The pagan Roman Emperors tried to obliterate the holy places where our Lord Jesus Christ suffered and rose from the dead, so that they would be forgotten. Emperor Hadrian (117-138) ordered that Golgotha and the Lord's Sepulchre be buried, and that a temple in honor of the pagan "goddess" Venus and a statue of Jupiter be placed there.

Pagans gathered at this place and offered sacrifice to idols. Eventually after 300 years, by Divine Providence, the Christian holy places, the Sepulchre of the Lord, and the Life-giving Cross, were discovered and opened for veneration. This took place under Emperor Constantine the Great (306-337) after his victory over Maxentius (in 312), who ruled the Western part of the Roman Empire, and over Licinius, the ruler of its Eastern part. In the year 323 Constantine became the sole ruler of the vast Roman Empire.

In 313 Saint Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, by which Christianity was legalized and persecutions against Christians in the Western half of the Empire were stopped. Although Licinius had signed the Edict of Milan in order to oblige Constantine, he continued his cruel persecutions against Christians. Only after his conclusive defeat did the Edict of Milan extend also to the Eastern part of the Empire. The Holy Equal of the Apostles Emperor Constantine, triumphing over his enemies in three wars, with God’s assistance, had seen the Sign of the Cross in the heavens. Written beneath were the words: “By this you shall conquer.”

Ardently desiring to find the Cross upon which our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, Saint Constantine sent his mother, the pious Empress Helen (May 21), to Jerusalem, providing her with a letter to Saint Makarios, the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Saint Helen journeyed to the holy places connected with the earthly life of the Savior, building more than 80 churches, at Bethlehem the birthplace of Christ, and on the Mount of Olives where the Lord ascended to Heaven, and at Gethsemane where the Savior prayed before His sufferings, and where the Mother of God was buried after her Dormition.

Although the holy Empress Helen was no longer young, she set about completing the task with enthusiasm. In her search for the Life-giving Cross, she questioned both Christians and Jews, but for a long time her search remained unsuccessful. Finally, she was directed to a certain elderly Jew named Jude who stated that the Cross was buried beneath the temple of Venus. They demolished the pagan temple and, after praying, they began to excavate the ground. Soon the Lord's Tomb was uncovered. Not far from it were three crosses, and a board with the inscription ordered by Pilate, and four nails which had pierced the Lord’s Body (March 6).

In order to discover on which of the three crosses the Savior had been crucified, Patriarch Makarios alternately touched the crosses to a corpse. When the Cross of the Lord touched the dead man, he was restored to life. After witnessing the raising of the dead man, everyone was convinced that the Life-giving Cross had been found.

Christians came in a huge crowds to venerate the Holy Cross, beseeching Saint Makarios to lift the Cross, so that those far off could see it. Then the Patriarch and other spiritual leaders lifted the Holy Cross, and the people prostrated themselves before the Honorable Wood, saying “Lord have mercy." This solemn event occurred in the year 326.

During the discovery of the Life-giving Cross another miracle took place: a woman who was close to death was healed by the shadow of the Holy Cross. The elderly Jude (October 28) and other Jews believed in Christ and were baptized. Jude was given the name Kyriakos, and later he was consecrated as the Bishop of Jerusalem. He suffered a martyr’s death for Christ during the reign of Emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363).

Saint Helen took part of the Life-giving Wood and nails with her to Constantinople. Saint Constantine ordered a majestic and spacious church to built at Jerusalem in honor of the Resurrection of Christ, also including under its roof the Life-giving Tomb of the Lord and Golgotha. The church was built in ten years. Saint Helen did not survive until the dedication of the church, she reposed in the year 327. The church was consecrated on September 13, 335. On the following day, September 14, the festal celebration of the Exaltation of the Honorable and Life-giving Cross was established.

Another event connected to the Cross of the Lord is remembered also on this day: its return to Jerusalem from Persia after a fourteen year captivity. During the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Phokas (602-610) the Persian king Khozróēs II attacked Constantinople defeated the Greek army, plundered Jerusalem, capturing both the Life-giving Cross of the Lord and the Holy Patriarch Zachariah (609-633).

The Cross remained in Persia for fourteen years, and only under Emperor Herakleios (610-641), who defeated Khozróēs and concluded peace with his successor and son Syroes, was the Lord's Cross returned to the Christians.

With great solemnity the Life-giving Cross was transferred to Jerusalem. Emperor Herakleios, wearing a crown and his royal purple garments carried the Cross of Christ. The Emperor was accompanied by Patriarch Zachariah. At the gates by which they ascended Golgotha, the Emperor stopped suddenly and was unable to proceed. The holy Patriarch explained to the Emperor that an Angel of the Lord was blocking his way. Herakleios was told to remove his royal trappings and to walk barefoot, since He Who bore the Cross for the salvation of the world had made His way to Golgotha in all humility. Then Herakleios donned plain clothes, and without further hindrance, carried the Cross of Christ into the church.

In a sermon on the Exaltation of the Cross, Saint Andrew of Crete (July 4) says: “The Cross is exalted, and everything true is gathered together, the Cross is exalted, and the city makes solemn, and the people celebrate the feast."

Saint John Chrysostom died on September 14, 407, but because of the feast of the Exaltation of the Life-Creating Cross of the Lord, the commemoration of the saint was transferred to November 13. On January 27 we commemorate the transfer of the holy relics of Saint John Chrysostom from Comana to Constantinople, and on January 30, the Synaxis of the Three Hierarchs.

No information available at this time.

