Here is the brightest feature of all the wondrous service of Mary Magdalene to the Church of Christ. On the morning of the Resurrection of Christ, she was vouchsafed to see the Risen Lord, the first of all His disciples [27] (Mark 16:9; John 20:1417), and the first, by direct command of the Lord, was made a messenger, a preacher to them of His Resurrection. The Apostles preached the Resurrection of Christ to the whole world: Mary Magdalene preached the Resurrection of Christ to the Apostles themselves - she was an Apostle to the Apostles.. The Holy Fathers of the Church see in this circumstance a special mystery and wisdom of God's providence.

"The woman," teaches St. Gregory the Theologian, "received the first lie from the mouth of the serpent, and the woman from the mouth of the Risen Lord Himself was the first to hear the joyful truth, so that whose hand dissolved the drink of death, the same would give the cup of life

Sanctified by the contemplation of the Risen Victorious Christ, Who triumphed over death, the fiery Mary Magdalene was a full, decisive witness to the Resurrection of Christ without words. But the Apostles and all those who were with them in the house of John the Theologian did not believe her grace-filled news of the Resurrection of Jesus the Teacher [28]. They "sorrowed, wept, and when they heard that Christ was alive and that she had seen Him, they did not believe" (Mark 16:1011; John 20:18). "Why?..

Mary Magdalene enjoyed the complete undoubted trust of the Apostles. In addition, among the other myrrh-bearers, who also informed the disciples of Christ about the resurrection of their Teacher from the dead at the Lord's Sepulcher by the angels (Luke 24:911, 48; Matt. 28:57; Mark 16), were the mother of the Apostle John the Theologian, and the mother of the Apostle James, and Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, with other pious women, who also enjoyed the full confidence of the Apostles; but they "did not believe them, considering their story to be a dream" (Luke 24:911; Mark 16:1; Matthew 28:1) - So great was the despondency of the small company of Christ's disciples at that time - After the chief priests of the Jews had taken and crucified their Master Jesus, and the Apostles had fled and gone into hiding, they suddenly lost everything, all their personal and national hopes; in them faith in Jesus the Messiah, in His power and glory, was eclipsed; with the loss of faith, the courage of the spirit was also lost; they were also oppressed by the consciousness of their unfulfilled duty before Christ the Teacher, Whom they faint-heartedly left alone in the hands of their enemies and fled (Matt. 28:56; Mark 14:50), and, having no support either in themselves or outside of themselves, they thought more about preserving their own safety "for fear of the Jews" (John 20:19) Until the death of Christ, they all "hoped, that He, their Teacher, is the Messiah Who will deliver Israel" (Luke 24:21), will reveal the glorious earthly kingdom of Israel, but His shameful death on the cross completely destroyed these hopes and dreams of theirs. In the eyes of all people of that time, the crucifixion was the most horrible and shameful death, it was a sign of a terrible "curse" according to the law of Moses (Deuteronomy 21:23; 1 Corinthians 1:23), and in the souls of Jesus' disciples after His crucifixion there remained faith in Him only as a Prophet, "Who was mighty in deed and word before God and all the people" (Luke 24:19) - In the gravely oppressed consciousness of Christ's disciples, the thought did not fit that the true Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, can die as a man and as Jesus actually died on the cross. And although they saw the miraculous resurrection by Jesus of the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:41), the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 5:1117) and Lazarus (John 11:44), but Jesus Himself died, like the other prophets, then He can rise only with all people on the last day; and there has never been an example of the miracle-working prophets themselves being resurrected before this - Peter and John, who saw the tomb of Christ, could not report anything except that it was empty. Only all the women reported about the vision of the angels and the Risen One A tormenting, deeply grave situation And so the more ardent Apostle Peter again went to the Holy Sepulchre, not giving himself an account, not knowing why he had went, since he himself had already seen the empty place where Christ was buried. But now he soon returned and enthusiastically announced to his disciples:

- Truly Christ has risen.. I myself saw Him: He also appeared to me on the way (Luke 24:33; 1 Corinthians 15:5).

Now, it seemed, there were enough witnesses of the Risen One to assure the truth of the Resurrection of Christ, and many of the disciples joyfully believed, but still not all of them [29]. And Mary Magdalene and the other myrrh-bearers, radiant with happiness and despising all dangers from the fierce enemies of Jesus Christ, could not remain calm in one place, and moving from house to house, from one disciple of Christ to another, in purity, simplicity, depth and strength of love for Her Healer and Teacher, enthusiastically repeated the joyful gospel innumerable times:

- Christ is risen! Truly He is risen..

