our holy Father Euthymius, Bishop of Sardis and Confessor. from monk to Bishop, This Saint flourished under the Emperors Irene and Constantine Augustus, and first shone like a star in the monastic life: then, having been made Bishop, at the Second Council of Nicaea he utterly overthrew the heretics. When the Emperors saw this, and legate of the Emperors, they made use of his services both in public assemblies and in various embassies. Later, under the Emperor Nicephorus, he was sent into exile with other Bishops to Patallarea, situated to the west, sent into exile at Patallarea, because he had tonsured a certain virgin. From that time until he obtained the palm of salvation, twenty-nine years elapsed, during which the holy Bishop did not return to his Pontifical See. Meanwhile, after the Emperors were removed from the scene, and Leo, surnamed 'the Beast,' took up the scepter of the Roman Empire, the Saint was recalled from exile, and was questioned by the Emperor whether he worshipped images. When the Saint responded most freely, as was his custom, and even struck him with anathema, the tyrant, roused to anger, sent him again into exile at Ason. then to Ason, After Leo was slain by a most wicked sword, the blessed man, recalled again from Ason by his successor, was again compelled to deny the cult of the holy images. Here the Saint, again striking this Emperor also with the thunderbolt of his speech, proclaimed with a loud voice that decree of the Council: 'If anyone does not adore our Lord Jesus Christ depicted in an image, finally to Acrita. let him be anathema.' Thereupon he is beaten and sent as an exile to Acrita, and thrust into the most gloomy prison. Afterward, stretched from the four parts of his body, he was violently beaten with raw ox sinews, so that the Saint, from those intolerable blows and stripes, swelled up like a leather bag, and after this contest of endurance did not live beyond eight days. And so, surpassing the sun in splendor, he delivered his soul into the hands of God." So far the Menaea.
[3] Constantine began to reign under the guardianship of his mother Irene in the year of Christ 780, at the Second Council of Nicaea he sat among the foremost Bishops: under whom the Second Ecumenical Council of Nicaea was convened in the year 787, in whose first session, held on the eighth day before the Kalends of October, after the Legates of the Apostolic Roman See, and Saint Tarasius, Archbishop of Constantinople, and the vicars of the Eastern Patriarchs, Euthymius, Bishop of Sardis, sat fifth, when in all three hundred and fifty Fathers had convened at that Council. In the same session, three Bishops were reconciled to the Catholic Church: Basil of Ancyra, Theodore of Myra, and Theodosius of Amorium, and when each had read his profession of faith, he approves the reconciled Bishops: the Council approved it, and specifically, after Saint Tarasius, concerning Theodore, Euthymius the most holy Bishop of Sardis said: "Blessed be God, who has united him to the Catholic Church." And when these three had been ordered by the Council to sit in their grades and seats, "Euthymius, the most reverend Bishop of Sardis, said: 'God has well brought the Orthodox one.'" Then in the second session, held on the sixth day before the Kalends of October, after the letter of Pope Hadrian of Rome was read, sixth among the Bishops, "Euthymius, the most holy Bishop of Sardis, said: He adheres to the opinion of the Roman Pontiff 'I also, sincerely and without doubt following the letters of the most holy Pope of Elder Rome which have been read aloud, promise and confess that I hold the same opinion, both concerning the orthodox faith and concerning the sacred icons: in the cult of images: not as though admitting some new doctrine, but as knowing most certainly that the tradition of the holy Apostles and most sacred Teachers, who left them, is established in the holy Church of God. Wherefore with my whole soul I receive venerable icons of this kind with fitting honor and salutatory adoration. But those who hold or teach otherwise or adversely concerning the holy icons, he denounces as heretics those who oppose them: regarding them as alien from the Catholic Church, I reject and denounce as heretics.'" These things are from the translation of Anastasius.
