6th Sunday after Pentecost – 2012 July 15

Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
Sunday, 15 July 2012

St. Vladimir, Equal to the Apostles
 
Epistle: Galatians 1:11-19; Romans 12:6-14
Gospel:  John 10:1-9; Matthew 9:1-8
 
Today, we celebrate the Feast of St. Vladimir, Equal to the Apostles.  We do so recognizing not only the conversion of one man, or even one nation, but of God’s triumph over the demons, the victory of Truth and Life over darkness and death.  There are implications for us today in considering St. Vladimir’s conversion and that of all Rus, the legacy we celebrate this day.
 
St. Vladimir was in many respects an unlikely convert to the Apostolic Orthodox faith: a licentious, warmongering, hording pagan of a man.  But God foresaw the potential in this man, who united the Russians under his leadership and made such a name for the Kingdom of Rus.  In fact, it was his victory in battle that drew the attention of the Byzantine Empire, who called on him to help drive away their enemies.
 
What appears at the outset a purely political arrangement had far greater ramifications, for Vladimir himself and all Russia, as well as for the Orthodox Church to this day.  The price for Vladimir’s aid in defending Byzantium was the Byzantine Emperor’s daughter, Anna.  The price for her hand was Vladimir’s conversion.  God worked through both to strengthen and grow His Church.  Russia was added to the fold and Byzantium was given a strong ally.
 
And lest we think that this was simply a marriage or conversion of convenience, we have to remember that Vladimir was already familiar and intrigued with Christianity: His grandmother, Olga, had converted to the faith and it was Vladimir who sent representatives to Constantinople to investigate the Orthodox Faith.  Their report of the Orthodox worship they encountered in 988?  It was like nothing they had experienced before and a far cry from the pagan worship they were familiar with: “We did not know,” they reported, “whether we were in heaven or on earth.”
 
The deal, as God would have it, was sealed: Vladimir would be baptized in the River Dneipr and along with him, thousands of his Russian subjects for whom the testimony and example of their great prince (Tsar) was good enough for them.  They followed him into the waters of the Rus’ ‘Jordan.’  Decades and, some would say, centuries would pass before all the pagan beliefs of the Russians was weeded out from the faith, but for Vladimir, the conversion was real, the sealing of the Holy Spirit in Chrismation, was life-changing.  Allow me to give you a few examples…
 
Vladimir committed himself wholeheartedly to his new faith in Christ.  He abolished the death penalty (as a side, Great Britain, a country many associate with progress and Western enlightenment, was still drawing a quartering in the 19th century), the pagan temples and idols were destroyed and in their place, the Great Prince erected churches and schools to teach the faithful.  Great monasteries were founded as well.  And Vladimir’s raucous feasts were now given in thanksgiving to God, opened to the poor and needy, and St. Vladimir, following the biblical precedence of the Church, instituted the tithe for himself and all his people, to give back to the Church and help build it in his lands.  He did not have to do this, but he chose to be generous to the Church, recognizing from whence his help would come: from God alone.  His words in founding the so-called Tithe Church, the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos in Kiev, are telling of his heart and the humility that the Holy Spirit was growing in him that would bear fruit, not only for Russia, but for Christ’s holy Church around the world:
 
“O Lord God, look down from Heaven and behold, and visit Your vineyard, which Your right hand has planted. And make this new people, whom You have converted in heart and mind to know You, the True God. And look down upon this Your church, which Your unworthy servant has built in the name of the Mother Who gave birth to Thee, the Ever-Virgin Theotokos. And whoever prays in this church, let his prayer be heard, through the prayers of the All-Pure Mother of God.”
 
In St. Vladimir’s conversion, we see a resemblance to the Apostle Paul, who was initially a zealous persecutor of the early Church, just as Vladimir was a warmongering pagan.  Like Paul, God revealed Himself to Vladimir at an opportune time and through him, brought millions to the Orthodox Faith, not in any pro-forma way, but so deeply that the Orthodox Faith became intricately associated with what it meant to be a Russian.  Indeed, after the Fall of Constantinople, the Russian Church became the great defender of Orthodox Christianity in the world with its millions of faithful believers, bishops, priests, monastics, missionaries.  No wonder Satan targeted it for destruction through the diabolical actions of the godless atheists.
 
And yet, now, in Russia as elsewhere freed from that terrible atheistic yoke, Orthodox Christianity is flourishing again.  Communism is destroyed, the Church lives on; the gates of Hades have not been able to overpower it.  I’m reminded of the bumper sticker that has Nietsche arrogantly proclaiming, “God is dead!” and below, God proclaiming, “Nietsche is dead.”
 
What particularly stands out to me, is that Vladimir did not just do what was Holy Church expected of him as a convert, but he wholly devoted himself to building up the Church in his lands, even at personal sacrifice to himself—so important was it for his family and his people to continue to grow in their new-found faith in Christ, to have access to the Church, to worship corporately, to continue to be transformed and transfigured individually and as corporately as a people, into the likeness of Christ.  St. Hilarion wrote at the time of Vladimir’s death, “Through him we too have come to worship and know Jesus Christ, the true Life.” 
 
The legacy of St. Vladimir is seen in the next generations—the royal martyr Saints, Boris and Gleb, St. Alexander Nevsky, St. Herman, St. Innocent, and the missionary zeal that brought the holy Orthodox Faith to these shores in the 18th and 19th centuries, in the Passion-Bearers Tsar Nicholas and his family, murdered in cold blood by the atheistic Bolsheviks, and in St. Tikhon the Confessor, Apostle to America and Patriarch of Moscow, as well as St. John Maximovic.  Regardless of our own heritage, we as Orthodox in America trace some of our spiritual legacy to St. Vladimir and his zeal for Jesus Christ.
 
Our Lord warns us, that He would rather us hot or cold.  If we’re lukewarm, He warns us, that He’ll “spit us out” (Rev. 3:16). Christ God did not come to make us occasional Christians, cultural or ethnic Orthodox; He calls us to a new identity, He gives us a new name, He baptizes us with new water and gives us second birth.  He calls us fellow citizens of heaven above any competing identity—American, Russian, Romanian, Georgian.  God calls us His adopted sons and daughters, co-heirs with Christ.  In the Kingdom of Heaven, we’re each named princes and princesses of our Lord, we’re all called to life in the Kingdom with our Lord.