WHAT DO PRAYERS IN FRONT OF THE ICON OF SAINT LYDIA HELP WITH?

WHAT DO PRAYERS IN FRONT OF THE ICON OF SAINT LYDIA HELP WITH?

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The Orthodox icon of the holy martyr Lydia personifies the image of humility and devotion. St. Lydia lived in Rome in the 2nd century. She was a loving wife and caring mother. The whole family lived in prosperity and prosperity: her husband held an important post at the court of Emperor Hadrian, and she herself took care of the house and raised two children. All family members were Christians.

Saint Lydia is depicted in the icon with a cross in her hand, like all the martyrs, since one day, following the denunciation of an envious dignitary, her entire family was captured and interrogated by the emperor. Everyone confessed that they believed in Christ. Not wanting to make public the fact that a Christian served at court, the emperor sent the entire family to his military leader Amphilochius in the region of Illyria for reprisals. Amphilochius first ordered everyone to be hung on a tree and their skin cut off with knives, and at night he threw them into prison. There the saint prayed and an Angel appeared to the family, strengthening them in the faith. The next day the torture continued. The whole family was thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil. But as soon as this happened, the oil instantly cooled down. Shocked, Amphilochius believed in Christ and freed the holy family. Having learned about this, the emperor himself came and, not believing what had happened, ordered the boiler to be heated for a week. After this period, not only the family of St. Lydia, but also Amphilochius. And again the miracle happened: those thrown into the cauldron remained unharmed. Frustrated, Adrian returned to Rome, and the saints began to pray and thank the Lord, and soon their souls went to Him in peace and tranquility. The holy woman did not renounce Christ even under torture and fear of death, and faith gave her hope of salvation. Russian Orthodox Icons of Lydia can often be seen in icon shops.

What is the help from the icon of St. Lydia - protection from envy

The church icon of St. Lydia helps maintain household well-being, and also protects against human envy and betrayal. The holy martyr patronizes women and girls who bear this name. Orthodox prayer in front of the icon of the martyr will help you find a way out of a difficult situation and strengthen you in moving towards your goal. The icon of the holy martyr will help single women create, and married women will help strengthen and preserve a friendly family.

Where to buy an icon of Saint Lydia?

The Orthodox icon of St. Lydia is a good gift for any woman or girl. After all, we all strive to create a strong family, and she is the first assistant in this difficult task. In addition, the icon of the holy martyr is a must-have at home for everyone for whom she is a heavenly patron and intercessor. As already noted, this image can be easily purchased in temples. But what to do if there is no icon in the temple that matches your characteristics? Fortunately, this does not seem to be a problem today. In the Orthodox online store of church utensils you will certainly find what you need. Lovers of exclusive and handmade items can embroider the icon of St. Lydia with their own hands using beads, crosses, and other techniques. Ready-made embroidery kits, available in a wide range on the pages of online stores for needlewomen, will help you do this.

Travels of the Apostle Paul, chapters 13–20

As “he listened to Paul speak, the apostle looked at him and saw that he had faith to receive healing” (Acts 14:9). Isn’t this how angels look and peer into our essence when God’s Providence calls us and carries us towards spiritual life?

There is a kind of constant study of us, observation of us from the side of God's invisible world, observation of our essence, in various states of our soul and in various situations in life. It’s like they’re filming us all the time with an “X-ray!” Our every condition gives rise to a corresponding call of God's Grace, its living and personal response to the expression and direction of our freedom. He who loves us here on earth peers keenly at us; our guardian angels, invisible to bodily eyes, peer at us a thousand times more vigilantly... How much more does the Eye of God gaze at us!

Everything in the world is arranged so that our will, our freedom, our personality manifests itself all the time. Man is constantly placed in thousands of different conditions and situations in the world, external and internal; and through every circumstance of our internal and external life, the Love of God wants to carve a spark of heavenly existence from the stone of his soul. This spark is a person’s response to the call of Grace; a spark is an echo of a person’s will to Providence, spread over him, or over those around him.

Orlino - the keen, angelic gaze of the apostle reveals the highest pneumatological reality of the world, about which people in the world are so weakly and imperfectly aware, usually remaining only on the carnal or spiritual, psychological plane; the psychophysical world also has its own world of sophistication and a kind of “spirituality” (false, of course), from which all the delusions of the world grow.

True spirituality and insight is a direct consequence of the purification of the human heart and its union with the Spirit of Truth. This spiritual vision, which sees and foresees the reality of the eternal world, is given by the Lord on earth to people only for the sake of saving them and other souls and is entrusted only to those who are recognized and called to be true companions and co-workers of the Providence of God in the world, sons who know the will of the Father.

The apostles had this gift to a high degree. They not only worshiped God “in spirit and truth,” but they also saw the whole world and humanity in spirit and truth. The mental “jaggedness” and complexity of humanity did not matter to the apostles.