Saint Joseph was a monk of Dionysiou Monastery on Mt. Athos, where he shone forth with the virtues of monastic life. He was an iconographer, and he painted the icon of the holy Archangels on the iconostasis of Dionysiou’s main church.

In obedience to the instructions of Igumen Stephen, Saint Joseph traveled to Constantinople with Eudocimus, who had apostasized from Orthodoxy to become a Moslem. Eudocimus repented, and wished to wipe out his sin through martyrdom.

When faced with torture and death, however, the unfortunate Eudocimus denied Christ again, blaming Joseph for turning him from Islam.

Saint Joseph was arrested and threatened with death. In spite of many tortures, he refused to convert to Islam. This holy martyr of Christ was hanged on February 17, 1819, and so he obtained an incorruptible crown of glory.

Some sources list his commemoration on February 17, while others list him on September 14 or October 26.

The Lesna Icon of the Mother of God appeared on the Feast of the Universal Exaltation of the Cross in the year 1683 and was found by Alexander Stelmashuk, a shepherd, who had gone into the woods in order to escape the heat. There he saw a small Icon in the branches of a pear tree, emitting a bright radiance. He fell to his knees in reverence, but then he was so overcome with fear that he ran to tell a friend about his discovery. The two shepherds went to the village priest, who went back with them to remove the Icon from the tree. They brought it to an Orthodox church in the village of Bukovich, not far from the town of Lesna.

When news of the Icon's miraculous appearance circulated throughout the surrounding area, Roman Catholic priests decided to use the Icon to convert the Orthodox to Catholicism. In 1686, when they met with opposition from the Orthodox faithful, they removed the Icon by force in 1686 and placed it in the Roman Catholic church at Lesna.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Catholic monks founded a large Roman church and monastery at Lesna, where the wonderworking Icon was. In 1863, the monks took part in the Polish revolt, and, by a decree of the Russian government, the Icon was returned to the Orthodox Church. The monastery was closed and turned into an Orthodox women’s monastery in 1885. A new iconostasis was built, but it was only two rows high so that people could see the Lesna Icon hanging in the High Place.

The Icon has worked many miracles, healing the sick, dispelling melancholy, and alleviating every sort of misfortune.

The Lesna Icon of the Mother of God is also commemorated on September 8 and on the Day of the Holy Trinity (Pentecost).

Saint Anthimus of Iberia was one of the most highly educated people of his time. He was fluent in many languages, including Greek, Romanian, Old Slavonic, Arabic, and Turkish and well-versed in theology, literature, and the natural sciences. He was unusually gifted in the fine arts—in painting, engraving, and sculpture in particular. He was famed for his beautiful calligraphy. Finally, Saint Anthimus was a great writer, a renowned orator, and a reformer of the written Romanian language.

Little is known about the youth of Saint Anthimus. He was a native of the Samtskhe region in southern Georgia. His parents, John and Mariam, gave him the name Andria at Baptism. He accompanied King Archil to Russia and helped him to found a Georgian print shop there, but after he returned he was captured by Dagestani robbers and sold into slavery. Through the efforts of Patriarch Dositheus of Jerusalem, Anthimus was finally set free, but he remained in the patriarch’s service in order to further his spiritual education.

Already famed for his paintings, engravings, and calligraphy, Anthimus was asked by Prince Constantine Brincoveanu (1688-1714) of Wallachia (present-day Romania) to travel to his kingdom around the year 1691. After he had arrived in Wallachia, he began to manage a local print shop. The printing industry in that country advanced tremendously at that time, and the chief inspiration and driving force behind the great advances was the Georgian master Anthimus. He succeeded in making Wallachia a center of Christianity and a major publisher of books for all the East.

In 1694 Anthimus was enthroned as abbot of Snagov Monastery (in present-day Romania), where he soon founded a print shop. In the same year his new print shop published Guidelines for the Divine Services on May 21, All Saints’ Day. The book was signed by Subdeacon Michael Ishtvanovich, future founder of the first Georgian print shop.

In 1705 Anthimus, “the chosen among chosen abbots of Wallachia,” was consecrated bishop of Rimnicu Vilcea, and in 1708 he was appointed metropolitan of Hungro-Wallachia. The whole country celebrated his elevation. As one abbot proclaimed: “The divine Anthimus, a great man and son of the wise Iberian nation, has come to Wallachia and enlightened our land. God has granted him an inexhaustible source of wisdom, entrusted him to accomplish great endeavors, and helped to advance our nation by establishing for us a great printing industry.”

Under the direct leadership of Saint Anthimus, more than twenty churches and monasteries were erected in Wallachia. Of particular significance is All Saints’ Monastery, located in the center of Bucharest. The main gates of this monastery were made of oak and carved with traditional Georgian motifs by Saint Anthimus himself. The metropolitan also established rules for the monastery and declared its independence from the Church of Constantinople.

From the day of his consecration, Metropolitan Anthimus fought tirelessly for the liberation of Wallachia from foreign oppressors. On the day he was ordained he addressed his flock: “You have defended the Christian Faith in purity and without fault. Nevertheless, you are surrounded and tightly bound by the violence of other nations. You endure countless deprivations and tribulations from those who dominate this world…. Though I am unworthy and am indeed younger than many of you—like David, I am the youngest among my brothers— the Lord God has anointed me to be your shepherd. Thus I will share in your future trials and griefs and partake in the lot that God has appointed for you.”

His words were prophetic: In 1714 the Turks executed the Wallachian prince Constantine Brincoveanu, and in 1716 they executed Stefan Cantacuzino (1714-1716), the last prince of Wallachia.

