A Swedish translation of the Synaxarion
This major project is nearing completion, and the fourth and final volume in the Swedish series is expected to be published in September of this year. While only available in Swedish, you can see the result of our work here, on the publisher's website.
The project to translate the Orthodox Synaxarion into Swedish began at the end of April 2022 when a group of Swedish pilgrims had an unexpected encounter with an elderly monk in the monastery of Simonos Petra on Mount Athos in Greece. During the conversation, it turned out that he was the very Hieromonk Macaire who compiled the large Orthodox Synaxarion in French that the Annunciation of the Mother of God Convention in Halkidiki in Ormylia, Greece, has published in an English translation. It is also available in Danish and many other European languages.
The original seven-volume work contains the stories of the Orthodox saints and the feasts that have fixed calendar days. Consequently, it is an irreplaceable source regarding the sacred tradition of the Orthodox Church and a crucially important complement to ordinary works of church history, which often describe the rise of the Christian Church in very general terms. It is only in this work that the early Christian martyrs, apostles, hermits and virgins, and so on, are allowed to appear on their own terms, as the Church saw them from the beginning and continues to remember them today.
This means that the Synaxarion bears witness to both Holy Scripture and the writings of the Fathers and expresses the fullness and catholicity of the Christian faith, that is, its universal validity. Thanks to this, it is also one of the best general introductions to the Christian faith, especially for those who are not afraid of “a lot of reading” and are ready to deal with the challenges that these narratives as a genre can pose.
In her 2002 book “Evlogeite, A Pilgrim’s Guide to Greece,” nun Nectaria McLees recounts one such personal challenge. When she read the biography of Saint Nicholas of Myra (c. 270-343), who inspired the Santa Claus stories, she became suspicious of the saint’s refusal to breastfeed as an infant on the traditional fast days of the week, Wednesdays and Fridays. Since this went against everything she knew about the very young, she prayed to God for enlightenment.
After a while, when she began to travel in the footsteps of the saints in Greece, she came into contact with a nun who was the granddaughter of the brother of the modern martyr St. Philoumenos of Jacob's Well (1913-1979). She recounted that the future martyr as well as his brother, later an abbot, had also refused to breastfeed as infants on Wednesdays and Fridays. She also got in touch with their then surviving aunt who could confirm that the entire village had been engaged in unsuccessful attempts to get these two boys to breastfeed (Evlogeite! A Pilgrims Guide to Greece. Maysville, MO: St. Nicholas Press, 2002, p 22-23).
The challenge with these texts is therefore not only the often very uncompromising lives that are depicted, but can also apply to other details that challenge a secular perception of reality. The advice is to do as Mother Nectaria did, that is, not to start by rejecting the story, but instead to ask for enlightenment and wait in peace until it comes. In terms of the burden of proof, it is also most natural to consult the living tradition that also gave rise to these texts.