MARTYR AQUILINA OF BIBLOS - Augustine Sokolovski

Saint Aquilina of Byblos was highly venerated in the ancient Church. Her memory was also celebrated in the Russian Empire. The prevalence of her name among women testifies to this.

Her name is Latin. Its pronunciation is close to the word "Aquitaine" we know, but the latter comes from the noun "water." Aquilina means "little eagle."

The Russian Bolsheviks imitated Orthodox religiosity. They were powerful ideologues, true manipulators. They did not hesitate to imitate popular piety, borrowing literally, or even reproducing, the terminology in a caricatured form. It seems that they literally imitated the Antichrist, and did not hide this imitation at all.

Many of those born in the USSR still remember the song "Orlyonok." In short, this song said that the Little Eagle was a heroic child. Such was Aquilina in the Christian sense of the word. This was reflected both in her life and in her name.

Aquilina was one of the few Christians who suffered in the early nineties of the third century, before the official mass persecution of Diocletian. Her death became a prophecy that soon all Christians would be persecuted. By her death she was a child prophet. But ancient piety somehow ignored the fact that she was a child.

Probably the Roman pagan police simply overheard her talking to children about Christ Jesus and tortured her to death. Torture could not make her renounce Christ. The subsequent piety of the people and the work of preachers put the confession of an adult into the mouth of Aquilina. With good intentions, it turned the child Aquilina into an adult martyr. In this sense, it prophetically depicted our time.

In our time, people have lost the ability to live in their personal age. Old people act young, and young people try to look mature. As proof, both do things that are not befitting their personal age. Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (+200), who suffered for Christ a hundred years before Aquilina, claimed that Christ lived through all ages and was crucified when he was already an old man.

In claiming this, Irenaeus refers to John the Evangelist and other Apostles. In modern language, this teaching is a vertical theology of redemption. Why vertical? Because it repeats the ancient axiom: "What was not in the human nature of Christ was not redeemed. If there was no soul, then the soul did not receive redemption. If there was no human will, then the will of man did not find salvation. And so on." This is a horizontal vision of redemption, which considers all aspects of human nature in order and by enumeration.

The vertical vision speaks of Christ in the perspective of all ages. Every age of man received redemption in Jesus. Every age of man is complete. Irenaeus of Lyons spoke of this.

This is a prophetic statement for our times. Aquilina, and her childlike holiness, is a prophetic personification of the biblical and patristic teaching. One of our contemporaries, Father John Havand of the Monastery of Our Lady of Tamish (Artemis) in Lebanon, composed a prayerful invocation to Saint Aquilina. It is very valuable because it was written by her compatriot. Let us repeat these words together adding also our own prayer intentions:

O, our martyr Aquilina,

With your martyrdom affirm us.

You are love.

You are faith.

You are as resistant as the cedars of Lebanon.

Reinstate the belief of ancient times

And strengthen the hearts of believers.

O Byblos, mother of the alphabet,

The Holy Book was sanctified in you.

The blood of martyrs is quenching the thirst of the land.

Lord, Lord, will our supplication be answered?

You Are the Honorable Intercessor