12th Sunday of Matthew

August 23 marks the Leavetaking (Apodosis) of the great feast of the Dormition, which was celebrated on August 15. By ancient liturgical custom, great feasts of the Church do not end abruptly on their appointed day but are prolonged through an afterfeast (metaorte) during which the festal hymns continue to be sung and the faithful continue to reflect on the mystery celebrated. The Apodosis is the final day of this prolongation, on which the full festal office is repeated in its essentials, before the feast gives way to the ordinary liturgical cycle.

The Dormition commemorates the falling-asleep (koimesis) of the Virgin Mary, her “translation to life,” as the Apolytikion expresses it. The Church has always understood the Dormition not as a mere biological event but as the eschatological fulfillment of the Theotokos’s vocation: the one who bore Life in her womb has herself been received into Life. She did not see corruption; her body was glorified and translated by her Son. The feast is in this sense a foretaste of the general resurrection. Her Dormition points toward the Resurrection, which is why the Sunday of the Dormition’s afterfeast and the Epistle’s proclamation—“Christ died for our sins... He rose again the third day... He was seen...”—are not accidental neighbors.

The Leavetaking on August 23 invites the preacher to hold the two commemorations together: the Theotokos who said “Let it be done to me according to Thy word” and thereby entered eternal life, and the rich young man who heard the same call—“come, follow Me”—and turned away in sorrow.

Irenaeus was born around the year 130 in Smyrna, in Asia Minor, where from his youth he sat at the feet of the holy bishop Polycarp, himself a disciple of the holy Apostle and Evangelist John. He absorbed from Polycarp not merely doctrines but the living atmosphere of apostolic Christianity—its memory, its texture, its warmth. In old age he wrote with moving precision: “I can describe the very place where the blessed Polycarp sat to discourse...the look of his countenance, his manner of life, the form of his body, and the sermons he delivered to the people.” These memories, he said, were written “not on paper, but in my heart.”

From Smyrna Irenaeus traveled to Gaul, where he served the bishop Pothinus of Lugdunum (modern Lyons). Around the year 177, Pothinus suffered martyrdom during a local persecution, and Irenaeus was elected to succeed him as bishop. St. Gregory of Tours noted that through the zeal of Irenaeus’s preaching, nearly the whole city was brought to the faith. In his episcopal ministry he was not only a pastor but a diplomat: when Pope Victor of Rome threatened to break communion with the Eastern churches over the dating of Pascha, Irenaeus wrote letters urging peace, reminding Victor that diversity of custom had never previously broken the unity of love. The very name Irenaeus—from the Greek eirene, peace—was fitting.

His great theological achievement was the five-volume treatise Against Heresies (Adversus Haereses), a systematic refutation of Gnosticism in all its forms. Against the Gnostic claim that matter is evil and that the God of creation is inferior to the supreme Deity, Irenaeus insisted on the unity of God: the Creator and the Redeemer are one. Against Marcion’s rejection of the Old Testament, he argued that both Testaments speak with “one and the same Spirit of God.” His doctrine of recapitulation (anakephalaiosis)—Christ summing up all of humanity’s history in Himself and restoring what Adam lost—became a cornerstone of Orthodox soteriology and has direct bearing on the passage preached this Sunday. The young man asked about eternal life; Irenaeus spent his life explaining how the Incarnate Son of God is that life.

According to St. Gregory of Tours, Irenaeus died a martyr’s death under the Emperor Septimius Severus around the year 202. The manner of his death is not fully documented in the sources, but his martyrdom is accepted throughout the Orthodox Church. He is commemorated not only on August 23 but also on June 28 in some traditions.

Lupus was a servant—a slave—of the holy Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica (commemorated October 26). His biography is inseparable from his master’s: he witnessed the martyrdom of Demetrius, and when the executioners had done their work, he reverently soaked his own garments in the saint’s blood and took the ring from his dead master’s hand. With these sacred relics—the blood-soaked cloth and the ring—he then moved through Thessalonica performing miracles in Demetrius’s name, healing the sick and confounding idolaters.

His signs and wonders brought him to the attention of the imperial authorities. When summoned for examination, Lupus did not flee or deny his faith. He was a servant who had been freed by the blood of his master—not legally, but spiritually. He surrendered himself willingly to those who would arrest him. The Emperor Maximian Galerius, learning of his activities, ordered him executed. He was martyred by beheading, likely around the year 306.