In his place they appointed Nicholas Mavrokordatos, a Phanariote (a member of one of the principal Greek families of the Phanar, the Greek quarter of Constantinople, who, as administrators in the civil bureaucracy, exercised great influence in the Ottoman Empire after the Turkish conquest) who concerned himself only with the interests of the Ottoman Empire.

During this difficult time, Anthimus of Iberia gathered around him a group of loyal boyar patriots determined to liberate their country from Turkish and Phanariote domination. But Nicholas Mavrokordatos became suspicious, and he ordered Anthimus to resign as metropolitan. When Anthimus failed to do so, he filed a complaint with Patriarch Jeremiah of Constantinople.

Then a council of bishops, which did not include a single Romanian clergyman, condemned the “conspirator and instigator of revolutionary activity” to anathema and excommunication and declared him unworthy to be called a monk. But Nicholas Mavrokordatos was still unsatisfied and claimed that to deny Anthimus the title of Metropolitan of Hungro-Wallachia was insufficient punishment. He ordered Anthimus to be exiled far from Wallachia, to Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai. Metropolitan Anthimus, beloved of the Romanian people, was escorted out of the city at night since the conspirators feared the reaction of the people.

But Metropolitan Anthimus never reached Mt. Sinai. On September 14, 1716, a band of Turkish soldiers stabbed Saint Anthimus to death on the bank of the Tundzha (Tunca) River where it flows through Adrianople, not far from Gallipoli, and cast his butchered remains into the river.

Thus ended the earthly life of one more Georgian saint—a man who had dedicated all of his strength, talent, and knowledge to the revival of Christian culture and the strengthening of the Wallachian people in the Orthodox Faith.

In 1992 the Romanian Church canonized Anthimus of Iberia and proclaimed his commemoration day to be September 14, the day of his repose. The Georgian Church commemorates him on June 13.

The Forefeast of the Universal Exaltation of the Precious and Life-giving Cross is celebrated for only one day (September 13) and there are seven days of Afterfeast (September 15-21). The Leavetaking of the Feast falls on September 21.

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross is preceded by the Saturday and Sunday before the Exaltation, and it is followed by the Sunday after the Exaltation.

Today we also commemorate the Consecration of the church of the Resurrection at Jerusalem.

Saint Constantine the Great (May 21) built the church of the Resurrection on Golgotha. On September 13, 335, the Fathers of the Council of Tyre consecrated it and, at that time, ordained the annual commemoration of its consecration.

The Dedication of the Temple of the Resurrection of Christ at Jerusalem celebrates the dedication of the Church of the Resurrection, built by Saint Constantine the Great and his mother, the empress Helen.

After the voluntary Passion and Death on the Cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the holy place of His suffering was long trampled on by pagans. When the Roman emperor Titus conquered Jerusalem in the year 70, he razed the city and destroyed the Temple of Solomon on Mount Moriah, leaving there not a stone upon a stone, as even the Savior foretold (Mt.13:1-2).

Later on the zealous pagan emperor Hadrian (117-138) built on the site of the Jerusalem destroyed by Titus a new city named Aelia Capitolina for him (Hadrian Aelius). It was forbidden to call the city by its former name.

He gave orders to cover the Holy Tomb of the Lord with earth and stones, and on that spot to set up an idol. On Golgotha, where the Savior was crucified, he constructed a pagan temple dedicated to the goddess Venus in 119. Before the statues they offered sacrifice to demons and performed pagan rites, accompanied by wanton acts.

In Bethlehem, at the place the Savior was born of the All-Pure Virgin, the impious emperor set up an idol of Adonis. He did all this intentionally, so that people would forget completely about Christ the Savior and that they would no loner remember the places where He lived, taught, suffered and arose in glory.

At the beinning of the reign of Saint Constantine the Great (306-337), the first of the Roman emperors to recognize the Christian religion, he and his pious mother the empress Helen decided to rebuild the city of Jerusalem. They also planned to build a church on the site of the Lord’s suffering and Resurrection, in order to reconsecrate and purify the places connected with memory of the Savior from the taint of foul pagan cults.

The empress Helen journeyed to Jerusalem with a large quantity of gold, and Saint Constantine the Great wrote a letter to Patriarch Macarius I (313-323), requesting him to assist her in every possible way with her task of the renewing the Christian holy places.

After her arrival in Jerusalem, the holy empress Helen destroyed all the pagan temples and reconsecrated the places desecrated by the pagans. She was zealous to find the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and she ordered the excavation of the place where the temple of Venus stood. There they discovered the Sepulchre of the Lord and Golgotha, and they also found three crosses and some nails.

In order to determine upon which of the three crosses the Savior was crucified, Patriarch Macarius gave orders to place a dead person, who was being carried to a place of burial, upon each cross in turn. When the dead person was placed on the Cross of Christ, he immediately came alive. With the greatest of joy the empress Helen and Patriarch Macarius raised up the Life-Creating Cross and displayed it to all the people standing about.

The holy empress quickly began the construction of a large church which enclosed within its walls Golgotha, the place of the Crucifixion of the Savior, and the Sepulchre of the Lord, located near each other. The holy Apostle and Evangelist John wrote about this: "Now in the place where He was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been laid. Therefore they laid Jesus there because of the Jewish preparation day, for the tomb was nearby" (John 19:41-42). The Church of the Resurrection was ten years in building, and the holy empress Helen did not survive to see its completion. She returned to Constantinople, and reposed in the year 327. After her arrival in Jerusalem, the holy empress built churches in Bethlehem, on the Mount of Olives, at Gethsemane and in many other places connected with the life of the Savior and events in the New Testament.

