Our friends, today is the day of the repose of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, and today is the day of the glorification of St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

The Holy Church celebrates the memory of the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian three times a year, and the memory of him always invariably warms our souls.

For a long, very long time, he alone was the ruler of our attention and love on this day, September 26. But three years ago, God's Providence imperiously placed next to the Apostle of Love another of its chosen ones, the First Hierarch, Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow and All Russia. The glorification of the First Hierarch, which took place on this very day, and the memory of him, revived by the discovery of his incorrupt relics, flow into the powerful stream of church memory, which preserves, by the will of God, the traditions of every person who lived by God, who lived by the Church, and especially places on the candlestick of church feasts the names of those who fulfilled the will of God and the teaching of God in their lives in all their fullness.

Thus, two candles are now burning in the Church with the imperishable light of Tabor, illuminating our way to heaven with their lives.

The Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian is the first link in the unbroken chain of grace-filled succession from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in the first century of Christianity, and the last link is the Holy Martyr Tikhon, who was twenty centuries removed from the days of Christ the Savior's sojourn on earth.

And will we not wonder why the Lord so united His two chosen ones here on earth? Did they not live with one heart, with one mind, although at different times and in different conditions, did they not accomplish the same deed, living on earth, in order to unite both in eternity and on earth in the memory of people? Let us look more closely at their life and draw from the source of ever-flowing living water, which gives immortality to the soul.

The Apostle John, with the purity of his virgin soul, loved the Lord so much that no earthly attachments weighed him down in life. He gave God his heart, full of aromas of pure and holy love only for Him. At a very young age he left the house of his father, the fisherman Zebedee, and responded to the preaching of the Forerunner of Christ, calling upon the people of God to prepare the way for the Lord: "... make His paths straight..." (Luke 3:4). Young John himself embarked on this path in anticipation of Him Who is coming after the Baptist, Who "... will baptize you [people] with the Holy Spirit and with fire..." (Matt. 3:11).