September 2024 Letter

Dear brethren,

On the occasion of Coptic New Year (Nayrouz) and in remembrance of our martyred fathers, we reflect on the insights shared by H.G. Bishop Makarios of Minya in his article:

“For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8).

“We never read that any of the martyrs has hated life, and therefore loved death and sought after it, on the contrary, Christians – including martyrs – loved life and enjoyed it. They did not love the world, but they loved life, and there is a difference between the world and life. The world could mean the material world, the desires of the world, the present life versus the world to come. As for life, it is that simple living with food, drink, sun, flowers, nature, trees, fruits, and everything that God perfected in His creation and is worthy to be loved, as well as loving and serving others, all of which are worth living. Therefore, from the beginning, the Church rejected the rush to martyrdom for a racial or ethnic motive.

“When a believer went to the governor to be tried, he went to testify to Christ before him and not to be martyred! or to “commit suicide”, however he decided in himself, that he would courageously complete the testimony to Christ no matter what it cost him … even his life. The martyr had the fact of death in himself but did not seek death. As for the term: “and they did not love their lives to the death” (Revelation 12: 11) means that they lived up to death loving Christ more than their life on earth, which is mortal, and not that they hated life for the duration of their stay there. This was one of the accusations made by the rulers in Rome against Christians, in the sense that they are reluctant to live and that all they want is to suffer to death – as Julian the apostate wrote – which is an incorrect claim. When the death sentence was the final decision of the ruler, the martyr immediately headed with his thought to the better resurrection and eternal life, the instinct for survival and love of life was manifested in the instinctive resistance that emerged from the martyrs to torture, fire and the beasts that were forced on them in the Colosseum.

“After the great wave of persecution had passed, and the lust for martyrdom was still glowing, many turned to the wilderness for monastic life, choosing not death but another way of life. They decided to bear witness to Christ in another way, through their struggle and virtues, and yet we have many martyred monks.

“A tribute to every martyr who preferred to die for Christ than to deny Him in exchange for a life that will inevitably end. He did not like to die, but to profess faith no matter what it costs. He loved life but did not spare it for Christ, so he didn’t turn to the ruler to die but to testify his faith, even if it cost him his earthly life

“They were all conscious and not absent-minded, and the proof is that the severe torments did not dissuade them from their goal. When the ruler would ask the martyr to choose between denying the faith to live or insisting on it and dying, the Christian without the slightest hesitation chose death over denial of faith, or in other words: “deny your faith to live”, and the response comes every time: “No! I die on faith.”

“Thus says Saint Paul: “And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection” (Hebrews 11:35).

The blessings of St. Mary, St. Mercurius, and all the martyrs.

Belleville, September 1, 2024

رسالة شهر سبتمبر ٢٠٢٤