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| The ruins of the Sepulchre Basilica of St John the Theologian. Ephesus, Turkey |
Epitaph on the Grave of St John the Theologian:
“This is my rest for ever: here will I
dwell; for I have desired it.” – Ps 131:14
“The entire later destiny of St John the Theologian was completely different from the destiny of the other Apostles of Christ. While all the others ended their earthly life in martyrdom for Christ, St John the Theologian outlived them all to deep old age. He was the one apostle who died a natural, but very mysterious death. Did he just die? There is an ancient tradition which says that his body was not found in his grave just a few days after his death, as if he is alive and that will live until the second coming of Christ, and that he will appear before all and unmask the Antichrist. This belief is in part immortalized in our church hymnody.”
– Archbishop Averky of Jordanville. “The Apostle of Love.” Modernity in the Light of God’s Word. Holy Trinity Monastery Press, Jordanville, NY, 1975, vol. III, p. 148 (in Russian)
The
Wonder-working Tomb
St John the Theologian’s life, nearly half of which he spent in Ephesus (43 years in total including the time before and after his exile on Patmos), ended mysteriously, as his hagiography recounts. It is said that St John went out of Ephesus, taking seven of his disciples with him to a nearby hill, which according to tradition was his favorite place. Here he often went by himself to pray, and it was on the top of this hill that he wrote his Gospel. There he ordered his disciples to dig him a cross-shaped grave and to bury him alive.
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| “The Repose of St John the Theologian” – Fresco from Dečani Monastery, Serbia, XIV century. On the fresco St John’s disciples bury him alive and then open his empty tomb. In the background, St John is alive but hiding behind the hill. |
When
the other Christians of Ephesus heard of his repose, they grieved because they
had not bid farewell to their beloved teacher.
They came to his tomb and opened it, but they did not find the body of
the holy apostle. Every year, on the eighth of May, a fine, fragrant dust came
out of the grave as a comfort to his disciples and later to all Christians.
This dust, which was called “manna,[i]”
through the prayers of St John granted both healing and spiritual comfort to
all those who came in contact with it.
The Akathist to St John describes this miracle as follows:
“Grace is given from God at the place where thy body was given to the earth, so that on the day of thy burial it exudes a fine dust that heals the sick…” (Kontakion 12).
Since
that time his grave became a great place of veneration, not just for the
Christians of Ephesus and Asia Minor, but for all of Christendom. During the 2nd
and 3rd centuries a small church, a martyrium, was built
there. In the 4th century,
the Emperor Theodosios I the Great built a great basilica (75 x 44 m) on the
same spot, which an earthquake severely damaged in the 5th century.
In the 6th century, the Emperor
Justinian I (by some accounts a Slav named Upravda), the greatest Byzantine
builder, built a much bigger basilica (130 x 65 m), which in its beauty and
richness was only comparable to the greatest churches of Constantinople also
built by St Justinian, the Hagia Sophia and the Church of the Holy Apostles.
Roman
chronicles testify that the Sepulcher Basilica of St John the Theologian became
the most-visited pilgrimage center to
which streamed believers from all corners of Christendom, both East and West.
The miracle of the holy dust, which lasted for over nine centuries, surely
contributed to its popularity. The miracle always took place during the
all-night vigil on the eve of the feast of St John, that is, on the night of
the 7th to the 8th of May according to the Julian
calendar. The famous Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea wrote, among other
things,
“The shrine of St John the Theologian was one of the most revered holy places and enjoyed great honor throughout the Roman empire.”
After
the conquests of the Selçuks during the 11th century, the Basilica of St John
changed hands between the Byzantines and the Anatolian Turks several times. It
was turned into a mosque before being finally razed to the foundations by Tamerlane
in 1402 during his attacks on the Ottoman Empire. Since then, the ruins of St
John’s Basilica were forgotten until the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922)[ii],
when the Greeks began archeological excavations of the holy site during their
short occupation of the territory.
Now,
millions of tourists from all over the world annually visit the remains of the
Basilica of St John the Theologian and the archeological site of ancient
Ephesus. Unfortunately, true pilgrimages to this important Christian shrine, if
they have not completely ceased, have, with few exceptions, taken on the spirit
of profane modern tourism.
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| from the air: marked by the cross on the left, the Sepulcher Basilica of St John the Theologian, cross on the right, the Hermitage of the Theologian |
The
Sepulcher Hermitage of St John the Theologian in Ephesus (Selçuk)
As of this July, 2023, Bishop Akakije of Uteshiteljevo has founded an Orthodox hermitage by the sepulcher of St John the Theologian, purchasing the only house in all of Ephesus, or rather the village of Agios Theologos (modern Selçuk) that is no more than eighty meters from his miraculous tomb. (!) This is the only house sharing the street with the complex which contains St John’s tomb, whose official address is The Basilica of St John, Isa Bey Mahallesi 2013 Sk #1, Selcuk, 35920 Turkey. The hermitage has the same address, being #2 on the street. It is no exaggeration to say that the residents of the hermitage will be the first, only, and nearest neighbors of St John the Theologian.
Bishop Akakije is dedicating the Hermitage of the Theologian to the memory of the miraculous dust which streamed from this place for more than nine centuries, to which the Church dedicated a particular feastday, the 8/21 of May.
The
main inspiration for founding a hermitage by the grave of St John the Theologian
sprang first of all from a long devotion to the saint. Naturally from this
devotion came a wish to establish a place of prayer at this remarkable,
mystical place. If only, after so many centuries of darkness, the light of an
Orthodox lampada (oil lamp) might once more flicker there! The existence of the hermitage is a big goal, granting the possibility of spending time at
Ephesus in prayerful faith and hope that through his prayerful intercession,
the bosom friend of Christ will bring us closer to our Savior, of Whose breast
we are unworthy. As our holy Bishop
Nikolai (Velimirovich) sings, “but at least we can be near His feet!”
The caretakers, in turns, of the Sepulcher Hermitage of St John the Theologian, will be the nuns of the Serbian Orthodox monasteries Uteshiteljvo and Novi Stjenik, along with the nuns of Russian Orthodox monastery Lesna (France).
St
John the Theologian, Pray to God for us!
[i] Named
after the manna from the Old Testament, the miraculous bread from the heavens
with which God fed the Hebrew nation led by Moses over their 40 year wandering
in the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt.
[ii] The
entire autonomous Greek Orthodox population in Asia Minor ceased to exist after
the defeat of the Greeks in the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) and exchange of populations due to the Lausanne Treaty
(1923).
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