Lupus offers the preacher a counterpoint to the young man of the Gospel: both were men of relatively modest standing who might have blended quietly into the background of history. The young man had the commandments and the desire for eternal life; Lupus had nothing but the blood of a martyr and the name of God. The young man walked away; Lupus walked forward.

The city of Sirmium (modern Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia) lay at the heart of the Roman province of Pannonia, and its bishop Irenaeus was young—perhaps still in his first years of episcopal ministry—when the Diocletianic Persecution broke out in 303. The detailed Acta Martyrum for this Irenaeus survive and reveal a bishop whose character was formed entirely by pastoral love and apostolic courage.

Brought before the prefect Probus, Irenaeus was commanded to sacrifice to the Roman gods. He refused. He was then subjected to prolonged torture, during which his family, friends, and servants came to him weeping and begging him to apostatize. He answered each appeal with patience and love, but would not bend. His response to his weeping household has been preserved: he assured them that his true Master called him forward, not back. After further interrogation in which he continued to confess Christ, he was condemned to death by drowning in the Sava River. He was martyred on March 25 or 26, 304; the August 23 commemoration appears on the Antiochian calendar as an additional feast day.

It is worth noting for the preacher: here are two bishops named Irenaeus, both martyr-bishops, both recalled on the same day. The name means peace. Both purchased peace—with God, with their own souls—at the cost of their lives.

Callinicus served as a presbyter at the church of the Theotokos in the Blachernae district of Constantinople before his elevation to the patriarchal throne in 693, following the death of Patriarch Paul. His years in the presbyterate had been marked by devoted service at one of the most venerated Marian shrines in the Byzantine world—the church that housed the robe of the Theotokos. This pastoral formation at the foot of the Theotokos shaped his episcopal character.

His patriarchate coincided with the turbulent reign of Justinian II, nicknamed “Rhinotmetos” (slit-nosed) for the mutilation that preceded his first deposition. When the emperor decided to demolish a church standing in the way of his new palace construction, he demanded the patriarch’s blessing. Callinicus refused plainly: he had prayers for the building of churches, not their destruction. The demolition proceeded despite his refusal, and he wept openly, crying out: “Glory to Thee, O Lord, in enduring all things.” The hagiographic tradition records that divine judgment swiftly followed: Justinian was deposed, exiled to Cherson, and had his nose cut off. Callinicus served as patriarch until 705.

His witness is one of episcopal courage in the face of imperial power—the willingness to say “no” to the powerful when the faith requires it. He occupies his place in the calendar beside two bishop-martyrs named Irenaeus; all three chose fidelity over convenience.

Saint Nicholas of Sikelion is commemorated on August 23 in the Antiochian calendar. Detailed biographical sources in English are sparse. He is venerated as a righteous monastic father from the Sicilian or southern Italian ecclesiastical tradition. He is remembered for a life of ascetic virtue, prayer, and charitable works. The preacher who wishes to explore his life further should consult Greek hagiographic sources such as the Synaxarion of Constantinople.

Haralambos of Kalyviani is commemorated in the Antiochian calendar on August 23. He is a local Greek martyr associated with the region of Crete or the surrounding area, venerated especially through the monastery that bears his memory. Detailed English-language sources are limited. The preacher is directed to Greek-language hagiographic sources for a fuller account of his passion and witness.

The Thirty-Eight Martyrs of Thrace are commemorated on August 23 in the Antiochian calendar. They appear to have suffered martyrdom in the region of ancient Thrace (roughly modern Bulgaria, northern Greece, and European Turkey) during the Roman persecutions. As a group commemoration, their individual names are not fully preserved in the surviving Greek synaxaria available in English translation. Their collective witness stands as a reminder that martyrdom came not only to bishops and famous confessors but to ordinary members of the Body of Christ—men and women whose names were unknown to history but known to God.

August 23, 2026 is the Twelfth Sunday of Matthew, the designation given to the series of ordinary Sundays that follows Pentecost in the Antiochian and Greek Orthodox liturgical tradition. In Antiochian practice, the post-Pentecost Sundays are numbered by the evangelist whose Gospel is being read in sequence through the liturgical year. The Sundays of Matthew begin after All Saints Sunday and extend through late summer, with the Sundays of Luke following in the autumn.