The construction of the church of the Resurrection, called "Martyrion" in memory of the sufferings of the Savior, was completed in the same year as the Council of Tyre, and in the thirtieth year of the reign of Saint Constantine the Great. Therefore, at the assembly of September 13, 335, the consecration of the temple was particularly solemn. Hierarchs of Christian Churches in many lands: Bythnia, Thrace, Cilicia, Cappadocia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Arabia, Palestine, and Egypt, participated in the consecration of the church. The bishops who participated in the Council of Tyre, and many others, went to the consecration in Jerusalem. On this day all the city of Jerusalem was consecrated. The Fathers of the Church established September 13 as the commemoration of this remarkable event.

Soon after the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross and His Ascension into Heaven, a centurion by the name of Cornelius settled at Caesarea in Palestine. He had lived previously in Thracian Italy. Although he was a pagan, he distinguished himself by deep piety and good deeds, as the holy Evangelist Luke says (Acts 10:1). The Lord did not disdain his virtuous life, and so led him to the knowledge of truth and to faith in Christ.

Once, Cornelius was praying in his home. An angel of God appeared to him and said that his prayer had been heard and accepted by God. The angel commanded him to send people to Joppa to find Simon, also called Peter. Cornelius immediately fulfilled the command.

While those people were on their way to Joppa, the Apostle Peter was at prayer, and he had a vision: three times a great sheet was lowered down to him, filled with all kinds of beasts and fowl. He heard a voice from Heaven commanding him to eat everything. When the apostle refused to eat food which Jewish Law regarded as unclean, the voice said: “What God hath cleansed, you must not call common” (Acts 10:15).

Through this vision the Lord commanded the Apostle Peter to preach the Word of God to the pagans. When the Apostle Peter arrived at the house of Cornelius in the company of those sent to meet him, he was received with great joy and respect by the host together with his kinsmen and comrades.

Cornelius fell down at the feet of the apostle and requested to be taught the way of salvation. Saint Peter talked about the earthly life of Jesus Christ, and spoke of the miracles and signs worked by the Savior, and of His teachings about the Kingdom of Heaven. Then Saint Peter told him of the Lord’s death on the Cross, His Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven. By the grace of the Holy Spirit, Cornelius believed in Christ and was baptized with all his family. He was the first pagan to receive Baptism.

He retired from the world and went preaching the Gospel together with the Apostle Peter, who made him a bishop. When the Apostle Peter, together with his helpers Saints Timothy and Cornelius, was in the city of Ephesus, he learned of a particularly vigorous idol-worship in the city of Skepsis. Lots were drawn to see who would go there, and Saint Cornelius was chosen.

In the city lived a prince by the name of Demetrius, learned in the ancient Greek philosophy, hating Christianity and venerating the pagan gods, in particular Apollo and Zeus. Learning about the arrival of Saint Cornelius in the city, he immediately summoned him and asked him the reason for his coming. Saint Cornelius answered that he came to free him from the darkness of ignorance and lead him to knowledge of the True Light.

The prince, not comprehending the meaning of what was said, became angry and demanded that he answer each of his questions. When Saint Cornelius explained that he served the Lord and that the reason for his coming was to announce the Truth, the prince became enraged and demanded that Cornelius offer sacrifice to the idols.

The saint asked to be shown the gods. When he entered the pagan temple, Cornelius turned towards the east and uttered a prayer to the Lord. There was an earthquake, and the temple of Zeus and the idols situated in it were destroyed. All the populace, seeing what had happened, were terrified.

The prince was even more vexed and began to take counsel together with those approaching him, about how to destroy Cornelius. They bound the saint and took him to prison for the night. At this point, one of his servants informed the prince that his wife and child had perished beneath the rubble of the destroyed temple.

After a certain while, one of the pagan priests, by the name of Barbates, reported that he heard the voice of the wife and son somewhere in the ruins and that they were praising the God of the Christians. The pagan priest asked that the imprisoned one be released, in gratitude for the miracle worked by Saint Cornelius, and the wife and son of the prince remained alive.

The joyful prince hastened to the prison in the company of those about him, declaring that he believed in Christ and asking him to bring his wife and son out of the ruins of the temple. Saint Cornelius went to the destroyed temple, and through prayer the suffering were freed.

After this the prince Demetrius, and all his relatives and comrades accepted holy Baptism. Saint Cornelius lived for a long time in this city, converted all the pagan inhabitants to Christ, and made Eunomios a presbyter in service to the Lord. Saint Cornelius died in old age and was buried not far from the pagan temple he destroyed.

The Holy Martyr Chronides suffered for the Christian Faith in the third century with Saints Stratonicus, Serapion, Leontius and Seleucus. Saints Chronides, Leontius, and Serapion were from Egypt. After fierce torments for their confession of faith in Christ, the holy martyrs were savagely killed. Saints Chronides, Leontius and Serapion were bound hand and foot and cast into the sea. Their bodies were carried to shore by the waves, where Christians gave them burial.

Saint Seleucus both came from and suffered in Galatia, where after many tortures he and his wife were thrown to be eaten by wild beasts.

Saint Stratonicus was from Bithynian Nicomedia. Saint Stratonicus, after being tortured by order of the Bithynan governor, was bound to two bent tree trunks. His body was split in two (See also September 9).

Saint Macrobius was from Paphlagonia, and suffered martyrdom with Saints Gordian, Elias, Zoticus, Lucian and Valerian.

