A Serbian icon of the Virgin Mary ‘with three hands’ (in Greek ‘Panagia Tricherousa’). The third hand, in silver at the bottom left of the image, represents the hand of St John Damascene: tradition records that after he received his miracle of healing, John in thanksgiving fashioned a small silver hand and attached it to the icon of Mary in front of which he had prayed so fervently. John was deeply devoted to the Virgin Mary. He wrote a number of sermons for her feast days, the best-known being three homilies for the feast of her repose (the ‘dormition’ or falling asleep of Mary) on August 15th each year.
Part 1 of 3
ON the death of his father, John Mansur was sent for to court,* and raised to a yet higher office than his father had occupied, being made protosymbulus, or chief councillor. Meantime the great controversy on image-worship broke out.* The Emperor Leo the Isaurian,* the “roaring lion,”* had issued his first edict against the practice (AD 726). At such a challenge the privy-councillor of Damascus could not remain silent. He girded up his loins to the contest with a zeal like that of Elias in the days of Ahab.* To animate the orthodox in the faith to resistance, he sent out circular letters, to be passed from hand to hand among the Christians. This roused the anger of the emperor.
Unable to crush his opponent by force, as being a subject of a hostile power, he has recourse to stratagem. Having succeeded in intercepting an autograph letter of John of Damascus,* he lays it before some of his scribes, that they may familiarise themselves both with the form of the characters and the turn of expression. He then bids them concoct a letter, in imitation of John’s writing, purporting to be addressed to himself, in which John is made to propose a treasonable surrender of Damascus, if the emperor would send a force thither.
* This was the court of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 724-743), Caliph of Damascus in Syria. On the life of John Mansur, see St John Damascene.
* The Iconoclastic Controversy flared up in the 720s when leading churchmen and politicians in the Roman Empire began calling for religious art showing Christ and his saints to be removed from churches. Apparently they were afraid that the Roman Empire’s military defeats were a divine chastisement for the sin of idolatry, a theme to be found throughout the history of the Kings of Judah in the Old Testament. Government edicts and Church councils ordered all sacred art scrubbed clean, and punished those who refused to comply, but a council held in Nicaea in 787 reversed the policy in Church and State after proving that the ‘iconoclasts’ (image-smashers) had gravely misread the Bible. See The Restoration of the Icons.
* Leo III the Isaurian (675-741), Roman Emperor from 717 to his death in 741. Isauria was a region of what is now southwestern Turkey.
* Leo is Latin (and Greek, leon) for lion. The author of this English account of John Mansur and the icon controversy, schoolmaster Joseph Hirst Lupton (1836-1905), is paraphrasing the traditional life of St John Damascene as told by John, Patriarch of Jerusalem, presumably either John VI (838–842) or John VII (964–966). Patriarch John linked Leo to 1 Peter 5:8: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith”.
* Another Biblical allusion courtesy of Patriarch John, referring to Elijah the Tishbite (Elias), the prophet who contended against Ahab, King of Judah: see 1 Kings 17. John also likened John Mansur to their namesake John the Baptist, the prophet whose uncompromising message stirred the wrath of Herod Antipas.
* That is, John Mansur. He is commonly known as St John of Damascus though properly speaking his name is St John Damascene (in Greek Damaskinós), since he was not bishop of Damascus. Damaskinós (Damaskin in Russia) is sometimes taken as a name by Orthodox clergy, and in 1944 Archbishop Damaskinós of Athens (1891-1949) showed a defiance of authority that surely made his namesake proud: see ‘Please Respect our Traditions’.
Précis
In 726, Roman Emperor Leo III ordered a crackdown on religious art in his empire. John Mansur spoke out against the edict, relying on his exalted position in the court of the Caliph of Damascus to protect him. But high office was no protection after Leo’s forgers put a treasonous letter, apparently in John’s handwriting, into the astonished Caliph’s hands. (59 / 60 words)
Part Two
The Hilandar monastery on Mount Athos, Greece, was founded in 1198 by Serbian Prince Rastko Nemanjić (1174-1236), six years after he resigned his post as governor of Hum. In 1219 he was consecrated Archbishop of Serbia, the first to hold that title. In 1229 Archbishop Sava (his monastic name) went to Jerusalem, and visited the monastery of Mar Saba, founded in 483 by his personal patron St Sabbas the Sanctified. There he obtained permission to take home to Serbia the precious icon of Mary before which St John Damascene had prayed (with the extra silver hand fashioned by the grateful saint), and later gave it to the monks at Hilandar, where it remains to this day. See a picture at Wikimedia Commons.
