Paideía & Praxís - Nov. 25: St. Clement of Rome

November 25- Holy Hieromartyr Clement, Bishop of Rome (†101 AD)

Clement was born in Rome around 35 AD, to a noble and wealthy family. Stories tell of his mother and two brothers being lost during a tumultuous sea voyage, and his father disappearing as well, upon journeying out to search for them. He was raised by guardians, and received a fine education, surrounded by luxury and access to the Imperial Court. When news of Christ and his teachings began reaching Rome, Clement, failing to find satisfaction in either the comforts of wealth or the wisdom of the pagans, left home in search of truth.

He ended up in Alexandria, a large port city of Egypt that had been founded by Alexander the Great around 120 years before Clement arrived there. Known for its scholarship and learning, trade and commerce, he would have arrived by ship into Alexandria’s great harbor, greeted by its colossal Pharos lighthouse (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World). According to Tradition, the Apostle, St. Mark had founded the Church of Alexandria around 42 AD, and established a Chrsitian school there which would later come to produce such fathers and teachers of the Church as Clement of Alexandria (†~215 AD), St. Dionysius of Alexandria (†~265 AD), and St. Gregory the Wonderworker (or Thaumatourgos) (†~275 AD), who we read about earlier. In Alexandria, Clement met the Holy Apostle Barnabus (one of the Seventy Apostles), and in listening to his words he perceived the power and truth of the Word of God.

Clement then traveled to Palestine where he was baptized by the holy Apostle Peter, and he became St. Peter’s zealous disciple, co-laborer, and companion. St. Clement was among the first bishops of Rome, and is considered the first Apostolic Father of the Church. His life of virtue, prayer, and caring for those in need, whether Christians, Jews, or pagans, led many to follow Christ. It is said that he once baptized 424 people on the day of Pascha, and among them were slaves, officials, poor, rich, even noblemen and friends of the emperor.

During the persecution of Trajan (98-117), the Emperor banished St. Clement from the capital for scorning the gods, and sent him to a stone quarry in what is now known as Crimea, near the city of Cherson, and it is told that many of his disciples followed him to exile there. Many people had been banished there to work the quarry, among them a great number of Christians, and St. Clement joyfully shepherded them, comforted them, and joined them in their labors.

According to Tradition, there was a severe lack of water in the quarries, and St. Clement said to them:

Let us all pray unto our Lord that he open to us, his confessors, in this place here, the veins of a fountain or of a well, and that he that smote the stone in desert of Sinai and water flowed abundantly, he give to us running water so that we may be enjoyed of his benefits.

And after praying, he looked up, and saw a lamb standing on a hill and the lamb struck at the ground with one hoof. St. Clement hit the spot with his pickaxe, a gushing stream of clear water burst forth that turned into a great river. Joyfully, as a result of this miracle many local pagans and fellow prisoners became Christians and 500 more were baptised, destroying temples and idols throughout the province and it is said that seventy-five churches were built, and that a church was even built in the quarry. This of course greatly angered Emperor Trajan all the more, and he ordered that St. Clement be taken out in a boat and thrown into the Black Sea, an anchor tied to his neck, so that the Christians would not be able to find his body.

Cast into the waters, St. Clement gave up his soul, yet through his martyrdom, many more miracles were wrought and the power of God was displayed. The saint’s faithful disciples Cornelius and Fibius prayed with the people that the Lord would allow them to see the body of their dear archpastor. In response, the sea drew back three miles from the shore and the people walked out on the seabed until they reached a divinely-built marble cave shaped like a church, and there they found the incorrupt body of St. Clement. After this, each year on the anniversary of Saint Clement’s death, the sea receded for seven days, so Christians could venerate his holy relics.

Later in the 9th century, Saints Cyril and Methodius, great missionaries to the Slavic people and enlighteners of what we now know as Russia, miraculously found St. Clement’s relics, and they were taken to Constantinople, and later to Rome.

St. Clement, considered an Apostolic Father, has left to us a spiritual legacy, including two epistles to the Corinthian church, which are the first written examples of Christian teaching after the writings of the holy Apostles. In his first epistle, he reminds the Corinthians of Sts. Peter and Paul as examples for them, and says in exhortation: “Let us fix our eyes on the blood of Christ and understand how precious it is unto his Father, because being shed for our salvation it won for the whole world the grace of repentance.”

We know the weight of our sin and passions, we know the weakness of our mind and will, we know what it is like to cry out “Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise Thy Name” (Psalm 141:8). Which is why our repentance becomes the hymn of those whose hope is not in ourselves, but in the grace of God. For He is good, and loves mankind.

Which is why we sing during Lent, beginning with the Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee:

Open to me the gates of repentance, O Life-Giver,

For my spirit rises early to pray towards thy holy temple.

Bearing the temple of my body all defiled;

But in Thy compassion, purify me by the loving-kindness of Thy mercy.

St. Clement knew, like most of us, how easily our lives can get entangled in the cares of this world – finances, status, education, comfort, even our safety. Yet sensing in them a fleetingness, he gave them up for “the grace of repentance,” won for us all on the Cross. For as we await the Christ child, we know from our hymns that we rejoice both the Transcendent one born in the cave, and the Bridegroom affixed to the Cross.

A medieval manuscript illumination depicting the martyrdom of Saint Clement of Rome.

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