Gordian, a native of Cappadocia, served with Macrobian in the imperial court, and they enjoyed the particular favor of the emperor. When he found out that they were Christians, he sent them to Scythia. There they met Zoticus, Lucian and Elias, who were also courageous confessors of Christ. First Saints Gordian and Macrobius suffered. After this Saints Elias, Zoticus, Lucian and Valerian were tortured and then beheaded in the city of Tomis in Scythia (Tomis, Romania). They suffered at Paphlagonia (Asia Minor) at the beginning of the fourth century during the reign of the Roman emperor Licinius (311-324).

Saint Julian was born at Ancyra, Galatia (in Asia Minor). He was a priest who boldly confessed Christ during the reign of Emperor Licinius (311-324). For this “crime,” he was arrested by the authorities. Since he refused to offer sacrifice to the idols, he was tortured and put to death, thereby receiving an imperishable crown of glory from Christ.

Saint Peter from Atroe was dedicated to God from childhood, and spent his whole life in exploits of fasting and unceasing prayer. He pursued asceticism in the city of Atroe, near Asian Olympos. A distinctive feature of the holy ascetic was his extreme temperance. During his lifetime, the saint worked many miracles and peacefully reposed in the time of Patriarch Tarasius of Constantinople (784-806).

The holy Queen Ketevan was the daughter of Ashotan Mukhran-Batoni, a prominent ruler from the Bagrationi royal family. The clever and pious Ketevan was married to Prince David, heir to the throne of Kakheti. David’s father, King Alexander II (1574-1605), had two other sons, George and Constantine, but according to the law the throne belonged to David. Constantine was converted to Islam and raised in the court of the Persian shah Abbas I.

Several years after David and Ketevan were married, King Alexander stepped down from the throne and was tonsured a monk at Alaverdi. But after four months, in the year 1602, the young king David died suddenly. He was survived by his wife, Ketevan, and two children—a son, Teimuraz, and a daughter, Elene—and his father ascended the throne once more.

Upon hearing of David’s death and Alexander’s return to the royal throne, Shah Abbas commanded Alexander’s youngest son, Constantine-Mirza, to travel to Kakheti, murder his father and the middle brother, George, and seize the throne of Kakheti. As instructed, Constantine-Mirza beheaded his father and brother, then sent their heads, like a precious gift, to Shah Abbas.

Their headless bodies he sent to Alaverdi. (Since the beginning of the 11th century, Alaverdi had been the resting place of the Kakhetian kings.) The widowed Queen Ketevan was left to bury her father-in-law and brother-in-law.

But Constantine-Mirza was still unsatisfied, and he proposed to take Queen Ketevan as his wife.

Outraged at his proposition, the nobles of Kakheti rose up and killed the young man who had committed patricide and profaned his Faith and the throne. Having buried the wicked Constantine-Mirza with the honor befitting his royal ancestry, Ketevan sent generous gifts to Shah Abbas and requested that he proclaim her son, Teimuraz, the rightful heir to the throne.

While she was awaiting his reply, Ketevan assumed personal responsibility for the rule of Kakheti. Concerned that, if he denied this request, Kakheti would forcibly separate from him and unite with Kartli, Shah Abbas hastily sent Prince Teimuraz to Georgia, laden with great wealth.

In 1614 Shah Abbas informed King Teimuraz that his son would be taken hostage, and Teimuraz was forced to send his young son Alexander and his mother Ketevan to Persia. As a final attempt to divide the royal family of Kakheti, Shah Abbas demanded that the eldest prince, Levan, be brought before him, and he finally summoned King Teimuraz himself.

The shah’s intentions were clear: to hold all of the royal family in Persia and send his own viceroys to rule in Kakheti. He sought to eliminate King Luarsab II of Kartli as well, but Teimuraz and Luarsab agreed to attack the Persian army with joint forces and drive the enemy out of Georgia.

Shah Abbas sent his hostages, Queen Ketevan and her grandsons, deep into Persia, while he himself launched an attack on Kakheti.

With fire and the sword the godless ruler plundered all of Georgia. The royal palace was razed, churches and monasteries were destroyed, and entire villages were abandoned. By order of the shah, more than three hundred thousand Georgians were exiled to Persia, and their homes were occupied by Turkic tribes from Central Asia. Hunger and violence reigned over Georgia.

The defeated Georgian kings Teimuraz and Luarsab sought refuge with King George III of Imereti.

After they had spent five years exiled in Shiraz (Persia), the princes Alexander and Levan were separated from Ketevan and castrated in Isfahan. Alexander could not endure the suffering and died, while Levan went mad.

Saint Ketevan, meanwhile, remained a prisoner of the ruler of southeastern Persia, the ethnic Georgian imam Quli-Khan Undiladze, who regarded the widowed Queen of Kakheti with great respect. According to his command, Ketevan was not to discover the fate of her grandsons.

Queen Ketevan spent ten years in prison, praying for her motherland and loved ones with all her might and adhering to a strict ascetic regime. Constant fasting, prayer and a stone bed exhausted her previously pampered body, but in spirit she was courageous and full of vitality. She looked after those assigned to her care and instructed them in the spiritual life.

After some time Abbas resolved to convert Ketevan to Islam, and he announced his intention to marry her. He asked that his proposal be conveyed to her the same day she was informed of the fate of her grandsons. As a condition of their marriage, Abbas insisted that Ketevan renounce the Christian Faith and convert to Islam. In the case of her acquiescence, Imam Quli-Khan was to respect and honor her as a queen, and in the case of her refusal, to subject her to public torture.

