A plea for mercy for persecuted Christians

Having called upon your immaculate Mother from the cross of lamentation and weeping; you who then shouted 'Rejoice' to the myrrh-bearers, shout now also 'Rejoice' to your Churches. You who were nailed with precious things to the criminals, loose the hands and feet of the peoples in iron bonds. Yes, O Philanthropic Master, who said, 'My soul is deeply distressed by death,' save your people from sorrow and death. You who were pierced in the side by the sword, shatter the sword of the enemies with your mighty hand, and remember, Lord, your faithful thief and your people. You who poured out immaculate blood for us, stop the mingling of our blood. Save your people, Lord; spare your inheritance.

Arise; Why do you sleep, Lord? Why are you patient with your enemies? Why do you turn your face from us? Arise, and do not push away to the end; do not leave us to fullness. Remember your cross, remember your people, remember your mercies. Having been voluntarily tested for forty days for our sake, Lord, remember the peoples of yours being tested in deserts, in uninhabited and waterless places; remember those with us, and before us, good Philanthrope. Help those, reach those in time, visit those remaining; those who are more merciful than all, who are more humble than all on the earth; those in the deserts being unknown by men; those who were driven far from your hand; those who were greatly disciplined by your wrath; those who were greatly reproved by your anger; those who before death were filled by men as if they were dead; those who were judged to dwell with wild beasts; whose violence no one sees, except your own sleepless eye; whose necessity you, Lord, know, and no one else for ever; those, consequently, having been separated, the end of the inhabited world being prolonged, the churches being remaining seized, the day of the feasts being unknown. Do a little mercy for them, Lord; for I do not ask much. Hurry to them, O God, who disciplined them; hurry to your former children, for they too were once your children.

Christians existed, and they were once your sheep, and they were once your members, and they once received the body of your spotless one, but now they receive irrational bodies. Therefore, Lord, look upon them in your mercies and your compassions. See the violence of those pitiful ones, and give philanthropy; see the nakedness, and give restoration; see the deep desert, and manifest your own compassion. For if you have disciplined justly, nonetheless heal; if you have handed them over worthily, nonetheless gather them. Having scourged, call them back; having handed them over, redeem them. If we have sinned many times, nonetheless remember us again, and again be moved by our prayer, especially those in deserts, and mountains, and caves, and the child of the earth in our inaccessible places, your brothers the Christians, and your peoples.

For if we are in churches with the faithful, but those are in deserts with enemies; if we are bright in the feasts, but those are in great darkness. Great is their misfortune; great is their suspicion; terrible is their wound, bitter is their calamity; their destruction is indescribable, great is their sting, much is their tragedy, Lord. Do not leave them outside, but after the discipline show also your philanthropy, so that the Jews may not boast to the end, so that the Gentiles may not say concerning us: Where is their God? Where is their Christ? Where is their cross? Where is their hope? Where is the faith of the Christians? So that they may not say these things, let your mercies look upon us quickly.

Let your compassions reach us quickly, Lord, for we have become exceedingly impoverished, for we have been exceedingly humbled, for we have been exceedingly diminished. Therefore let the groan of the fallen enter before you; the tears of the innocent infants, those being slaughtered, shall grimace at you; the lamentation of mothers of children not born shall entreat you. Saying these things, we beg, we do not fight, Lord; we beg, but we do not judge against you. We beg because we are insulted by lawless men, because we are oppressed by Greeks; we do not fight, but we confess. We weep because the others are also in danger. For even if we are sinners, nonetheless we are Christians; even if we are humble, nonetheless of the...