St. Symeon the New Theologian’s Audience Before a Persecuting Patriarch
…[T]he patriarch sent out for the saint and brought him back from his exile. The saint’s return had been discussed everywhere, and so everyone, monks and laymen, priests and deacons, and all those eminent senators who knew that blessed man’s virtue and whose teacher and spiritual father he was, gathered as though for a great feast, and accompanied him to the patriarch.
When the father’s arrival was announced, the patriarch came out into the small council chamber and the saint met with him there, along with his dignitaries. “What were you thinking of, most pious Kyr Symeon,” he said, “getting yourself involved in all this uproar, disturbing me, distressing your friends and disciple here, and suffering a fate appropriate perhaps for a condemned criminal but not a knowledgeable and virtuous person like yourself? Now I, and <all->seeing Justice is my witness, have always had a strong and favorable opinion of you and I’ve been considering other opportunities for you, which I’ll bring to pass if you’re convinced by my words and give up your stubborn resistance. But for the time being, please agree to obey me in this at least: return to your monastic fold, where you have expended so much effort, and I will not prevent you from celebrating the anniversary of your spiritual father’s death. But I do ask that you scale back a little on the splendor and the number of days of festivities, and celebrate only with your own monks and those who come from elsewhere as friends, until those who are inspired by envy against you either desist or depart from life and this present existence. Then you will be able to do whatever may please you and God.”
The saint replied, “I am not responsible for the uproar and the scandal of which you have spoken, my master,” he said, “but rather your clever synkellos who is wise in his own opinion. I have been envied by him without cause over nothing but ridiculous and frivolous issues. He has taken pleasure in gossiping idly about these matters, intending to raise doubts and using them to try the knowledge and intelligence of others. <He has done this> so that no one else might seem to have more <knowledge and intelligence> than him, and to prove everyone else inferior to his wisdom and knowledge. And so it is he who should rightly bear judgment for this uproar, as the apostle states when he says, The person who is troubling you will bear his judgment, whoever he may be.
“As for what I have suffered and endured, and perhaps will endure again, I offer thanks to my God and to you my master that I have suffered, and will possibly still suffer in the future, not as an adulterer or a wrongdoer, but as a servant of Christ and an upholder of the apostolic canons and constitutions, just as Peter, the chief of the apostles, teaches when he says, If any of you suffer, let it not be for murder, or theft or wrongdoing. But if anyone does so as a Christian, let him not be ashamed. For this reason, I am not only unashamed of what I am enduring on account of God’s commandment that orders us not to dishonor our fathers, but I rejoice and consider myself blessed that I too, wretch though I am, have been considered worthy to be called to account for one of God’s commandments, to have been condemned for my righteousness, and to have endured exile like our fathers of old.
As regards your earlier attitude toward me, I myself am a witness (and not only I but also the Truth that governs in our midst) that you, my master, have honored me more than I deserve on many occasions, have always respected what I do, and, out of reverence, have praised my faith in my father very highly, admiring what I have accomplished and admitting your favorable attitude toward me. But Satan’s envy (I don’t really know how else to say this) unfortunately altered your feelings, making the sweet appear bitter and turning the light to darkness, not only for me <here> but also for all those who heard the stories fabricated about me wherever they spread on earth.
“<On another matter,> you said that you were considering and thinking about other opportunities for me, and that you still have these in mind and promise to bring them about if I’m convinced by your words. If these opportunities involve things that are of only transient value and ephemeral human glory and honor, then they are of no account to me, your servant; for I have long since adopted the view that I should consider that which is without honor among men as a source of heavenly glory, but should take their glory as a rebuke and a reproach. If, however, these opportunities involve things that are dear to God and bring benefit to the soul, you will definitely find me eager to obey your orders. For who would not agree to do so whenever, my master, you instruct people to observe the teachings and commandments of Christ and His disciples, in accordance with what the Son of God said, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you?
“So, demonstrate your willingness to teach in accordance with the divine scripture, following the holy fathers who have gone before, and I will accept you as someone equal to the apostles, and will become dust and ashes beneath your holy feet, and, just as I have written, will consider it sanctification to be trampled upon by you. Not only that, but I will also keep your commandments until the day I die, and you will love me dearly as a servant and grateful disciple of Christ and will praise me highly for saying what is right.
“But if you are not willing to teach in such a way that I am convinced by your injunctions, as I’ve said, but rather are pressuring me to reject my father the saint (who enlightened me and now, as a most loving father, always acts as my intercessor and defender at moments of crisis in my life) with all sorts of promises as a consequence of which I will appear illustrious to people in this life and will sit on the synod with you and all the bishops of the church, and if for this reason you are encouraging me to offend Christ, who says, He who rejects you rejects me, then I have nothing more to say except, in common with the disciples of Christ, We must obey God rather than men. For if I were eager to please men by doing this, I should not be a servant of Christ.
“So, from now on, you should understand that I will not choose a monastery, or wealth or glory, or anything else that is eagerly sought by people in life, over the exile I have suffered for God’s righteousness. For none of these things, not even death nor life will separate me from the love of my Christ and my spiritual father. From the moment I entrusted all the concerns of being the superior to my disciple Arsenios and decided to choose him as leader of his brothers in my place, although I was still there, I separated myself completely from my <former> affairs and labors, and I stayed withdrawn in the midst of them as though I were not really there. But now, since I have been expelled from that place for righteousness and keeping the commandment of the living God, I will never return again as long as I live. I will instead die with my Christ at His command, without rejecting Him, and I thus know for sure that I will not be excluded from His divinely inspired blessings. For He said, Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and say falsely all kinds of evil things about you for my sake.”
As soon as the patriarch heard this response, which was contrary to all his expectations, he said, “You really are a Stoudite, Kyr Symeon, for you love your spiritual father and also demonstrate the same resistance as them, something that is probably praiseworthy and quite proper.” And so he pronounced his judgment on Symeon, briefly as follows. “I said that I would curtail your stubborn resistance in this matter to an extent, but since you are still the same and have not changed at all, but maintain unshakably your honor for, and faith in, that spiritual father of yours, this seems praiseworthy and proper to me and everyone else. You have shown that you are not convinced at all by my words. In future, then, you can stay wherever you want, that is to say, living with your disciples and doing as you will. And I will not prevent you from celebrating <your spiritual father> and rejoicing with your friends whether outside the city or within it.” Having said this, he dismissed them in peace.
From The Life of Saint Symeon the New Theologian by St. Niketas Stethatos. Translated by Richard, P. H. Greenfield. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, 2013. Section 7, Chapters 104-108, pp. 239-251.