The alarmed imam begged the queen to submit to the shah’s will and save herself, but the queen firmly refused and began to prepare for her martyrdom. (According to one foreign observer, her steadfastness delayed the Islamization of the Georgians in Persia: “In the course of a conversation at the court of Shah Abbas, where a young and recently converted Georgian was present, the question arose as to why it was that, while all young Georgians were forced to embrace Islam, their mothers were not. The explanation given by one of those present was that since the Queen would not change her faith Georgian mothers likewise refused.” (Z. Avalishvili, “Teimuraz I and His Poem ‘The Martyrdom of Queen Ketevan,’” Georgica [vol I, no. 4/5, 1937] pp. 22.)

Queen Ketevan was robed in festive attire and led out to a crowded square. Her persecutors subjected her to indescribable torment: they placed a red-hot copper cauldron on her head, tore at her chest with heated tongs, pierced her body with glowing spears, tore off her fingernails, nailed a board to her spine, and finally split her forehead with a red-hot spade.

Saint Ketevan’s soul departed from her body, and the executioners cast her mutilated body to the beasts. But the Lord God sent a miracle: her holy relics were illumined with a radiant light.

A group of French Augustinian missionary fathers, who had witnessed the inhuman tortures, wrapped Queen Ketevan’s body in linens scented with myrrh and incense and buried it in a Catholic monastery.

Some time later the holy relics of Great-martyr Ketevan were delivered to her son, Teimuraz, King of Kakheti.

Teimuraz wept bitterly for his mother and sons and buried the relics with great honor in the Alaverdi Cathedral of Saint George.

According to Saint Νikόdēmos of the Holy Mountain, Saint Hierotheos was born in the year 1686 at Kalamata in the Peloponnḗsos, to wealthy and devout parents Dḗmo and Asēmina. Desiring to understand Divine wisdom as it is in the sciences and also as it is in monastic life, the pious young man showed great ability and diligence, studying the Latin and Greek languages as well as philosophy.

After the death of his parents, and wishing to continue his education, Saint Hierotheos first visited Mount Athos, which was renowned for its many instructors in the spiritual life. At first he was the disciple of a certain hermit near the cell of Saint Artemios (October 20), and then he joined the brethren of Ivḗron Monastery, where he received the monastic tonsure.

Saint Hierotheos soon journeyed to Constantinople on monastery business, and from there to Valakhia, where the Lord directed him to continue his interrupted education. After he had been taught by a certain Cypriot monk, Saint Hierotheos won the favor of Metropolitan Auxentios of Sofia because of his virtuous life, and was ordained as a deacon.

When he completed his education in Venice, Saint Hierotheos returned to the Holy Mountain. He settled near Ivḗron Monastery in the Khaga wilderness. According to the testimony of his contemporaries, he led a very strict solitary life. Through the Jesus Prayer the Saint discovered a deep love for neighbor and joyful sorrow (χαρμολύπη).¹ At the request of the Igoumen of the Ivḗron Monastery, Saint Hierotheos was ordained to the priesthood by Metropolitan James of Neocaesarea, who was living there in retirement.

Giving in to the entreaties of the inhabitants of Skopelo, who had no priest, the self-denying ascetic forsook his solitude. He performed the Divine Services and preached for eight years, along with his Athonite disciples Hieromonk Meletios and the monks Joasaph and Simeon.

Foreseeing his own impending end, Saint Hierotheos and three disciples withdrew to the island of Yura, where those who were banished for life were sent. Weakened by his strict fasting, prayerful vigils and bodily illnesses, he could hardly walk in a small field. He departed to the Lord in the year 1745, and his disciples buried him on the island. After three years, his venerable head was transferred to the Ivḗron monastery. Many sick persons and those afflicted with bodily suffering were healed by praying to the Saint.

¹ See The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 7.

Saint John was a monk of the Prislop Monastery in southwestern Romania at the turn of the sixteenth century. After several years in that place, he went into the mountains to lead a solitary ascetical life, struggling against the assaults of the demons.

One day, while Saint John was making a window in his cell, he was shot and killed by a hunter on the other side of the creek, who mistook him for a wild animal.

Saint John’s holy relics were later brought to Wallachia (southern Romania). He was glorified by the Orthodox Church of Romania in 1992.

No information available at this time.

The Hieromartyr Autonomus was a bishop in Italy. During the time of the persecution against Christians under the emperor Diocletian (284-305), Saint Autonomus left his own country and resettled in Bithynia, in the locality of Soreus with a man named Cornelius. Saint Autonomus did his apostolic duty with zeal and converted to Christ so many pagans, that a large Church was formed, for which he consecrated a temple in the name of the Archangel Michael. For this church, the saint at first ordained Cornelius as deacon, and then presbyter. Preaching about Christ, Saint Autonomus visited also Lykaonia and Isauria.

The emperor Diocletian gave orders to arrest Saint Autonomus, but the saint withdrew to Claudiopolis on the Black Sea. In returning to Soreus, he had the priest Cornelius ordained bishop. Saint Autonomus then went to Asia, and when he had returned from there, he began to preach in the vicinity of Limna, near Soreus.

Once, the newly-converted destroyed a pagan temple. The pagans decided to take revenge on the Christians. Seizing their chance, the pagans rushed upon the church of the Archangel Michael when Saint Autonomus was serving Divine Liturgy there. After torturing Saint Autonomus they killed him, reddening the altar of the church with his martyr’s blood. The deaconess Maria removed the body of the holy martyr from beneath a pile of stones and buried it.