The apostle knew how to be - not out of hypocrisy, of course, and not for earthly gain (as people of this age do), but out of love for every soul - “to the Greek as to the Greek, to the Jew as to the Jew” (1 Cor. 9: 20). He was with the weak as weak, with the strong as strong, in order to reveal the truth to everyone and save everyone who had revealed the truth. The soul of the apostle, freed from everyday, everyday, racial, national and psychological limitations and the subordination of time, with its provincial division of people, could go everywhere, always remaining free in Christ. This soul of the new humanity, dead not only to sin, but also to its natural consequences (for the “scars of sin”), a soul already floating in the boundless ocean of divine life, saw, of course, the slightest sign of another person’s conversion to Christ. Thus the apostle’s quick glance rested on one of “these little ones,” on a lame man in the city of Lystra, where the apostle preached, and at the very moment of his sermon.

From this we see that the apostle not only spoke; He knew how to listen in spirit to all those to whom he spoke. This remarkable feature (rare in preachers of religious truth) shows us the spirit of true preaching. This trait is so rare in the world, despite the abundance of preachers, precisely because those who speak do not listen (at the same time), and if they listen, they do not truly hear those to whom they speak. Hearing in the spirit of others as one speaks is a gift that accompanies the ministry of true preaching. This is the gift of addressing each individual separately and personally, even at a time when there are thousands of listeners in front of the preacher.

The action of the Spirit of God in the world is universal and, at the same time, it is unique personally, in relation to each person. This is the very divine content of the Gospel, in contrast to the rest of the books of the world. The word of true preachers is the same. To the extent of their acceptance of the fire of the Spirit, they see what a person needs.

The lame man in Lystra had to be given water to drink, not only for spiritual, but also physical healing. The Apostle immediately noticed this and saw that the lame man “has faith to receive healing” (Acts 14:9), that is, that he is not only able to psychologically believe in the possibility of his healing, but is also pneumatologically mature for this healing that healing will not harm him, his salvation; It will even help you come closer to God. That it will be a blessing both for him and for other people. The apostle immediately noticed all this, unmistakably (here it is, the apostolic fiery!) determined with his spirit... What other insensitive and blind in spirit “missed”, the apostle (the true “Builder of the mysteries of God”) immediately noticed. And he took advantage immediately, with all the fervor of his love for God and man. He looked, noticed and - immediately - in a loud, hot voice coming from the heart, he said: “I say to you” (here is the love of the Father), “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ: stand upright on your feet”; “And he immediately” (everything that is genuine happens immediately outside of human time) “jumped up and began to walk” (Acts 14:10).

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WOMEN OF THE BIBLE
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36 Lydia

“And a certain woman from the city of Thyatira, named Lydia, a merchant of purple, who worshiped God, listened; and the Lord opened her heart to hear what Paul said (Acts 16:14). This is how we met Lydia; and although she is from Thyatira in Asia, her meeting with the Apostle Paul took place two hundred and fifty miles away at Philippi, in Macedonia. We cannot say whether she moved to Philippi permanently, but commentators are inclined to believe that she went there on business and rented a house there. In Macedonia the female sex was more revered than in other countries; here the line of kinship could be traced both along the paternal and maternal lines; a woman was allowed to earn money herself and was conventionally considered the mistress of the house. It happened that monuments were erected in her honor. Lydia seemed to be something of a "career girl", having her own business and traveling a lot. Perhaps it is easier for sisters living in the twentieth century, with women's liberties, to identify with her lifestyle and see how this successful business woman is still praised in the Scriptures for her worship of God, and whose heart was "opened to God." The Scriptures are “for our teaching and guidance,” but it is sometimes difficult to compare our conditions with those of Sarah, Rebecca, Naomi, Ruth, or Mary in the New Testament. Commentators are not unanimous about the meaning of the name "Lydia"; they just say “woman,” and that doesn’t tell us much. Supposedly she had a different name in her hometown of Thyatira, but as a foreigner in Philippi she was known as Lydia. Since time immemorial, Thyatira has been famous for its colors, especially crimson. Among its ruins an inscription was found, possibly from the pediment of a shop or factory, meaning "Paints". There are many expressions and poems, for example: “...And how the girls of Lydia and Cariana covered the ivory with purple.” Another, written by Claudian, a (presumably Christian) poet: "Paint covered the girl's face, And she modestly lowered her eyes, And rosy cheeks like ivory, Covered by Lydia's workers with paint from Sidon." Pliny says that the clothes to be dyed purple were twice immersed for five hours in a preparation made from the shells of a mollusk called Purpura. If a bright scarlet color was required, this process was followed by immersion in the solution of another shell, called Murex or Buccinia. Scarlet and purple are sometimes used interchangeably in Scripture, as in the description of Christ's robe at the trial (Matt. 27:28, Mark 15:17). (This is not in the Russian Bible, but there is one word “crimson”).

