Martha

Martha was the sister of Lazarus and Mary of Bethany, a household that the Lord Jesus Christ loved in a special way. The Gospels of Luke and John show her receiving the Lord into her house and confessing faith in Christ as the Son of God. The Orthodox Church remembers her with her sister Mary on 4 June, on the Sunday of the Myrrh-⁠bearing Women (the third Sunday after Pascha) and on Lazarus Saturday.

The house at Bethany

The name Martha comes from the Aramaic marta, meaning mistress or lady. With her siblings Lazarus and Mary she lived in the village of Bethany, near Jerusalem. The Gospel of John says that Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus (John 11:5). The Greek synaxarion shows Martha as the elder sister who looked after the table, and Mary as the one who gathered at the Lord's teaching.

Martha and Mary

In the Gospel of Luke (10:38 to 42), Jesus enters a village and a woman named Martha receives Him into her house. Her sister Mary sat at the Lord's feet and listened to His word, while Martha was burdened with much serving. When Martha complained that her sister had left her alone, the Lord answered: Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful; Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken from her. The Church has seen in the two sisters the image of hospitality and service, joined to the hearing of the word.

The raising of Lazarus

When Lazarus fell ill and died, Martha went out to meet Jesus, while Mary stayed in the house. She said to Him: Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You. The Lord answered: I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me, though he die, shall live. Do you believe this? Martha then made her confession: Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.

At the tomb, when the Lord commanded the stone to be taken away, Martha said plainly that her brother had been dead four days and there was a stench. Jesus reminded her: Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God? The stone was taken away, and Lazarus came out alive from the tomb. Six days before Pascha, at the supper in Bethany, Martha served at table, while Lazarus sat with the Lord (John 12:1 to 3).

After the Ascension

In Orthodox tradition Martha and Mary are counted among the myrrh-⁠bearing women, who stood at Golgotha and came to the tomb with spices. The hymns of the Church call them true disciples of Christ. After the martyrdom of the archdeacon Stephen, when persecution broke out against the Church in Jerusalem, Lazarus was driven out of the city. Martha and Mary helped him in preaching the Gospel in various lands.

According to the tradition of Cyprus, Lazarus, Martha and Mary came to the island, where Lazarus became the first bishop of Kition (today Larnaca) and where all three died. The synaxarion says that the two sisters fell asleep in peace, not in persecution, because the Lord did not wish the hearts that had sheltered Him in their house with such calm to suffer. The time and place of their passing are not preserved with certainty.

The Western tradition

In the medieval West, Mary of Bethany was often confused with Mary Magdalene, and Martha received a Provençal story of her own: after the Ascension she is said to have sailed with Lazarus and Mary in a boat without sails or rudder, to have reached Marseille and then Avignon and Tarascon, where she overcame a monster called the Tarasque. The tale, gathered in the Golden Legend of the thirteenth century, does not belong to Orthodox tradition. The Roman Catholic Church commemorates her on 29 July, with Mary and Lazarus.