Saint Konstantinos confessed Christ with his faith and work.
On Monday afternoon, May 20, 2019, the Archieratical Panegyrical Vesper took place in the celebrating church of Saint Konstantinos and Eleni, in Koulines, with His Eminence, the Bishop of Corfu, Paxoi and Diapontian Islands, Mr. Nektarios.
In his speech to the faithful the Eucharist, he stressed that Constantine the Great was the first Orthodox Christian emperor, paving the way to the Church of Christ, the one persecuted for centuries. He gave to everyone the respect for God as a dowry. Saint Constantine was called Isapostolos because, firstly, with the Mediolanian decree in 313, he provided the choice of belief for the people of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Christian Faith developed and created art and culture. Secondly, he was honored by our Holy Church and for the work it has done both in the Holy Land, in Sinai and in the King. All these works bear witness to nothing but the true faith of this great emperor. And finally, Constantine the Great himself gathered the graceful remains of the Holy Apostles and placed them in wreaths, in the homonymous majestic temple in the City.
But also Mother of Great Constantine, St. Helen served our Lord. She protected the pilgrimages to Jerusalem, she built the Church of the Resurrection, she found the Holy Cross of the Savior Christ. That is why our Holy Church honors St. Helena as Isapostolos.
Moreover, the Bishop of Corfu noted that Saint Constantine, as the holy hymnographer mentions, was endowed with the wisdom of Solomon, David’s goodness and the boldness of the Orthodox confession of the Holy Apostles. He had a sacrificial spirit and was fighting for his people. His example was followed by few emperors of Romania, who exchanged the royal crown with the lone tribune. If we now compare the era of the East Roman Empire to the present, the reality looks bleak. Observing faces and facts, one finds that the devil activates various centers of the outside world, but also of the interior, in order to strike the Orthodox faith of the Greeks. The detainees proclaim their atheism every day with a great deal of gratitude, while at the same time they rule a people who in their overwhelming majority are Orthodox.
In closing, Mr. Nektarios asked the faithful to turn their eyes to Resurrected Christ and to the celebrated saints and to resist all these antiqualities of globalization.
