Saint Cosmas of Aetolia.
Saint Cosmas
of Aetolia
Saint Cosmas of Aetolia, one of those bright lamps of Mount Athos, came forth from the stillness of the Monastery of Philotheou to preach the word of God to enslaved Hellenism. Through his preaching and the two hundred schools he founded, he kept alive the faith, the language and the identity of an entire nation.
Tone 3 · ‘Of divine faith’
Θείας πίστεως, διδασκαλίᾳ, κατεκόσμησας, τὴν Ἐκκλησίαν, ζηλωτὴς τῶν Ἀποστόλων γενόμενος, καὶ κατασπείρας τὰ θεῖα διδάγματα, μαρτυρικῶς τὸν ἀγῶνα ἐτέλεσας. Κοσμᾶ ἔνδοξε, Χριστὸν τὸν Θεὸν ἱκέτευε, δωρήσασθαι ἡμῖν τὸ μέγα ἔλεος.
Origin and childhood
The Saint Cosmas was born in 1714 at Mega Dendron of Aetolia — a small village of Western Greece. His name in the world was Constantine, and his family belonged to the class of the poor Greeks who lived under the Turkish yoke.
From a young age he desired learning. He studied at the schools of the time — at Sigditsi, at Lobotina, and finally at the famous Athonias School of Mount Athos, where he was taught by Eugenios Voulgaris and Panagiotis Palamas.
1714
Teachers: Panagiotis Palamas, Nikolaos Tzartzoulios, Eugenios Voulgaris.
At the Monastery of Philotheou
Around 1759, Constantine departed for the Holy Monastery of Philotheou, where he was tonsured a monk, taking the name Cosmas. There, under the protection of the Panagia Glykophilousa, he lived in prayer, fasting and the study of the Patristic texts.
But in his heart a flame was kindling: he saw his people ignorant of their faith, forgetting their language, being assimilated by the conqueror. While his love of stillness held him at the Monastery, the voice of the Lord was calling him to the mission.
With the blessing of the Patriarch Seraphim II and of his spiritual father, he left the Monastery around 1760 to begin his missionary work in the enslaved lands.
Tonsured a monk
17 years on Mount Athos.
APOLYTIKION
Θείας πίστεως, διδασκαλίᾳ, κατεκόσμησας τὴν Ἐκκλησίαν, ζηλωτὴς τῶν Ἀποστόλων γενόμενος, καὶ κατασπείρας τὰ θεῖα διδάγματα, μαρτυρικῶς τὸν ἀγῶνα ἐτέλεσας. Κοσμᾶ ἔνδοξε, Χριστὸν τὸν Θεὸν ἱκέτευε, δωρήσασθαι ἡμῖν τὸ μέγα ἔλεος.
He was born in the village of Megalo Dendro of Aetolia around 1714. After receiving his first letters in his homeland, he came for higher education to the Athonias Academy, where he had as teachers Panagiotis Palamas, Nikolaos Tzartzoulios and Eugenios Voulgaris.
He is also said to have studied at Sigditsa of Parnassis, near the hierodeacon Gerasimos Lytsikas, and at the Hellenomouseion of St Paraskevi at Gouva of Agrapha. He taught at the school of Lobotina (Taxiarchis) and at the schools of the surrounding villages.
In 1759 he was tonsured a monk at the Monastery of Philotheou, ‘and entered most readily into the labours of the monastic life.’ He was then ordained priest and served as the chaplain of his monastery. But the flame that daily burned in his humble heart — for the spreading of the Gospel among his enslaved brethren — brought him to Constantinople, after he had first practised asceticism for seventeen years, as he himself says in one of his teachings, on Mount Athos. He sought the blessing of the Patriarch Seraphim II and the counsel of his brother, the teacher Chrysanthos. He received a divine assurance of his work, and the blessing for it of experienced Athonite Elders. Thus he began his great and nation-saving missionary work.
With fervent love for Christ and deep zeal for the Nation, he made four great journeys, traversing almost all of Greece, which provoke amazement and admiration. ‘Wherever the thrice-blessed one went, a great gathering of the Christians took place, and they listened with compunction and reverence to the grace and sweetness of his words, and accordingly there followed a great correction and benefit of soul.’
His teaching was ‘most simple, like that of the fishermen; it was serene and quiet, and seemed wholly to be full of the joy of the gentle and quiet Holy Spirit.’