By the Twelfth Sunday of Matthew, the Church is deep into the ordinary time of the liturgical year—the season of growth, formation, and the ordinary demands of Christian discipleship. It is fitting that the Gospel appointed for this Sunday (Matthew 19:16–26) is one of the most searching passages in the entire Gospel: a story about a man who genuinely wanted to follow Christ and could not bring himself to do it.

The encounter between Jesus and the rich young man occurs at a narrative turning point in Matthew’s Gospel. In the preceding verses, Jesus has been teaching about marriage, divorce, and the Kingdom of heaven (19:1–15), culminating in his blessing of the little children: “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” The rich young man arrives immediately after this—a striking juxtaposition. The children receive the Kingdom freely; the young man wants to earn it. The children hold nothing; the young man holds everything.

The passage belongs to a larger Matthaean teaching on discipleship and the costs of following Jesus. It is followed by the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (20:1–16) and leads eventually toward the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.

The Epistle appointed for this Sunday is Paul’s most condensed and careful summary of the Christian kerygma. Writing to the church at Corinth, where some were questioning the resurrection of the dead, Paul returns to the foundational proclamation: Christ died for our sins, was buried, rose the third day, and appeared to witnesses—more than five hundred at once, still mostly living when Paul wrote. Then he applies it to himself: “Last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.”

Paul’s self-portrait here is deliberately paradoxical. He was the last to see the Risen Lord; he was the least of the apostles; he had persecuted the Church of God. But the grace of God transformed him: he labored “more abundantly than they all”—yet always qualifying this immediately: “yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” This tension between human effort and divine grace, between what Paul did and what God did through him, is directly relevant to the Gospel: the rich young man is confident in his own keeping of the commandments. Paul, by contrast, knows that his keeping of any commandment is itself a gift of grace.

• “Great is the tyranny of wealth, and it is manifest hence; I mean, that though we be virtuous as to the rest, this ruins all besides. With reason has Paul also affirmed it to be the root of all evils in general.”—St. John Chrysostom (vv. 16–22)

• “No man is essentially good; both because we are changeable and easily turned away from good, and because, by comparison with God’s goodness, human goodness is counted as wickedness.”—Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (v. 16)

• “As long as a man is rich and he has in excess while others do not have even the necessities, he can in no way enter the kingdom of heaven. But when all riches have been shed, then he is not rich and so he can enter.”—Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (vv. 23–24)

• “The law is the starting point for social justice. Christ is the perfection.”—St. Cyril of Alexandria (v. 18)

• “Do you see how many prizes, how many crowns, He appoints for this race? Before mentioning the conflicts and the toil, He shows him the prize.”—St. John Chrysostom (v. 21)

• “The Lord therefore teaches us not to gauge salvation by human weakness, but by God’s power. If one only begins to cease from greed, he will advance to reducing his excess, and from there he will proceed to eliminating even his necessities, and thus he will be prospered along the way by God acting in collaboration with him.”—Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (v. 25)

• “With a pleasant and gentle look, he soothed those whose hearts were terrorized and relieved their anguish... Then he uplifted them with his words as he focused on the power of God, and thus he gave them faith.”—St. John Chrysostom (v. 26)

”Now behold, one came and said to Him, ‘Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?’”

St. John Chrysostom (+407) “Some criticize this young man as dissembling and wicked, approaching Jesus to put him to the test. I would not hesitate to say that he is avaricious and greedy since Christ also showed him up as such. Yet I would by no means call him a dissembler, because it is not safe to venture on things uncertain. Mark has taken away the suspicion of dissembling. For Mark says, ‘A man ran up and kneeling before him asked him’ and ‘Jesus looking upon him loved him.’ The tyranny of money is a powerful thing, as is clear here. Though we are practiced in the other virtues, avarice brings the others to ruin.”

