MARTYRS OF CHALCEDON - Dr. Augustine Sokolovski

On the last day of June, according to the Julian calendar, the Church honors the memory of the martyrs Manuel, Sabel, and Ismael. They are called the Martyrs of Chalcedon because they suffered in the region located on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus, opposite Constantinople, once a separate city and bearing the name Chalcedon. They were also called the Great Martyrs. This name was given to Christians of noble origin, whose witness to faith, in the eyes of Christ's followers, who were generally simple, poor, and unknown, was remarkable.

The names of these saints are of Semitic origin, probably Arabic. They were ambassadors of the Shah of Persia, or of an Arab ruler, and were sent to negotiate peace or conclude an alliance with the Roman Empire. Apparently, the ruler who sent them was unaware that at that time in Constantinople, under the reign of Julian the Apostate, a religious revolution had broken out and paganism had once again become the emperor's religion. Julian organized a festival at Chalcedon and demanded that the ambassadors attend.

Faced with their refusal to participate in the pagan ceremony, Julian decided to discuss religion with them. They refused, as they had come not for theological debates, but for political reasons. This angered the ruler, and the saints were killed. Julian was driven not only by his pagan religiosity, but also by arrogance, for the Romans believed that killing the Arabs would have no effect.

In fact, this cruelty served as a pretext for the outbreak of war between Persia and Rome, during which Julian was killed. Pagans blamed the Christians for the death of their emperor.

The holy martyrs Manuel, Sabel, and Ismael were venerated in Byzantium. But in honoring them, their contemporaries and descendants, it seems, failed to learn the appropriate lessons from their lives and deaths.

First, religion and politics must not be confused. Religion is the ability and the duty to separate the divine from the human, the sacred from the profane. Second, every human life must be treated with respect. In Christ, according to the Apostle Paul, there is neither Greek nor Jew. Life is synonymous with reverence.

The saints suffered for Christ around 363. Two and a half centuries later, the Roman and Persian empires were again at war, which proved to be the last in history (602-628). When the two empires exhausted each other and Byzantium finally triumphed, the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula started their own war.

The Romans, that is, the Byzantines, then treated all foreigners with contempt, as in the time of the three holy martyrs. They expected danger from the great nations, but not from those they neglected.

While in the 4th century, a large part of the Arab tribes were Christian, from the beginning of the 7th century, they spread Islam. The Byzantine armies were quickly defeated, and Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and North Africa were definitively conquered by the Arab armies and ceased forever to be under Orthodox Christian rule. The tragic worldwide dechristianization had begun. This is the prophetic dimension of the celebration in honor of the martyrs Manuel, Sabel, and Ismael.