In a
small, humble village in Kosovo, a great event in the life of the Church took
place on Sunday, May 20. On this day, the first Divine Liturgy glorifying the
memory of the newly-canonized St. Bosiljka the Martyr of Pasjane was held, with
the local bishop, His Grace Teodosije of Raška-Prizren, along with many
priests, monks, nuns, and a multitude of the faithful in attendance. At the
most recent Holy Synod meeting in Belgrade, Martyr Bosiljka, who has been venerated
by the local faithful for many years, was finally officially canonized. With
great joy, the faithful for the first time sang the troparion and kontakion to
the saint they had for many decades venerated locally, and her holy presence
and protection were strongly felt by all.
The Holy
Martyr Bosiljka lived in the mid-nineteenth century in the village of Pasjane,
near the town of Gnjilane, in eastern Kosovo. Her family was poor, and she
lived an average peasant life, helping her family harvest their crops and tend
to the farm animals. Due to the Ottoman oppression of Christians, the village
no longer had a church, but Bosiljka’s family was known for their piety. She
often walked about eleven miles each way to Draganac Monastery, a refuge for
local Christians hidden in the mountains, in order to pray and receive the Holy
Mysteries.
When
Bosiljka was seventeen years old, however, her quiet life in the village was to
come to an end as she would respond with faith and courage to a higher calling.
One year, her family decided to go into the town of Gnjilane, where there was
still a functioning Orthodox parish, for the feast of St. Elijah.
Unfortunately, as often happened under Ottoman rule at the time, a Muslim
Albanian saw the beauty of young Bosiljka, and charmed by her innocence begged
her to convert to Islam and be his wife. Bosiljka rebuked his advances, and to
his requests that she become a Muslim and promises of many gifts she said that
she needed no other faith than that of Christ and that nothing is more
beautiful than Him.
The
Muslim was very offended that a young girl would act with such boldness towards
him, and so he kidnapped her and took her to his home. He tried starving her
into submission, but to no avail. Bosiljka remained firm that Christ was all
she required, and that no torture or deprivation could take her from Him and His
love. The Muslim then took her to speak with another previously-Orthodox
Christian Serbian woman who had converted to Islam, who tried to convince her
to accept Islam for the sake of her own life and for the safety of her family.
Young Bosiljka responded again that she needed no faith other than that of the
Orthodox, and that as for a husband—she already had one. Curious, the Muslim
Serbian woman asked her who this husband is, to which Bosiljka said, “Christ,
of course! He is my bridegroom, I belong to Him alone, and I will not renounce
Him or my Holy Faith, unlike you, whom I pity.”
The
Muslim Serb responded, “Don’t be so stubborn, convert and save your soul!” to
which Bosiljka firmly responded, “That’s not how you save your soul, but
rather, how you lose it.”
Frustrated,
the Muslim Serbian woman returned Bosiljka to the Albanian Muslim who had
fallen in love with her, who again tried to convince her to convert and marry
him. Failing utterly, further tortures awaited Bosiljka, which she bore with
bravery, strength, and great faith in Christ. They held her face above a
chimney to choke her with the smoke, then threw hot coals on her. To this,
Bosiljka’s only response was “Kill me, all you can do is kill my body, but I
will remain an Orthodox Christian, I will remain with Christ, I will remain
pure, and this you cannot take from me!”
Humiliated
at his inability to make the seventeen-year-old girl change her mind, the
Albanian Muslim tied Bosiljka to a horse and dragged her to the edge of the
town, where he and several of his friends slowly cut the martyr into pieces
while she was yet living, as they screamed “Death to the filthy Serb!” The
whole time, Bosiljka is said to have just repeated the words “God, grant me to
endure to the end, don’t let me give in, help me to endure to the end!” Her
final words were “This is not my death, this is not my end, rather, this is the
beginning of my eternal life. It is you, rather, who have died for eternity.”
And thus, she gave up her soul to Christ her Bridegroom, after many tortures,
showing much courage and giving a great witness to the love and truth of
Christ.
Her
family was able to retrieve her earthly remains from the Turkish authorities,
and they buried them in the ruins of the ancient village church. Several
decades later, when the Tanzimat Reforms were enacted in the Ottoman Empire and
Christians could once again build churches, the village of Pasjane restored
their church and enshrined Bosiljka’s holy relics within a stone column in the
church. Placing relics within a stone column or foundation to protect them had
become common in Ottoman Serbia, as too often the Turks or Albanians had
desecrated relics that had been left out in the open. In this way many relics,
including those of Holy Martyr Bosiljka, have been preserved to the present
day.
And so
the life of a teenage girl from a small village in Kosovo, who otherwise would
probably have been long since forgotten, has entered into eternity, and has
come to warm our hearts today. Holy Martyr Bosiljka, along with many other New
Martyrs of the Turkish Yoke, was an average person: She was not a nun, nor a
great ascetic, nor a theologian; her village did not even have a church during
her lifetime. And yet, when it was asked of her, she gave her life for Christ,
and that with much pain and suffering. Her life cries out to us through the
centuries as a witness to the great love and power of Christ, of the great
glories awaiting those who are faithful to Him, and to the reality that every
person can be a saint. It is not only monks and nuns who are called to
sanctity, but all Christians—from a seventeen-year-old girl, as in the case of
Bosiljka, to bakers, gardeners, and shopkeepers, as in the case of other
martyrs of the Ottoman Yoke. The life of this girl from a small village in
Kosovo proclaims to all of us, throughout the world, throughout time, that we
can all be holy, and that not only is this a possibility, but it is what is
required of us.
By Monk Sophronios (Copan)
Source: http://orthochristian.com/113285.html
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