St. John Chrysostom (+407) “Great is the tyranny of wealth, and it is manifest hence; I mean, that though we be virtuous as to the rest, this ruins all besides. With reason has Paul also affirmed it to be the root of all evils in general. For the love of money is the root of all evils, he says.”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107) “The man did not come testing Christ, but desiring to learn and thirsting for eternal life. He approached Christ as if Christ were a mere man. That is why the Lord says, ‘Why callest thou Me good? There is none good but One, that is, God.’ This means, ‘If you call Me good thinking I am one of the teachers, you speak wrongly, for no man is essentially good; both because we are changeable and easily turned away from good, and because, by comparison with God’s goodness, human goodness is counted as wickedness.’”

”So He said to him, ‘Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.’”

St. John Chrysostom (+407) “Wherefore then does Christ thus reply to him, saying, ‘There is none good’? Because He came unto Him as a mere man, and one of the common sort, and a Jewish teacher; for this cause then as a man He discourses with him. When therefore He says, ‘There is none good,’ not as putting Himself out from being good does He say this, far from it; for He said not, ‘Why do you call Me good? I am not good’—but ‘There is none good,’ that is, none among men. And He said not, ‘but my Father,’ that you might learn that He had not revealed Himself to the young man.”

St. John Chrysostom (+407) “Why therefore did Christ reply in these words: ‘No one is good’? Because he considered Jesus a mere man and one of the crowd. For often He answers the hidden thoughts of the questioner, as when He says, ‘We worship what we know’ and ‘If I bear witness of myself, my testimony is not true.’ He does not say this to show that He is not good; far from it. He adds, ‘Except God alone.’ He did not say ‘my Father,’ so that the young man would not yet know Who He was.”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107) “The man did not come testing Christ, but desiring to learn and thirsting for eternal life. He approached Christ as if Christ were a mere man. That is why the Lord says, ‘Why callest thou Me good? There is none good but One, that is, God.’ The Lord directs the enquirer to the commandments of the law, so that the Jews could not say that He despised the law.”

”He said to Him, ‘Which ones?’ Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness.’”

St. Cyril of Alexandria (+444) “When Christ says to him, ‘If you would enter life, keep the commandments,’ the man expects him to add immediately, ‘my commandments.’ ‘Which ones?’ he asks. He was quite deceived in his expectation. For Christ did not answer him as he expected but simply pointed him to the law. This is not because the law is perfection, for ‘no one is justified by the law,’ as it is written, but because the life lived according to law is a kind of introduction to the eternal life, briefly acquainting trainees to the things above. ‘For the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ.’ The law is the starting point for social justice. Christ is the perfection. For the beginning of good is to act justly, he says.”

St. John Chrysostom (+407) “Note how prepared the young man is to obey the commandments. For he says, ‘What must I do to have eternal life?’ He seems ready to do what he would be told. If his purpose had been to put Jesus to a test, the Evangelist would have given some indication of this as he does in other cases, for instance, in the case of the lawyer. If the young man had come to test him, he would not have retreated downcast at what he heard. This never happened to any of the Pharisees. When refuted they were all the more angry. This man was not angry. He went away in sorrow, which is no little signal that he did not come to him with evil intent. But he did come with too weak a will.”

”’Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

No Eastern patristic commentary is available in the Catena for this verse specifically. Chrysostom’s extended treatment of the exchange as a whole is the most relevant Eastern source; see his commentary on verses 16, 18, and 20–22.

”The young man said to Him, ‘All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?’”

St. John Chrysostom (+407) “Then since Jesus mentioned those out of the law, he says, ‘All these things have I kept from my youth up.’ And neither at this did he stop, but again asks, ‘What lack I yet?’—which itself again was a sign of his very earnest desire.”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107) “Some accuse him of boasting and arrogance. For how could he have achieved love for neighbor if he were rich? For no one who loves his neighbor as himself is wealthier than his neighbor. Others understand it thus: ‘Suppose, he says, that I have kept all these things—what do I still lack?’”

”Jesus said to him, ‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’”

St. John Chrysostom (+407) “Do you see how many prizes, how many crowns, He appoints for this race? If he had been tempting, He would not have told him these things. But now He both says it, and in order to draw him on, He also shows him the reward to be great, and leaves it all to his own will, by all means throwing into the shade that which seemed to be grievous in His advice. Wherefore even before mentioning the conflicts and the toil, He shows him the prize, saying ‘If you will be perfect,’ and then says, ‘Sell that you have, and give to the poor,’ and straightway again the rewards: ‘You shall have treasure in Heaven; and come, and follow me.’ For indeed to follow Him is a great recompense. He gave him more than He required him to give up; and not only more, but also as much greater as Heaven is greater than earth.”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107) “Everything, He says, which you say you have accomplished, you have done by fulfilling only the letter of the law, as do the Jews. But if thou wilt be perfect, that is, if you wish to be My disciple and a Christian, then go and sell all that you have, and give everything all at once, keeping nothing back. He did not say, ‘give repeatedly to the poor,’ but give once and for all and be stripped of your wealth. Since there are some who give alms but lead a life full of every kind of filth, He adds, ‘and come and follow Me,’ that is, possess every other virtue as well. The young man, however, was sorrowful, for though he desired eternal life and the soil of his heart was deep and fertile, the thorns of wealth were choking him. He who has few possessions is not similarly restrained by them, for the bond of many possessions is more tyrannical.”

”But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”

St. John Chrysostom (+407) “But I for my part, though I deny not that he was a lover of money, because Christ convicts him as such, cannot consider him to have been a hypocrite. Mark removes all suspicion of this kind, for he says that he came to Him and knelt before Him; and that Jesus when He looked on him, loved him. And if he had come to tempt Him, the Evangelist would have signified as much, as he has done in other places.”

St. John Chrysostom (+407) “After this the evangelist, as it were to show that he has not felt anything it was unlikely he should feel, says, ‘For he had great possessions.’ For they that have little are not equally held in subjection as they that are overflowed with great affluence, for then the love of it becomes more tyrannical. Which thing I cease not always saying, that the increase of acquisitions kindles the flame more, and renders the getters poorer, inasmuch as it puts them in greater desire, and makes them have more feeling of their want. See, for example, even here what strength did this passion exhibit. Him that had come with joy and forwardness, when Christ commanded him to cast away his riches, it so overwhelmed and weighed down as not to suffer him so much as to answer touching these things, but silenced and become dejected and sullen to go away.”

”Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’”

St. Cyril of Alexandria (+444) “By ‘camel’ here He means not the living thing, the beast of burden, but the thick rope to which sailors tie their anchors. He shows this comparison to be not entirely pointless, but He makes it an exceedingly difficult matter; in fact, next to impossible.”

St. John Chrysostom (+407) “What then says Christ? ‘How hardly shall the rich enter into the kingdom of Heaven!’—blaming not riches but them that are held in subjection by them. But if the rich man hardly, much more the covetous man. For if not to give one’s own be a hindrance to entering the kingdom, even to take of other men’s goods, think how much fire it heaps up. Having said it was hard, as He proceeds He shows that it is even impossible, and not merely impossible, but even in the highest degree impossible; and this He showed by the comparison concerning the camel and the needle.”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107) “As long as a man is rich and he has in excess while others do not have even the necessities, he can in no way enter the kingdom of heaven. But when all riches have been shed, then he is not rich and so he can enter. See how Christ first said it was difficult to enter, but here that it is completely impossible. Some say that ‘camel’ is not the animal, but the thick cable used by sailors to cast their anchors.”

”When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, ‘Who then can be saved?’”

St. John Chrysostom (+407) “What He spoke was not condemning riches in themselves, but those who were enslaved by them; also encouraging His disciples that being poor they should not be ashamed by reason of their poverty. Having said that it was hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven, He now proceeds to show that it is impossible.”

St. John Chrysostom (+407) “And wherefore are the disciples troubled, being poor, yea, exceedingly poor? Wherefore then are they confounded? Being in pain about the salvation of the rest, and having a great affection for all, and having already taken upon themselves the tender bowels of teachers. They were at least in such trembling and fear for the whole world from this declaration as to need much comfort.”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107) “The disciples, being compassionate, did not ask this question for their own sake, for they were poor, but for all men. The Lord therefore teaches us not to gauge salvation by human weakness, but by God’s power. If one only begins to cease from greed, he will advance to reducing his excess, and from there he will proceed to eliminating even his necessities, and thus he will be prospered along the way by God acting in collaboration with him.”

”But Jesus looked at them and said to them, ‘With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’”

St. John Chrysostom (+407) “Having first beheld them, He said unto them, ‘The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.’ For with a mild and meek look, having soothed their shuddering mind, and having put an end to their distress—for this the evangelist signified by saying He beheld them—then by His words also He relieves them, bringing before them God’s power, and so making them feel confidence.”

St. John Chrysostom (+407) “When the disciples were upset, he said, ‘With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’ He did not make this statement so that you should give it up, and abstain, as from things impossible; but that having considered the greatness of the good work, you should hasten to it readily, and having besought God to assist you in these noble contests, should attain unto life. With a pleasant and gentle look, he soothed those whose hearts were terrorized and relieved their anguish. Then he uplifted them with his words as he focused on the power of God, and thus he gave them faith.”

Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid (+1107) “The disciples, being compassionate, did not ask this question for their own sake, for they were poor, but for all men. The Lord therefore teaches us not to gauge salvation by human weakness, but by God’s power. For if one only begins to cease from greed, he will advance to reducing his excess, and from there he will proceed to eliminating even his necessities, and thus he will be prospered along the way by God acting in collaboration with him.”

Source: Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 63 (on Matthew 19:3–26)

Chrysostom’s sixty-third homily on Matthew is the most extended Eastern patristic treatment of this entire pericope. He spends particular attention on the young man’s sincerity—refuting those who would dismiss him as a dissembler—and on the pastoral implications of Christ’s different modes of address to different interlocutors. Chrysostom is especially insightful on why Christ replies to a question about goodness by pointing to God rather than to Himself: the young man was not yet ready to receive a direct revelation of Christ’s divine nature, and Christ meets him where he is. The homily concludes with a lengthy practical application on the tyranny of wealth and the grace available to those who struggle against it. The full text is available in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series, Series 1, Volume 10.

Source: The Explanation of the Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew, on Matthew 19:16–26

Theophylact’s commentary is the most accessible and pastorally direct Eastern patristic commentary on this passage available in English translation. Published by Chrysostom Press, it was translated by Christopher Stade and is widely used in Orthodox parishes. Theophylact draws heavily on Chrysostom but is consistently briefer and more pointed. His observation that the young man’s soil was “deep and fertile” but choked by thorns—an explicit echo of the Parable of the Sower—is particularly striking and homiletically useful. He also raises the exegetical question of whether the young man is boasting in claiming to have kept the commandments, or simply hypothesizing, and refuses to condemn him.

Source: Homily to the Rich (sometimes titled “I Will Pull Down My Barns” or “To the Rich Young Man”)

St. Basil the Great preached directly on this Gospel passage in a homily that survives in full. His central argument: the wealth the young man holds in surplus belongs by rights to those who have nothing. “The bread which you keep belongs to the hungry; the garment which is locked up in your wardrobe belongs to the naked; the gold which you have buried in the ground belongs to the poor.” This is not mere charity but justice—the return of what was never truly the rich man’s to begin with. The full text is available at johnsanidopoulos.com: https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2020/08/sermon-to-rich-st-basil-great.html

When Jesus answers the young man’s question with a question—“Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God”—He is not deflecting but redirecting. He is turning the young man’s attention away from the category of religious achievement toward the category of divine being. Chrysostom notes that Jesus is not denying His own goodness; He is exposing the young man’s inadequate framework. The young man is thinking in terms of deeds and rewards. Jesus is pointing toward participation in God’s own life.

This is the theological logic of the entire exchange. Eternal life—zoe aionios—is not a prize one earns by accumulating good deeds, any more than one earns union with God. It is participation in the life of the One Who is Good. The Epistle appointed for this Sunday makes the same point from the opposite direction: Paul’s labor “more abundantly than they all” is not his own labor but the grace of God working through him. What is impossible for men—including the accumulation of enough righteousness to earn eternal life—is possible for God. The bridge between the Gospel and the Epistle is the phrase “with God all things are possible.”

The young man is not wicked, lazy, or hypocritical. He is genuinely seeking eternal life and has observed the commandments since his youth. Chrysostom will not let us condemn him: “Jesus looking upon him loved him.” What breaks him is not vice but attachment—the grip of what he already holds. Theophylact observes that a man with few possessions is not held as strongly as one “overflowed with great affluence, for then the love of it becomes more tyrannical.” The young man is, in this sense, a victim of his own abundance.

The Fathers do not allow the preacher to let the congregation off the hook by dismissing this as someone else’s problem. Chrysostom: “And wherefore are the disciples troubled, being poor?” They are troubled because they feel the force of the question for every human being—“Who then can be saved?” The love of money, Paul says, is the root of all evils, not the money itself. The young man’s tragedy is that his heart is divided: he desires eternal life and he desires his possessions, and the two desires cannot coexist. Christ’s call is to singleness of heart.

Theophylact’s gloss on verse 26 is one of the most pastorally practical in the whole commentary: “If one only begins to cease from greed, he will advance to reducing his excess, and from there he will proceed to eliminating even his necessities, and thus he will be prospered along the way by God acting in collaboration with him.” The Greek word for this collaboration is synergeia—the same word from which the Orthodox doctrine of synergy draws its name. God does not compel the young man to detachment; God awaits his first step and then collaborates in every step that follows.

This theme connects the Gospel directly to the Epistle’s portrait of Paul. Paul did not become a missionary by his own strength; grace transformed him. But grace did not make him passive: “I labored more abundantly than they all.” Both clauses are true simultaneously. This is the Orthodox understanding of salvation: not a passive reception of grace, nor an Pelagian self-improvement program, but a real and costly human cooperation with a real and transforming divine gift.

The presence of Hieromartyr Irenaeus of Lyons on this Sunday invites a deeper theological reading of the Gospel. Irenaeus’s great doctrine of anakephalaiosis—recapitulation—holds that Christ “summed up” the whole of human history in Himself, beginning where Adam began (birth into human nature) and passing through every stage of human life, transforming each. The rich young man asks about eternal life, and Christ offers him participation in that recapitulation: “come, follow Me.” The young man declines. He refuses the very path by which Christ has already begun to recapitulate and heal human nature.

For Irenaeus, the refusal of the rich young man is a precise image of the Gnostic error he spent his life refuting: the belief that one can secure a spiritual result (eternal life) while retaining a possessive grip on the material world. Christ’s word to the young man—sell all, give to the poor, and follow—is a word about integration, about the wholeness that comes when human desire is ordered toward God rather than toward created goods. This is anti-Gnosticism in practice. The preacher who wishes to draw out the saint’s connection to the Gospel reading has rich material here.

”Let the heavens be glad, let the earth rejoice, for the Lord has shown strength with His arm. He has trampled death by death. He has become the firstborn of the dead. He has delivered us from the depths of hell and has granted to the world great mercy.”

The resurrectional character of this troparion stands in illuminating contrast to the young man’s departure “in sorrow.” The heavens and earth rejoice not because anyone performed sufficient deeds, but because the Lord has accomplished what no human effort could accomplish: trampling death. “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible”—including resurrection, including the salvation the disciples despaired of.

(Sung on the Apodosis, repeating the feast office.)

”In giving birth you preserved your virginity, / in falling asleep you did not forsake the world, O Theotokos. / You were translated to life, O Mother of Life, / and by your prayers, you deliver our souls from death.”

Source: OCA Troparia and Kontakia, August 23 (https://www.oca.org/saints/troparia/2026/08/23/102377-leavetaking-of-the-dormition-of-the-mother-of-god)

The Theotokos is described as having been “translated to life”—precisely the entry into eternal life that the young man sought but could not receive. She received it not through the accumulation of deeds but through her total surrender: “Let it be done to me according to Thy word.” She left nothing behind because she had held nothing back.

(Sung on the Apodosis in place of the Resurrectional Kontakion, as the feast’s leaving-taking continues.)

”Neither the tomb, nor death could hold the Theotokos, / who is constant in prayer and our firm hope in her intercessions. / For being the Mother of Life, / she was translated to life by the One who dwelt in her virginal womb.”

Source: OCA Troparia and Kontakia, August 23 (https://www.oca.org/saints/troparia/2026/08/23/102377-leavetaking-of-the-dormition-of-the-mother-of-god)

“Neither the tomb nor death could hold” her—the very thing money could not purchase, death could not contain. Eternal life belongs to the One in Whom she dwelt, and by dwelling in Him she received what He had to give.