[4] Again in the third session, held on the fourth or third day before the Kalends of October, sixth among the Bishops, "Euthymius, the most holy Bishop of Sardis, said: 'As one who has followed the truth in all things and been educated in the traditions of the most sacred Apostles and Fathers, he praises the same doctrine of the Eastern Patriarchs: I consent also to these documents which have just been read, namely both of Tarasius, the most holy and most blessed Archbishop and Patriarch, and to those which have been sent in response to them by the Eastern Patriarchs: and I consider their opinion and mine on the sacred doctrines and holy icons to be one and unchangeable: but those who besides these things speak vain things and chatter against the holy images, and do not agree with the most holy Patriarchs, I recognize as heretics and perverse, and I place myself far from their communion.'" Furthermore, in the fourth session, held on the Kalends of October, "Euthymius, the most holy Bishop of Sardis, said: 'I have in my hands a book of the holy Confessor Maximus and I offer it for reading.'" the writings of the holy Fathers, And when very many things had been read from various Fathers and Lives of Saints, eighth among the Bishops he subscribed with this formula: "Euthymius, unworthy Bishop of Sardis, willingly accepting all the things that have been prescribed, and the Lives of Saints, have subscribed." Likewise in the fifth session, held on the fourth day before the Nones of October, when fables from false superscriptions of the Itineraries of the holy Apostles were being thrust forward, "Euthymius, the most holy Bishop of Sardis, mocking, said: 'That conventicle deserved to have this book as testimony.'" Finally in the seventh session, on the third day before the Ides of October, he approves the decrees in these words: and he accepts the traditions of the Church: "Euthymius, unworthy Bishop of Sardis, following the paternal doctrines and the tradition of the Catholic Church, defining, have subscribed." From all of which his sincere disposition in matters of faith is to be recognized.
[5] After the Emperor Constantine was blinded in the year 797 and shortly after died, and the Empress Irene was stripped of the Empire and all her fortunes in the year 802, Nicephorus seized the Empire, restored from his first exile, and in a war surrounded by the Bulgarians he lost both his life and the Empire in the year 811. Under the first years of this Emperor, it will be established below that Saint Euthymius was driven into exile. Nicephorus was succeeded by Michael Curopalates, but when he was defeated by the Bulgarians in the year 813, Leo the Armenian assumed the empire, an impious iconoclast who had conceived the destruction of sacred images. Wherefore, as the Menaea report on the eighth of March in the eulogy of Saint Theophylact, Bishop of Nicomedia, Saint Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, he approaches Leo the Armenian with other Bishops: summoned to himself all the choicest Bishops, Aemilianus of Cyzicus, Euthymius of Sardis, Joseph of Thessalonica, Eudoxius of Amorium, Michael of Synada, and the said Theophylact of Nicomedia, and many others, who all convened before the Emperor, and administered to him many salutary remedies from the oracles of sacred Scripture. In the Life of Saint Nicetas the Abbot, to be illustrated on the third of April, his disciple Theosterictus reports what each Bishop said: among whom the following is transmitted concerning Blessed Euthymius, the most vigorous champion both of the faith and of sacred images: "After this," he says, "the holy Euthymius, Bishop of Sardis, using a more outspoken address, he speaks in defense of the veneration of images: thus addressed the Emperor: 'Hear, O Emperor, from the time when Christ descended to earth to this day, for eight hundred years and more, in the churches which are among all nations, Christ Himself is depicted and adored in images. And who is so arrogant that he dares to dissolve or even slightly disturb the tradition of so many years, coming from the holy Apostles, Martyrs, and pious Fathers, when the Apostle himself says: Stand firm, therefore, brethren, and hold the traditions which you have been taught, whether by person or by our letter. 2 Thessalonians 2:14 And in another place: Even if an Angel from heaven should evangelize to you contrary to what you have received, let him be anathema. Galatians 1:8 Wherefore, against those who before us devised this heresy, a Council was assembled again at the city of Nicaea under the pious Emperors Irene and Constantine. This Council the Son of God Himself sealed with His own finger. he strikes with anathema those who oppose: Whoever shall dare to alter or expunge anything from it, let him be anathema.'" When the Emperor heard these things, he pretended that he endured them easily. Theodore also answered, the vehement Teacher of the Church, the leader of the Studites, etc.
[6] Concerning both of them, Leo the Grammarian adds the following in his Chronography under Leo the Armenian: "The Emperor, having summoned before the Senate the praiseworthy Patriarch Nicephorus and the Bishops who were with him, said: 'It is by no means hidden from you that some have emerged asserting that images are not to be adored.' But suddenly the holy Euthymius, Bishop of Sardis, speaking with confidence, rebuked him from the divine Scriptures: together with him Theodore, the fervent defender of the orthodox faith and Superior of the Studion, said: He rebukes the Emperor: 'Emperor, do not alter the state of the Church: to you falls the care of political affairs and the army; attend to these things: but permit the Church to remain in the orthodox faith.' The tyrant, hearing these things, inflamed with fury, roaring like lions when he was but an ape, ejected all of them with insults poured forth, and having expelled the great Nicephorus from the city, and Theodore
likewise, the Superior of the Studion, he drove into exile. Saint Theodore is venerated on the twelfth of November. A companion in exile was Saint Nicholas the Studite, in whose Life on the fourth of February this contest is described at number 15 as follows: "When in a certain sacred hall of the palace he had gathered a crowd of Priests and our Fathers, with soldiers surrounding him on all sides, he himself sitting in the midst, with an arrogant and raging spirit, was addressing, as if in a public oration, the great Pontiff and his companions, on the grounds that they had erroneously consented to the restoration of venerable images. And then when he saw how they variously cut through the garrulity of his trifles with the sword of the Spirit, driven to fury by this, the wretch, expelled from the palace with others, boiling with great wrath, expelled them all to a man from the palace, and immediately assigned to each a place of exile. All of these things are described at length in the Life of Saint Nicephorus the Patriarch on the thirteenth of March by Ignatius, then a Deacon, later Bishop of Nicaea; where among other things it is said that the Emperor Leo found the truth unconquered and plainly insuperable. Wherefore, heaping up trifles of this sort, which were to no purpose, upon those illustrious champions, to drive them to ruin, and relegated into exile: when he was himself unable to repair his own defeat, having issued threats, he openly expelled them through the doors... Soon also, that you may observe their spirit, he relegates the most valiant champions, willing as they were, into exile, and consigns them to various places, removed far from the courts of the church." So far that passage.