Philippi is an important city

Thyatira was a Macedonian colony, so Lydia, leaving these places, was easily accepted in Philippi, a Macedonian possession. Philippi was within ten to twelve miles of Naples, its port built by King Philip, father of Alexander the Great, and named after him. Coins were found with his profile imprinted on them, and on the reverse side was a chariot with horses, of which he was proud. It was a significant city (in this part of Macedonia the main one, but not the capital), a military fortress to protect the shores of the Roman Empire. You can still trace the ruins of its walls and two high gates with the remains of an amphitheater from the side of the shading mountains. In the mountains to the north and west were gold mines that first came into production under King Philip. On the plain between the rivers Strymon and Gangra, the decisive battle of Antony and Octavius ​​against Brutus and Cassius took place, where the latter were defeated. Few Jews lived here, judging by the fact that there was not a single synagogue. And also from the fact that the Apostle Paul and Silas were later persecuted by the Gentiles, and not by the Jews, as was the case in most of the cities they visited. Jews worshiped outside city boundaries because the Romans did not tolerate them near the temples of their idols, and it was convenient to perform ablutions on the river bank. Presumably Lydia was a middle-aged widow, and as a seller of scarlets she must have been a lady of good health and had influence in her circles. In ancient times, bagryanitsa was very expensive and its production also required significant capital. Apparently, dyeing gave a big profit. Another found epigram reads: “Our dyer was poor, but he resorted to his craft. He dipped his rags in the solution and painted himself.” Her business is thought to have been selling purple clothing rather than just purple paint, but she needed help to do that. In the first century, as mentioned in Acts 15:16, her household must have included other members, men and women, as well as relatives. Men were expected to look after the goods during transshipment and shipment to ships, and when arranging goods for sale in the bazaar, while women helped with sales and provided minor services where they might be needed. This means, it seems to us, that this company must have been quite numerous, because visiting other cities to sell goods was a more difficult matter than today, when the company simply sends its supplies to private store owners.

First student in Europe

On his second missionary journey, Paul took Silas instead of Barnabas because of the controversy over John Mark. There, along the way, they picked up Timothy, who learned the truth from his mother Eunice and grandmother Lois. (His father was a Greek idolater). The knowledge of this woman was undoubtedly a useful foundation for the apostles for the conversion of the first female disciple in Europe. God walks in surprising but natural ways. I think so. that Luke, the writer of Acts, also joined them, since the story is in the first person (Ch. 16:10). On their journey, these four faithful men were warned by the Holy Spirit not to preach in Asia. Lydia came from Asia, and it so happened that she was now in the city where the Truth should be preached. Thyatira, like the other six cities containing churches mentioned in the early chapters of the book of Revelation, stood more or less on the route of the apostles, who apparently went north to Troas before crossing the sea into Macedonia. There is no point in speculating why God saw fit to postpone preaching the Truth in these Asian cities. Would it have been more convenient for Lydia to plant the first seeds of the Gospel in her own city?

"The Lord opened her heart"

What is even more remarkable about Lydia's meeting with the apostles is Paul's vision along the way, when he saw a young man begging him to go to help in Macedonia. And so they first met a group of women who were praying on the river bank. Perhaps they were Jewish women or Jewish converts. The apostles stayed in this city for many days before they found those praying on the shore. It is suggested that although they were led by the Spirit, they needed time to prepare for the preaching mission. Although Paul was specifically chosen to be an apostle to the Gentiles, he usually chose places where Jews gathered, whether it was a synagogue or an open place. Maybe this is a lesson for us too. The apostles did not always go deliberately to the hearth of the people, and this may be a comfort to us in our day when conversions come from those who have some religious background. Why was this group made up entirely of women? In the synagogue, the women were separated from the men, mainly by a lattice screen, and it was assumed that the service could be one part of the day for one sex, another part of the day for the other sex. If this is so, then it is God's will and purpose that at least one woman could hear the words of Paul and Silas and "whose heart the Lord opened." We read that Lydia honored God. She may have been a converted Jew, since previously God only opened the way to eternal life to Jews. News in those days could not spread quickly, especially if it aroused some suspicion, and this was apparently the first time that the new doctrine reached Philip. In a short verse we are given an important principle. If Lydia honored God, and we feel it was sincere, why didn't she continue it as before? Because her worship was not in accordance with the commandments of the Lord Jesus, and like Cornelius, she was shown a more perfect way to approach the Creator. “The Lord opened her heart” and she received the best that Paul explained when he sat among them according to the custom of teachers. Perhaps she served God to the best of her ability. The soil was prepared well, the seed took root and from it developed what took place in Philippi and in her hometown of Thyatira and bore abundant fruit. Her eyes were not blind so that she could not see, and her ears were not tired of listening. God singled her out as a suitable vessel to fill him with the Truth. She certainly thirsted for righteousness. We may see many good characters around us doing good deeds and we may wonder why the Truth does not penetrate their hearts. They may be quite satisfied with what they have. God probably saw something different in Lydia. He knew her abilities and that she, with her zeal, could carry the Gospel well to Thyatira. She quickly realized that simply believing what Paul said was not enough. And she “was baptized and her household.”

