Kallistos Ware "The Seed of the Church"

This is a study of martyrdom, and suffering, and its relevance for the church. Drawing on old and new martyrs of the Orthodox tradition, Ware (Bishop of Diokleia) points out that the difference between meaningless suffering and martyrdom is the voluntary acceptance on the part of the person concerned, thus imitating Christ who says in Jn 10 "I lay my life down of my own accord". The second element of martyrdom is what Ware calls solidarity, the act of taking suffering upon oneself for the sake of others. He gives a couple of moving examples of such vicarious sufferings. One is Rabbi Zusya in Martin Buber's Tales of the Hasidim who "felt the sins of the people he met as his own, and blamed himself for them". Another one is Polycarp, the early church martyr, who before his death stood two hours in intercession "remembering by name all whom he had ever met, old and young, celebrated and unknown, and the whole Catholic Church throughout the world".
Ware then moves on to explain that ever since the days of the Desert Monks (and Nuns) it was understood that chosing the monastic life was another form of martyrdom, especially in days when there was no opportunity for shedding one's blood for the sake of the kingdom. Such martyrdom was then often called white martyrdom, to contrast it with red martyrdom. But the elements were still the same: voluntary acceptance of suffering, and accepting the suffering on behalf of others. He quotes the story of a monk who went into town with one of his brothers. Upon their return from the city his brother confesses that he cannot go back to the monastery because he had fallen into fornication. So the monk in question, in order to convince his brother to return with him, replies that he too had fallen into the same sin. So they return together and, after confessing their sins to their superior, take upon themselves the heavy penance prescribed for such a sin. After a few days God revealed to their superior that, seeing the great love of the brother who had not sinned, He had forgiven the one who had.
The somewhat original point of Ware is that he then goes on to state that this vocation is not unique to the monk, but universal: every Christian needs to "give the blood to receive the Spirit", so to speak, i.e. to struggle daily for holiness. He points out that marriage is a particularly beautiful path of laying down one's life for the other, and that the Russian Orthodox wedding ceremony has the couple be crowned (like martyrs) and then processing around the church following the cross. He similarly points out that singles, who might not have chosen their current state in life, can become powerful witnesses (martyrs in Greek) when they offer their loneliness and suffering for the sake of others.


Ware, Kallistos. 1995. The Seed of the Church- The Universal Vocation to Martyrdom. Oxford: St. Stephen's Press.

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