His influence on the people was immense. Crowds gathered to hear the God-inspired preacher. Since no church could hold them, he was compelled to preach in the open, setting up a cross and climbing onto a stool, for he was short of stature. His disciples kept notes, and so we have his teachings today. In the region of present-day Albania his preaching bore much fruit: ‘he tamed the savage, he soothed the robbers, he showed the merciless and pitiless to be merciful, he made the irreverent reverent, he taught the ignorant and the rustic in divine things and made them flock to the holy Services; and all the sinners, simply, he brought to great repentance and correction, so that all said that in their days a new Apostle had appeared.’
His sermons were accompanied by miracles and prophecies. His astonishing prophecies refer to the liberation of the Nation, to the future of persons, cities and of humanity, and to the inventions of science. Many of them were fulfilled with faithful exactness.
Everywhere he founded churches and schools and cared passionately for the education of the enslaved. He had the rich buy baptismal fonts for the baptisms of Christians, and books, crosses and prayer-ropes, which he distributed to the faithful as a blessing.
Saint Cosmas enjoyed great respect from the Turks, who were listeners to his teachings and his donors. But he was mortally hated by the Jewish merchants, because he moved the Christians’ markets from Sunday to Saturday. They slandered him to the Turkish authorities and, with much money to Kurt Pasha of Berat, contrived to bring about his death. The saint heard his condemnation with joy.
They hanged him from a tree in the village of Kolikontasi, and cast his body into the waters of the river Apsos. Despite the stone tied to his neck, the body floated. It was found by the priest Markos and buried at the monastery of the Theotokos of Ardenitsa in Northern Epirus, where it was discovered. The canonical act of his recognition as a saint was made by the Ecumenical Patriarchate on 20 April 1961. A service and a life of him were written by Saint Nikodemos the Athonite, Sapphirios Christodoulides, Thomas Paschidis and the monk Gerasimos Mikragiannanitis. Many later writers have engaged with the life and work of the great saint. A multitude of icons, engravings, paintings and drawings reveal the honour and gratitude of the Nation for the bright star of Mount Athos. His memory is honoured on the 24th of August.
TEACHINGS OF SAINT COSMAS OF AETOLIA
The Sign of the Cross
Now I counsel you, small and great, to make for yourselves a prayer-rope, and to hold it in your left hand, and with the right to make your cross and to say: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son and Word of the living God, through the Theotokos and all the Saints, have mercy on me, the sinful and unworthy servant.’ The all-good God has given us the precious Cross, with which to bless, and the Immaculate Mysteries. With the cross let us open Paradise; with the cross let us drive away the demons; but we must have our hand clean of sins, and then the devil is burned and flees.
Listen, my brethren, how the cross should be made and what it signifies. First: as the Holy Trinity is glorified in heaven by the Angels, so you too should join the three fingers of your right hand. Bringing your hand down to your belly, then to your right shoulder and afterward to the left — this is what the Cross signifies!
This I say to you and command you: though heaven should come down, though the earth should rise up, though the whole world should perish, let it not concern you what God has to do. Your soul and Christ are what you need. These two — though the whole world should fall, it cannot take them from you, unless you give them of your own will.
The prophecies
Father Cosmas was granted by God the gift of prophecy. He foretold events that were to come to pass centuries later: his own death, the liberation of the Nation, the crossing of the Isthmus of Corinth by ‘ships without winds’, the appearance of telegrams (‘words shall fly from afar’), electricity, and the Second World War.
Many of his prophecies have already been fulfilled, and others await their fulfilment.
« Words shall fly from afar. »
The martyrdom
The way of life and the word of Father Cosmas troubled many: the Turks, because he awakened their people; the rich Jewish merchants, because he urged that no business be done on Sunday. They paid Kurt Pasha to arrest him.
On 24 August 1779, at Kolikontasi of Northern Epirus (today in Albania), after they proposed that he deny Christ, and he refused, they led him to a place near the river Apsos, where they strangled him and cast his body into the water. He was 65 years old.
While his body was in danger from the waters, it was saved miraculously, and was buried by a priest. The Church officially recognized his sanctity in 1961.
« The saint heard his condemnation with joy. »
« This I say to you and command you: though heaven should come down, though the earth should rise up, though the whole world should perish, today, tomorrow, let it not concern you what God has to do. Let them burn your body, let them fry it; let them take your goods; do not be concerned; give them, they are not yours. Your soul and Christ are what you need. These two — though the whole world should fall, it cannot take them from you, unless you give them of your own will. »
Words of Father Cosmas
Words of Father Cosmas — written plainly, as he preached them, so that every person might understand.
« You must love God more than yourself, and your neighbour as yourself. »
« When children learn letters, then they are called human. The school opens the churches; the school opens the monasteries. »
« The Christian must have three things: the fear of God, humility, and love. »
« I beg you, my brethren, show love to your enemy. For if you love those who love you, what grace have you? This even the heathen do. »