[7] After Leo the Armenian was miserably murdered during the sacred rites on the very day of the Lord's Nativity, as the year 820 was drawing to its end, Michael the Stammerer reigned, under whom it was permitted for the exiles to return. Then, from which he returned, as is read in Cedrenus, Nicephorus sent a letter to him requesting the restoration of sacred images and the recall of piety. Michael replied that he had determined neither to overthrow any decrees concerning the faith, nor to condemn or change anything of those things which had already been handed down and acknowledged: each person could securely follow and do what was approved and permitted to him. He did not, however, persevere in this resolution: before Michael the Stammerer he defends the honor of images: for indeed he was not even from the beginning a true Christian. But as long as he held the Empire, he waged war against Christians and his own people with an evil and most cruel spirit: now despising monks and afflicting them in various ways and decreeing punishments against them one after another, now casting other pious men into prisons or driving them into exile. Among these were Methodius, who was not much later elevated to the Patriarchal throne, and Euthymius, at that time Bishop of Sardis: because they would not comply with his will, nor deny that honor was due to sacred images, he expelled them from the city. And Methodius indeed he placed in custody on the island of Acrita: but the Blessed Euthymius he put to death, having him severely beaten with raw ox sinews through the agency of his own son Theophilus. So far Cedrenus, and the same is found identically in John Scylitzes Curopalates, indeed also in John Zonaras, who reports the death of Saint Euthymius thus: "Besides many others cruelly treated, he also attacked the Lord Methodius, and sent Euthymius, Archbishop of Sardis, into exile on account of the cult of sacred images. Then he shut up Methodius in Acrita: but the renowned Euthymius, cruelly beaten with whips by his son Theophilus, he put to a Martyr's death." exiled to Acrita: That he was also banished to Acrita was reported above from the Menaea. Acrita was a promontory of Bithynia at the beginning of the Propontis, on which stood a monastery, to which Saint Gregory, taken there by Saint Michael, Bishop of Synada, and thence called Acritensis, led a most austere life, as was said on the fourth of January, the day of his birth. And Saints Theodore and Nicholas the Studites, when at the command of the Emperor Michael the Stammerer they had again, even unwillingly, returned to the imperial city; not long after, departing thence, they sought the peninsula neighboring the promontory of Acrita, called by the name of the great Martyr Tryphon, where at last the common end of life overtook the glorious Father and most blessed Theodore after many contests. under the Emperor Theophilus, the Martyr dies around the year 840. Thus the Life of Saint Nicholas the Studite at number 32. When Michael the Stammerer died in the year 829, his son Theophilus assumed the Empire, by whose command Saint Euthymius, cruelly beaten, consummated his martyrdom around the year 840, since from his first exile under Nicephorus, who began to reign in the year 811, twenty-nine years are established to have elapsed, and indeed Theophilus himself died as the year 861 was ending or at the beginning of the following year. In the notes to the Second Council of Nicaea, page 679 of volume 19 of the Lupara edition, among the rest of the Fathers, those most celebrated for the glory of their confession are reckoned to be the monks Plato and Theophanes, born under Constantine Copronymus and likewise Euthymius, Bishop of Sardis: who in the time of Constantine Copronymus suffered chains and exiles and deprivation of their Sees. Copronymus reigned from the year 741 to the year 775, under whose Empire we recognize that Saint Euthymius was born and grew up, inasmuch as under his grandson, Constantine and Irene, he was a monk, and then was made Bishop. Wherefore in that note to the Council it should be added that these men suffered chains and exiles under Copronymus or other Emperors.