THE Saracen guard at Damascus (so the letter ran) was weak and negligently kept, and if Leo would despatch a band of resolute men he would capture the city with little trouble. The writer would aid in bringing about such a result. This forged letter was then forwarded to the caliph, with another from the emperor himself. Let the caliph look to his Christian subjects, when such were the proposals they were capable of making. On receipt of this, John was summoned at once to the presence of the Mahometan ruler, and the letter shown him. He admitted the similarity of the writing, but indignantly denied the authorship of it.
His denial, and his appeal for a respite in which to prove his innocence, were alike vain. The sentence was given that his offending right hand should be chopped off. This was done; and that same hand which was lately dipped in ink in defence of the truth, was now dipped in blood. When evening came, the pain of the wound being intolerable, John ventured to petition the caliph for the restitution of the amputated member, that it might receive burial, instead of being left hanging up in the market place. The desired request was granted, and the hand sent back.
Précis
Leo’s forgers knew their business, and John’s protestations of innocence fell on deaf ears. The Caliph, convinced that John had conspired against him, ordered the hand that supposedly betrayed him to be cut off. At first it was publicly displayed, but John begged for the hand to be given over into his keeping and the Caliph relented. (57 / 60 words)
Part Three
A view at sundown across the Mar Saba monastery in Israel, some eight miles southeast of Jerusalem. The photographer is looking west, across a meander in the Brook of Kidron; a little over six miles behind him, to the east, is the Dead Sea. The monastery, properly named the Holy Lavra of Saint Sabbas and known in Syriac as Mar Saba, was founded in 483 by St Sabbas the Sanctified (439-532). It lies within the territory of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The monastery’s ‘typikon’ (way of doing sacred rites) spread to Constantinople and thence to all the Eastern Churches. John Damascene himself is credited with composing many of its hymns and collects, and but for his defiance of authority in State and Church alike our churches would have no visible reminders that God ‘became man, and dwelt among us’.
THEN John, prostrating himself before an image of the Virgin in his private chapel, poured out his soul in supplication, praying that the hand which he placed against his mutilated arm might grow again to the limb from which it had been severed.* He falls asleep, worn out with pain and weariness, and in a dream beholds the Holy Virgin signifying that his prayer is heard.* The vision comes true. On starting up he finds his hand to be indeed restored whole as the other.
The news of this miracle soon reaches the ears of the caliph. John is again summoned to his presence, and strictly questioned. His enemies try in vain to explain it away; the red line showing where the knife had gone still remains visible, and no earthly physician could have wrought such a work of healing. The caliph is convinced, and would fain have had the sufferer resume his former office. But John pleaded so earnestly for relief to retire from public affairs that his master yielded; and so, having disposed of all his worldly goods, he set out, accompanied by his old companion Cosmas, for the convent of St Sabas.
* According to Patriarch John of Jerusalem, John Mansur’s prayer to the Virgin Mary went something like this:
LADY, purest mother, who gave birth to my God:
For the sake of the divine images, my right hand had been severed.
You are not ignorant of the reason why Leo has lost his mind.
Hurry then, be quick, and heal my hand.
The Right Hand of the Most High, who took flesh from you,
Does many deeds of power through your intercession.
Let him now heal my right hand by your entreaties,
That I might compose your hymns — hymns which you inspire —
And hymns of him that was born of you,
In harmony and in good metre, O Birth-giver of God,
So making me a fellow-labourer in Orthodox worship.
For you are the Mother of God
And can do whatever you please.
* “Behold your hand is healthy” said Mary to him in his dream; “do not delay, but make it the pen of a ready writer, as you promised me just now.” The reference is to Psalm 45:1-2.
Précis
John placed the severed hand beside an icon of Mary, and prayed tearfully for her to restore it to him. As in a dream, he heard Mary say she had answered his prayer; and waking he found it was true. The chastened Caliph offered John his old job back, but he retired instead to the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem. (60 / 60 words)
