Costas

"No one is in despair, except for the one who thinks it befits him to be in despair... Even if someone transcends in sin all the people who have been born so far, and I will add, all who will be until the end of the world, even then, it is impossible to make God hate him."

@KalebAtlanta This interview was before she was added, which I forgot had already occurred

@CrypticCostas Moscow already added Saint Olga to their calendar so what's that mean

"[Tsar Paul] was a confessor, a reformer, a pious man who strove to be a Tsar for all people. He deserves glorification, and the process should be expedited so that it may begin." -Archbishop Gabriel of Montreal, Head of the ROCOR Commission on Glorification (10/08/2024)

@oanagnostes I'd argue the name is intended to form a halo here, multiple icons from this iconostasis use a similar style (Ezekiel, Deborah, Moses, and Joshua from the same iconostasis)

@CrypticCostas No real nimbus, tho, unless the stylized name counts.

Icon of Judge Samson from the iconostasis of the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg (1727-1728):

@OrthodoxWario @KingMic92357513 Many saints unfortunately do not have akathists, even very well known ones. Samson is praised in the hymnography of the church, see the service for the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers.

@CrypticCostas @KingMic92357513 so one book? dubious at best since we have zero akathists or hymns to samson

Hey! I'm doing as I usually do when I'm either proven wrong or shown that something I believe isn't the case. I'm humbling myself and admitting that I was incorrect on a topic! So, through the conversations on here listening and reading the things that people say, as well as asking my Parish priest, I have learned and I'm happy to submit to the fact that Samson is in fact a saint of the church. Well yes, I don't see much literature or anything that actually shows him to be a saint, I can accept just fine and without issue that the things people have shown me is enough to be correct and show me that I was incorrect. I'm allowed to be wrong sometimes. And just like I did with Ethan Wayne regarding the actual standards of what it means to be a canonical priest, I am more than happy to admit that I was wrong on this. Foot in mouth disease is something that I sometimes am inflicted with. This was one of those times. Thank you for coming to my periodic Ted Talk of Mickey is wrong sometimes! But in all seriousness, I appreciate everyone who responded to me and provided the evidences that you did. And I asked her forgiveness for having to deal with a headache that is me while I have the foot in mouth disease.

@OrthodoxWario @KingMic92357513 There are actually quite a few, though hard to come by online. A good example are the iconographic scenes depicted on the Vatopedi Octateuch (ca. 1270–1300), which notably depict a halo'd Samson. Here's also a modern icon.

@KingMic92357513 Samson has no icons, how is he a saint?

@KingMic92357513 Thank you boss man

I am the #1 Samson defender

@YoungPenitent @KingMic92357513 @YariLogos I have some crazy news

@CrypticCostas @KingMic92357513 @YariLogos Solomon isn't considered a Saint, despite being included in the services and in iconography.

These people exist. Like... They actually exist.

@KingMic92357513 @EkhartHasselhof @YariLogos Can you find an entry for Adam on any of these websites?

@CrypticCostas @EkhartHasselhof @YariLogos Logically it would seem so. But other than maybe that one source you showed. I have seen and heard zero diocese (OCA, GOARCH, ROCOR, Antioch, etc.,) website that speaks to Saints claim him. So I'm going to err on that.

@KingMic92357513 @EkhartHasselhof @YariLogos Then that would make him a saint, in the same way Adam is a saint

@CrypticCostas @EkhartHasselhof @YariLogos Thats what the Harrowing of Hades was for. Idk or remember if it's the case, but if he died in repentance, he probably was one of those saved.

@KingMic92357513 @EkhartHasselhof @YariLogos The quotes you provided indicate that he's a Christ type. Of course his life is cautionary, he was a sinner like us, but he died in repentance, which should be exemplary to us. If there is no hope for Samson, then there is no hope for us. I think St. John Chrys. sums this up well

His life, as far as I can tell, is that he isn't a Saimt but his life should be used or often viewed as cautionary rather than exemplary. 14:5-9 St. Ephraim the Syrian writes that Christ, prefigured in Samson, also “tore the lion, an image of death ... and caused to go forth from his bitterness the sweetness of life for men.” <--- OSB 15:18-19 For all Samson's strength, he nearly died of thirst. Jesus said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink” (Jn 7:37). Even the strong are utterly dependent on God, who by a miracle provided water. <---- OSB 16:4 Alsorech is the valley of Sorek. Delilah, though we are not told, presumably was a Philistine. Samson's love for her for a time proved stronger than his call from God to deliver Israel (see Jdg 13:5), and brought him down (see Jdg 16:15-17). <--- OSB 16:23-30 St. Irenaeus writes on this passage: “The lad who guided Samson by the hand (v. 26) typifies John the Baptist, who showed to the people the faith in Christ. And the house in which they were assembled signifies the world, in which dwell the various heathen and unbelieving nations, offering sacrifice to the idols. Moreover, the two pillars are the two covenants. Samson leaning himself upon the pillars indicates this: that the people, when instructed, recognized the mystery of Christ.”16:25 The phrase let him play before us likely refers to their request that he do tricks only a strong man could do." <---- OSB

@KingMic92357513 @YariLogos No offense, but at this point I think you're just being purposefully obtuse. How is a "Hero of the faith" not a saint?

@CrypticCostas @YariLogos Hero of the faith yes. But not Saint. I did read the link

@KingMic92357513 @YariLogos I don't know how you concluded that based on what I posted, a "local saint" isn't commemorated universally in every jurisdiction's hymnography. Did you open the link I posted? It goes to a respected Russian calendar, which lists him among the Holy Forefathers.

@CrypticCostas @YariLogos He's considered one Locally, in the same way Fr. Seraphim Rose is locally commemorated as one as far as I can tell. But he isn't Recognized universally by the Church as a Saint. He isn't a Saint.

@KingMic92357513 @YariLogos Samson has relics, is in our hymnography & iconography, praised in the NT, praised by the saints (attached is an excerpt from St. Agobard of Lyon), & is commemorated as a saint on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers (see hymnography) azbyka.ru/days/sv-sampso… x.com/TheTabellion/s…

This Sampson is. Please provide a source for Sampson from an offical Orthodox source (website or some place verifiable) that shows this to be the case. Because zero sources anywhere that ive seen shoes this. oca.org/saints/lives/1… The Orthodox view of "Sampson" depends on which figure is meant. At very best and giving the most possible charity, Samson the Judge is not a saint. Sampson the Hospitable is a recognized saint, and Blessed Sampson the Elder is a revered spiritual figure.

"To John Catacuzenos, who is at rest with the pious, our ever-memorable, most pious and Christ-loving emperor, who by the divine and angelic Habit was renamed Ioasaph, Eternal Memory (x3)" -Synodikon of Orthodoxy

@KalebAtlanta He was also the bishop who invited Bp. Gerasimos of Abydos to America and appointed him as a professor at Holy Cross

Upon reading “Ancestral Sin” by Fr. John Romanides, Archbishop Michael of the Greek Americans said he was taken by “demonic pride, egoism and self-promotion,” that he was “subversive,” and that he was not “dedicated to the Orthodox faith and tradition.”

(Lives of the Holy Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow, ch. 5) The second image pictured above is a reconstruction of a stained glass window using fragments excavated at Jarrow monastery (7th - 8th c.) en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lives_of_…

"When the work was drawing to completion, he [St. Benedict Biscop] sent messengers to Gaul to fetch makers of glass, (more properly artificers,) who were at this time unknown in Britain, that they might glaze the windows of his church..." -St. Bede the Venerable