During the reign of Saint Constantine the Great, a church was built over the tomb of the saint. In the year 430, a certain priest had the old church pulled down. Not realizing that the martyr’s body had been buried beneath the church, he rebuilt the church in a new spot. But after another 60 years the relics of the saint were found incorrupt, and a church was then built in the name of the Hieromartyr Autonomus.

Saint Bassian of Tiksnensk [Totemsk] (in the world Basil) was a peasant from the village of Strelitsa (by other accounts, from the village of Burtsevo), near the city of Totma, and he was by trade a tailor. Leaving his family, he became a monk under Saint Theodosius of Totemsk in the Sumorinsk monastery at the River Sukhona, where he spent several years in works and obediences.

In 1594, the monk resettled not far from Totma, at the River Tiksna, near a church named for Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker. At first he lived at the church portico, but then he made himself a cell near the church. The monk visited at each divine service. For thirty years he wore chains on his body: on his shoulders a heavy chain, on his loins an iron belt, and on his head beneath his head covering an iron cap.

Yearning for solitude, the monk admitted no one to his cell, except his spiritual Father. He lived by the alms which they put by his small window. Saint Bassian died on September 12, 1624. Only at burial was it discovered how much he had humbled his flesh.

At the place of Saint Bassian’s ascetic struggles a monastery was established in honor of the Icon of the Savior Not-Made-by-Hands. Veneration of Saint Bassian began in the year 1647, when during a deadly plague, many received healing at his tomb. The Life of the monk was written in the year 1745 by the igumen Joseph.

Saint Simeon of Verkhoturye was a nobleman, but he concealed his origin and led the life of a beggar. He walked through the villages and for free sewed half-coats and other clothes, primarily for the poor. While doing this he deliberately failed to sew something, either a glove, or a scarf, for which he endured abuse from his customers.

The ascetic wandered much, but most often he lived at a churchyard of the village of Merkushinsk not far from the city of Verkhoturye (on the outskirts of Perm). Saint Simeon loved nature in the Urals, and while joyfully contemplated its majestic beauty, he would raise up a thoughtful glance towards the Creator of the world. In his free time, the saint loved to go fishing in the tranquility of solitude. This reminded him of the disciples of Christ, whose work he continued, guiding the local people in the true Faith. His conversations were a seed of grace, from which gradually grew the abundant fruits of the Spirit in the Urals and in Siberia, where the saint is especially revered.

Saint Simeon of Verkhoturye died in 1642, when he was 35 years of age. He was buried in the Merkushinsk graveyard by the church of the Archangel Michael.

On September 12, 1704, with the blessing of Metropolitan Philotheus of Tobolsk, the holy relics of Saint Simeon were transferred from the church of the Archangel Michael to the Verkhoturye monastery in the name of Saint Nicholas.

Saint Simeon worked many miracles after his death. He frequently appeared to the sick in dreams and healed them, and he brought to their senses those fallen into the disease of drunkenness. A peculiarity of the saint’s appearances was that with the healing of bodily infirmities, he also gave instruction and guidance for the soul.

The memory of Saint Simeon of Verkhoturye is celebrated also on December 18, on the day of his glorification (1694).

The Holy Martyr Julian lived during the fourth century not far from the ancient city of Ancyra. A report was made to the governor of the district of Galatia that the Presbyter Julian was hiding in a certain cave with forty others of the same persuasion, and that he was celebrating divine services there. They arrested Saint Julian and demanded that he reveal where the remaining Christians were hidden, but he refused.

The pagans ordered the holy priest to offer sacrifice to their gods, but he would not consent to this, either. Then they stripped him and placed him on a red-hot iron grate. The martyr signed himself with the Sign of the Cross, and an angel of the Lord cooled the flame. Saint Julian remained unharmed.

When the governor asked who he was and how he had quenched the fire, the martyr said: “I am a servant of God.” The torturers brought forth an old woman, the mother of the saint, and they threatened her that if she did not persuade her son to offer sacrifice to idols, then they would torture her. The brave woman answered that if they defiled her body against her will, this would not make her guilty of sin before God. On the contrary, it would constitute an act of martyrdom.

The humiliated torturers sent the old woman away, but they condemned Saint Julian to death. In his prayer the saint gave fervent thanks to God and asked that he be given strength to endure the sufferings. Saint Julian also asked a special grace from God: that those who take earth from the place of his burial be granted forgiveness of sins and deliverance from passions, and that harmful insects and birds might not descend upon their fields.

Commending himself to God with the words: “Lord, accept my spirit in peace!” the martyr bent his neck beneath the sword, and a Voice summoned the martyr to the Heavenly Kingdom. This Voice was heard also by the forty Christians who had hidden themselves in the cave. Emboldened, they come forth to the place of Saint Julian’s sufferings, but they found him already dead. They all confessed themselves to be Christians, and they were arrested and brought to the governor, who ordered them beheaded.

This Saint Theodore of Alexandria is not the same person as Saint Theodore the Bishop of Alexandria (December 3).

Today’s saint was a simple Christian who was thrown into prison for confessing Christ. Later, he was tortured and thrown into the sea, but remained unharmed.

Saint Theodore was beheaded and buried in Alexandria.

The Hieromartyr Coronatus, Bishop of Nicomedia [Iconium], suffered for Christ in the persecution of Decius and Valerian (253-259) in the third century. The governor of Iconium, Perennius, through his interrogations and persecution, forced Christians to go into hiding. Saint Coronatus voluntarily appeared before Perennius. The torturers tightly bound the legs of the bishop with thin cords and led him through the city. The hieromartyr underwent excruciating sufferings, and blood flowed from the wounds on his legs, because the cords dug into his flesh. After terrible tortures, Bishop Coronatus was beheaded.