"No quick turnaround"

We find from Scripture that quick conversion is not advisable. We know that in Lydia's case, her heart was open to receive Paul's interpretation of Gospel Truth. But we still have doubts that “her household” followed her wonderful example: their souls were not prepared. Despite the busyness of her life, she must have found time to talk to them about the God she worshiped; Of course, they might not listen and not respond if their daily path through life did not depend on her knowledge. Doing business for Christians is still not an easy task; it was no better in those days. Success in business is often overshadowed by dishonest behind-the-scenes dealings. Lydia could not act badly. If she had condoned the dishonest practice of light, “her household” would hardly have listened to her words of spiritual wisdom and would have followed her example of being baptized in water. We cannot imagine that it would lose its character or begin to oppress its employees with dictatorship. We are reminded of Paul's words to the Colossians (4:1): “Masters, show to your servants what is due and just, knowing that you also have a Lord in heaven.” Lydia followed this advice, and we hope that her servants agreed with Paul's words to Timothy: “Slaves who are under yokes should honor their masters, so that there is no blasphemy against the name of God and the doctrine. Those who have faithful masters should not treat them carelessly... but should serve them all the more because they are faithful and beloved.” To continue the story, Acts 16:15 reveals another quality of this busy woman of faith: “When she was baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me faithful to the Lord, then come into my house and live with me,” and she convinced us "

"If you found me faithful"

She really wanted to make some contribution to the welfare and comfort of the apostles in return for the amazing news they gave her, and it was impossible to dissuade her. This was not a timid attempt to do good! “And she convinced us” It seems that her invitation was not immediately accepted. The Apostle Paul's principle was to serve yourself as much as possible and not be a burden to anyone (2 Corinthians 11:9). Let us also note the humble tone of her request: “If you have recognized me as faithful to the Lord, then enter my house and live with me.” The possible size and wealth of her house did not influence the request at all. She doubted whether she was worthy in the eyes of the Lord for them to come under her roof. When we receive guests or our brothers and sisters, do we expect to impress with our gracious home or well-kept garden, instead of deeply wanting to know whether we are worthy to receive the saints? This forces you to think. We must remember that while Lydia may have been financially secure enough to entertain guests, she was also a very busy woman who found time to serve others. Maybe she was busy with work all the time, and how often does this serve as an excuse for some sisters to ignore any events. And she did not think that her future might suffer if buyers refused to do business with her because of her connection with this “special faith.” There was a lot of talk against this faith in the area, and if she (Lydia) was so well known to the neighbors, then rumors about the people who settled with her would quickly spread around the population. We think of those words in Hebrews 11 concerning those who have “experienced stripes, and chains, and prison...suffering disadvantages...Those of whom the whole world was not worthy.” Her efforts to repay Paul and Silas for their amazing revelation were embodied in a church later built in that city. According to Paul's letter, the generosity of the church at Philippi was the most remarkable in the entire apostolic life. Of these, only Paul received some quota for his needs. Paul spoke about them in very warm tones. If Lydia had what it took to build the church in Thyatira (I would like to think she did), her example of charitable work had such a great influence on the believers that John wrote in Revelation 2:19: “I know your works, your love, and your service.” , and faith, and your patience, and the fact that your last deeds are greater than your first.”

"I know your affairs"

How distressed Lydia must have been when, shortly after her conversion, Paul and Silas were thrown into prison for freeing a young girl from the shackles of her diseased mind, depriving her masters of the income derived from her oracles. Timothy and Luke were not there at that time, or they were less known. Or perhaps it was mercifully ordained that they would not be thrown into prison in the same way; by remaining in Lydia's house, They could teach and encourage the new converts. After the beating, Paul and Silas were thrown into prison, and their feet were driven into blocks, making it impossible to lie down; their backs ached and bled from the lacerations they received. Lydia probably did not know about their cheerful spirit, their prayers and singing of praise to God until they were told about them later. She felt the earthquake that freed them well if her house was close to the prison. The newly converted jailer did much to serve the needs of the apostles and to console them, but Acts 16:40 records that “they left the prison and came to Lydia and, surprising the brothers, comforted them.” She took comfort in the fact that the apostles relied “by faith on God.” She not only welcomed the apostles back into her home, but invited the entire company of brothers to welcome them. This joy of God's mercy in a righteous community is to be experienced by believers, and we trust that our heavenly Father will allow us this great privilege at the coming of the Lord, when we rejoice with Lydia.