Sts. Joachim and Anna, Righteous Ancestors of God 

Their veneration is a long-standing one in the Church. Many Dismissals at the end of services include their commemoration. They have always been especially honoured by fathers and mothers as the patrons of parenting and of good marriages. Popular Icons portray them together, sometimes hugging one another. Others portray them with their beloved Daughter, the Virgin Mary.

The parents of the Mother of God remind us of the obligations that married Christians have toward one another, especially in this age of "quickie" divorces.

The theme of hugging that is present in a number of their Icons speaks to us at an even deeper level. We live in a technological society which can often be very depersonalizing and where true intimacy is lost.

People who study human behaviour say we need to be hugged and smiled at regularly! Albert Schweitzer once said that smiles across subways have stayed suicides.

For me, one of the most attractive aspects of the Orthodox Church is the way intimacy is celebrated liturgically. There is the three-fold kiss which Priests and Bishops exchange at the Altar with the words: "Christ is among us! He is and shall be!" Lay Christians may also greet each other this way as they say: "Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!" There are the many blessings and anointings on feast-days. There is the intimacy of the Mystery of Confession and the relationship with one's spiritual father. Even the tapping on one's shoulders with the willows on Palm Sunday - all these are instances of a spiritual intimacy that Christians share and celebrate.

Today we call to mind our basic need to give love and receive love in tangible ways. In addition to our liturgical prayers and meditations, let's give our loved ones an extra hug and kiss!

A great Ukrainian Kozak Saint, St Theodore of Chernihiv, is celebrated today as well. His Relics were uncovered the year of His glorification in 1896. 

He was so popular with Ukrainians and especially the Kozaks that seven popular Akathists were written in his honour - all of which were rejected by Church authorities and eventually replaced by another one. The Kozaks knew tropars and kondaks to St Theodore off by heart and sang them before going into battle.

Another uncovering of the Relics of this great Saint took place during less auspicious circumstances in the twentieth century, however. At the height of the Bolshevik persecution of the Church during the thirties, the then Archbishop of Chernihiv, also Theodosius, who later became a New Martyr, was forced by the Reds to open the Relics of the Kozak Saint.

The Bolsheviks wanted to photograph the Relics as "proof" that they were not incorruptible as claimed by the Church. Well, the photographs were taken and the atheist Moscow academy had to admit, and this publicly, that St Theodosius's Relics were, in fact, incorrupt.

Speaking of the Kozaks, the memorial of the great Kozak Hetman, Ivan Mazeppa, is kept on this day of his death. Mazeppa turned against Peter I and fought against him in an alliance with King Charles XII of Sweden. Both King and Hetman were defeated at Poltava in 1709, however. The night before, King Charles was shot in the foot by a Russian soldier and was too ill to attend the battle the next day. Without the King, the Swedish commanders cooperated poorly amongst themselves and this gave the Russians a great advantage.

For opposing Peter I, the Russian Church excommunicated Hetman Ivan Mazeppa and this excommunication has lasted until this day. One may still find special "services" for this day in Russian office books where Ivan Mazeppa is compared to Judas Iscariot, with the exception that Mazeppa is portrayed as being "Thrice the traitor."

It is interesting that, until the fortunes of Peter turned in his favour, the Russian Church had considered their Tsar a lackey of western, and therefore heretical, culture.

As a result of his formal excommunication, Orthodox priests sympathetic to Mazeppa could not hold formal memorial services for their Hetman. Ukrainian Orthodox Christians sometimes asked Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests to do these. We should all ask our priests to hold Divine Liturgies and Panakhydas in memory of Hetman Ivan Mazeppa at this time.

There is an interesting story about the Hetman. At the Ukrainian village of Kaplunivka, there was and still is a Miraculous Icon of the Mother of God of Kazan in its Church. The Swedes, being iconoclastic Lutherans, tried to burn the Church down. As the Church would not set fire, Charles then asked Mazeppa why something so miraculous should occur at the Church. Mazeppa then explained to his irreverent ally that there was a Miraculous, Weeping Icon in the Church. When Mazeppa told Charles that the Icon of Kaplunivka was then in the hands of Peter I, Charles was said to exclaim, "Then how can we hope to conquer Peter with that Icon, when we can't burn down the Church that once had it?"

The Feast of the Icon of Kaplunivka is on the second day after the repose of the Hetman, on September 11/24.