On the Veneration of the Saints - Homily for the Sunday of All Saints (2025)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Introduction

Today, we commemorate all the Saints who have ever existed. The reason for this is not because we might have missed some throughout the year, but to show that this is God’s desired end for all of humanity, not just the American land, not just the Russian land, not just the Serbian land, but for all lands and for all time. The net of holiness encircles the multitudinous variations of our human race. From the peasant to the prodigy, the idiot to the intelligent, the homeless to the hierarch, the monogamous to the monk; from the Patriarch Moses to Lazarus whose sores the dogs licked, the grace of God reaches out to all people, making sinners into saints.

The Unity of the Saints

Despite their diversity, the Saints are united in one accord as the answer to Christ’s request of the Father when He prayed, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us” (John 17.21).[1] Their unity is like that of a golden chain, writes St. Symeon the New Theologian, with each one of them a link, bound to all the preceding saints in faith, love, and good works.[2]

The Saints as Examples of the Christian Life

As the Apostle Paul says to the Corinthians, “Imitate me, just also as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor. 11.1), so also are the Saints our examples of piety (of Christian living). And even more so when we see the end to which their piety brought them whether it be the martyrs crown (of the protomartyr Stephen or second century Bishop of Smyrna, Polycarp), or the fruits of the eremitical life (which we see in St. Anthony and our contemporary St. Silouan the Athonite or St. Joseph the Hesychast), of those who lived in marriage (such as St. John of Kronstadt or St. Alexei Mechev, even the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna), or even those with the hierarchical rank (such as St. John Maximovitch, or Bishop Constantine (Essensky) whose relics were found to be incorrupt when they moved him from Texas to Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville). Saints are found and saints are made in every walk of life.

The Saints are exemplary because they have fulfilled the Gospel commandments. They are the ones who have kept the faith (1 Tim. 4.7), have denied themselves and carried their cross (Matt. 16.24). They suffered affliction instead of enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season (Heb. 11.25). As we have just heard in the Epistle reading, they had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and mountains, and dens and caves of the earth (Heb. 11. 36-38), and they looked to the city whose foundation and builder is God (Heb. 11.10).

The Saints are not only standards of fidelity to the Christian faith (Her teachings and dogmas), but also models and exemplars of the Christian life. They are genuinely illustrious men, true “heroes” of our time, and it is a true pageant of heroes that we see when we are able to recount this life of sanctity that has trod throughout time to our present day. They are the real superman, the real Übermensch, (men and women) elevated by humility, empowered not by self-will and the will to power but by self-denial, and motivated, driven, and aflame by love for God.

The Saints as Intercessors

However, may we not think of the saints as only examples of the Christian life, for we would be remiss to stop here. God is not the God of the dead but of the living, as Christ has told us (Mk. 12.17). The Saints do not die but live, and as Solomon says, they live for evermore (Wis. 5.15). The Saints have God dwelling in them in a different way than we do presently. Having received the fulfillment of the earnest of the Holy Spirit they were given in Baptism, they have become by grace what God is by nature. Therefore, being alive and dwelling in the presence of God, they have left us not only the example of their lives, but now they also intercede for us before God.

If the Saints are “friends of God,” are they not also the friends of man? When we ask for their prayers, we do not seek help from a dead man but from someone who is alive and who dwells with God. Does a child not ask for prayers from its mother, a husband of his wife, a friend of a friend, laymen of their priest, and spiritual children of their spiritual father? Christ never taught that the dead are not, but that they live forevermore.

The Saints of Contemporary Times

What more needs to be said but that we should look to the activity of the saints surrounding us here today? Who has not heard about the healings and intercessions of the Great-Martyr and Healer Panteleimon, the doctor of this monastic community and its friends, especially (especially!) over the past three months? And of the Mother of God, the protector of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, in her Kursk-Root Icon, through which she healed St. Seraphim when he was a boy after falling out of a bell tower, and who has since performed numerous miracles and continues to protect our church. Or the Theotokos through her Icon, the Softener of Evil Hearts, who holds a special place here, having often visited us exuding that heavenly fragrant myrrh, and who has made herself exceptionally known to our Beloved Schema-archimandrite Panteleimon. Who can neglect to recall the life and miracles of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, his miracles and intercessions, being collected and recorded by Fr. Seraphim Rose of blessed memory. Moreover, his intercessions have not stopped, and pilgrims continually visit the church where his incorrupt relics rest, asking for his prayers and healing, and they receive it.

Let no one doubt, for if painting the lintels of your door with blood would spare your first-born son, and by the raising of the cross in the desert, all those who were bitten by snakes were healed, is this really so unbelievable? Is this so unexpected? Has not Christ risen from the dead and trampled down death by death? This is not surprising, and certainly not for those who know the power of God and the honor which the saints have received from Him.[3]

On Icons and Relics

Although the Saints can be called upon anywhere - while walking, while driving, while working - they have a particular presence in their icons and in their relics, for the grace that gives life and transforms men and women into saints also resides in these objects which become vehicles, channels through which the grace of God acts towards those who seek the help and intercession of saints. Because we come before them in prayer, it is not as though we are standing before a beautiful painting or another form of art and become inspired, but through prayer and a softened heart perhaps stricken by grief or not, petitions are made and, apart from other apparent miracles, life is bestowed and enlivened in the soul. Because of this grace, because of this action, we then are moved to beautify icons and relics by bringing flowers, enshrining the icon, having molebens served because we desire to honor and pay our respects to the saint.

The saints and their lives are a power for us Christians; they are an education, but also a hope, a help, an intercessor, a comfort, a companion. Not only should we read the lives of the saints, read the lives of the saints, read the lives of the saints (that great counsel that once was given), but we should pray to the saints so that we can learn and know why they are the friends of God and our friends also. When we pray to the saints, we will come to know the saints.

Conclusion

John, Baptist and Forerunner pray that we would begin to repent;

Holy Apostles, pray that we would love God;

Prophets, pray that we would accept all that God sends our way;

Martyrs, pray that we would learn to deny ourselves

Hierarchs, pray that we would keep Christ’s commandments;

Ascetics, pray that we discipline our body and make it our slave;

Venerable ones, pray that we would know how fleeting is the world;

Hieromartyrs, pray that we would be crucified with Christ;

God-loving women, pray that we would know the True Life;

All you righteous, pray that our souls be saved;

All you saints, pray to God for us.

Amen.