And grace-filled, from the seed of the smallest of all grain seeds, the huge tree of the Church of Christ began to grow [30]. A small handful of disciples sincerely devoted to Christ the Saviour, of whom the most zealous was the Holy Myrrh-Bearer Mary Magdalene, Equal-to-the-Apostles, triumphed over the haughty superstition of paganism, ruled entire kingdoms with their kings, and carried the Divine teaching of Christ from one end to the other, to the whole world of the earth (Acts 1:8), repeating the solemn words of the first gospel of St. Mary Magdalene:

- Christ is risen! Truly He is risen..

These, Christians, are the most important features of the life of the Holy Myrrh-Bearer Mary Magdalene, Equal-to-the-Apostles, which are not subject to any doubt, since they are attested to by the very word of God in the Holy Gospel. - Why are they preserved and offered by the Church, why are they read? - Is it not for the glorification of St. Mary Magdalene? -Oh no! The saints who live in the glory of heaven, in the high and eternal glory of God, have no need of earthly glory, of insignificant glory from men. But by such remembrance of their earthly life, podvigs and virtues, we ourselves are given instruction and motivation to a God-pleasing life and to soul-saving feats. Through the holy Apostle of Christ Paul, the Lord commands us:

- Remember your leaders who preached the Word of God to you; and beholding the end of their lives, imitate their faith (Hebrews 13:7).

And so the Holy Church of Christ preserves for us and offers to our attention sketches of the lives of holy people for our self-examination, self-perfection and salvation through imitation of the faith and spirit of these saints of God, so that we may not become lazy, but imitate those who by faith and long-suffering inherit the promises of God (Hebrews 6:12) - The Holy Myrrh-Bearer Mary Magdalene, Equal-to-the-Apostles, selflessly fulfilled the first and main commandment of Christ the Savior: "She loved the Lord with all her heart, with all her soul, with all her mind, and with all her strength" (Mark 12:3033; Matt. 22:3740). The realization by St. Mary Magdalene under all circumstances of such true, complete love for the Lord serves as a life model for the love of every Christian for God our Savior. And following the example of St. Mary Magdalene, all of us, Christians, must have and manifest self-sacrificing love for God, with all our hearts, with all our desires, aspirations and powers of our souls, and with all our minds, with all our cognitive abilities, we must fully cling to the Lord our Savior. The power of our love for God must be such that no one and nothing can separate us from this love: "neither life nor death, neither height, nor depth, nor creature, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come" (Romans 8:3839).

From the time of the apparitions of the Risen Christ the Savior described by the holy Evangelists and the fiery preaching of St. Mary Magdalene about the Resurrection caused by these apparitions, the surviving New Testament books no longer give details about the activities of St. Mary Magdalene, Equal-to-the-Apostles, and information about her later life is now the subject of tradition [31]. The legends about her subsequent life in several local Christian churches vary greatly in the area from which they come; in essence, however, everywhere these legends report on the zealous Equal-to-the-Apostles activity of St. Mary Magdalene. And the difference in these traditions depends on whom or which of the holy women of the Gospel do these churches understand under the name of St. Mary Magdalene, Equal-to-the-Apostles? Some Christian Churches of the West, as well as the Fathers of the Church with learned theologians, unite three Gospel wives into one or two persons: a sinner who repented in the house of Simon the Pharisee, poured her tears on the feet of Christ the Saviour, wiped her hair and anointed with precious myrrh (Luke 7:3738; Mark 14; Matt. 26), and then Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus (Luke 10:39; John 11:28), - and also Mary Magdalene, who was freed by Christ the Savior from the seven demons [32] (John chapters 11, 12, 19 and 20; Mark 16:3; Matt. 27:7). But the Eastern Greek-Russian Orthodox Church now, as before, recognizes all these three personalities mentioned in the Gospels with different signs as different, special, not wishing to base historical information on arbitrary, only probable interpretations. As a result, the tradition of the Eastern Greek-Russian Orthodox Church reports that, after the Gospel apparitions of the Risen Christ before His Ascension and after, St. Mary Magdalene, Equal-to-the-Apostles, dwelt with the Most Holy Theotokos and the Apostles, and was an active accomplice of the first successes in the spread of the Christian faith, first in Jerusalem. But, full of zeal, fervent faith and zealous love for the gospel of God, she then preached in other countries, everywhere proclaiming heavenly grace, joy and salvation to all who believed in the Savior of the world, the Risen Christ.

Having visited, among other things, Italy [33], St. Mary Magdalene, Equal-to-the-Apostles, found an opportunity to appear before the then reigning emperor Tiberius I [34] and presented him, according to the generally accepted Eastern custom, an egg dyed red, saying: