This came from an e-mailed newsletter from Archbishop Khajag Barsamian of the Eastern Diocese of the United States:
“I shall face the task before me with confidence, and do so boldly—for the Father requests me, and the Church is with me, and the sainted martyrs will strengthen me wherever I am weak. In this way have the martyrs shown their power: mocking the wrath of princes, seizing victory through their fall, bursting the bars of life that they may open the gates of heaven. If anyone doubts that death is abolished, that the chains of hell are broken, that the tyrant is bound—let him look upon the martyrs standing up in the face of death, and taking up the jubilant strain of Christ’s victory.” — From “On All the Saints,” by St. Gregory the Wonder-worker (4th c.)