Saint Athanasius of Serpukhov (in the world Andrew) was born at Obonezh Pyatina into the family of the priest Auxentius and his wife Maria. He was, from youth, inclined towards prayer and renunciation of the world, and he sought a worthy guide in monastic labors.

At this time, news of Saint Sergius of Radonezh had already spread throughout the whole of Rus. The monastery of the Life-Creating Trinity at Makovets had become for everyone a luminous model of monastic organization. Here in the monastery, the cenobitic life transformed “the hateful discord of this world,” creating an oneness of spirit in an unity of love based on the example of the Divine Trinity Itself. The youth Andrew went from the outskirts of Novgorod to Abba Sergius at Makovets, following in his footsteps in search of spiritual perfection.

Named Athanasius in monasticism, in honor of Saint Athanasius the Great, the disciple and copier of the Life of Saint Anthony the Great, the founder of Egyptian monasticism. Saint Athanasius in turn became a worthy disciple of the great Igumen Sergius, the Father and teacher of Russian monasticism.

The disciples of Saint Sergius, in addition to the usual monastic obediences, received the holy abba’s blessing for special church services: copying books, painting icons, buildin churches. This added a genuine churchly quality to life, imparting churchly beauty and hymnology, a liturgical transfiguration of God’s world.

The favourite obedience of Abba Athansios, which he imposed upon himself, was copying books. The holy books were regarded by the Fathers as on the same level as the holy icons, the most important way to impart churchly ideas, those of theological and liturgical creativity.

The school of Saint Sergius, revealing to the Russian and to the Universal Church the whole extent of theological experiential knowledge of the Holy Trinity, is closely connected with the flourishing of church literature, with the necessity of interactive enrichment of the Russian Church by the literary works of the Byzantine Church and its theologians, and by the deep spiritual experience of the Russian ascetics.

In the year 1374, the Serpukhov prince Vladimir Andreevich the Brave, a colleague of Demetrius of the Don , turned to Saint Sergius with a request to found a monastery on his lands. Abba Sergius came to Serpukhov with his beloved disciple Athanasius, and having established the monastery of the Conception of the Most Holy Theotokos, he blessed Saint Athanasius to organize it, and then to be its igumen.

The monastery of Saint Athanasius was built near the city of Serpukhov, on the high bank of the River Nara. They therefore called it “Vysotskoi” [“of the heights”]. Hence also its title, with which entered into Russian Church history its founder and first igumen, Saint Athanasius of Vysotsk.

Abba Athanasius zealously set about the organization of the monastery entrusted to him. Many Russian ascetics arrived here, “on the heights,” for an heightened schooling in monasticism.

According to the teaching of Abba Athanasius, preserved for us by Epiphanius the Wise, to be a monk was no easy thing. “The duty of the monk consists in this, that he be vigilant in prayer and in divine precepts until midnight, and sometimes for the whole night. He should eat nothing but bread and water, oil even and wine would be altogether improper.” Through the words of the saint of God, many came to him at the monastery on the heights, “but then they slackened, and, unable to endure the work of ascetic struggle, they fled.”

Those ascetics of higher monastic worth remained with the holy abba. Therefore, it was to this monastery, to his disciple and fellow-ascetic Athanasius, that the God-bearing Abba Sergius of Radonezh sent his future successor, Saint Nikon (November 17) for tonsure and guidance in monastic endeavors. Saint Athanasius taught him: “Monks are called voluntary martyrs. Many holy martyrs suffered for a single hour and then died, but each day monks endure sufferings not from torturers, but from within, from the properties of the flesh and from mental enemies. There are struggles, and they suffer until their last breath.”

In 1478, after the death of Saint Alexis, Metropolitan of Moscow, the new Metropolitan, Saint Cyprian (September 16) arrived in Moscow. But Great Prince Demetrius of the Don wanted to establish his own priest and colleague Michael [Mitaya] as metropolitan, and he would not accept Metropolitan Cyprian. Instead, he expelled him from Moscow.

Saint Cyprian was in a difficult position. But he found support and sympathy among the pillars of Russian monasticism, Saints Sergius of Radonezh and Athanasius of Vysotsk. From the very beginning, they saw the canonical legitimacy of the Metropolitan in his dispute with the Great Prince and they supported him in the prolonged struggle (1478-1490) for the restoration of canonical order and unity in the Russian Church. Saint Cyprian had to journey several times during these years to Constantinople to participate in council deliberations concerning the governace of the Russian Church. On one of these journeys, with the blessing of holy Abba Sergius, Saint Athanasius of Vysotsk went to Constantinople with his friend the Metropolitan, leaving his own disciple, Saint Athanasius the Younger as the igumen of the Vysotsk monastery.

At Constantinople Saint Athanasius settled into the monastery of the holy Forerunner and Baptist John (Studion), where he found a cell for himself and for several disciples who had come with him. Saint Athanasius occupied himself with prayer and salvific theological books. The monk spent about twenty years in the capital of Church culture, working to translate books from the Greek language and copying Church books, which he then sent off to Rus. Thereby, he transmitted to the Russian Church not only a legacy of great Orthodox thought, but also the traditions of Constantinople’s masters of manuscript illumination, with their elegant penmanship and artistry of textual miniatures, achieving a harmony of content and form. A continuing creative connection was established between Saint Athanasius’s skillful copying of books at Constantinople and the calligraphic and iconographic school of the Vysotsk monastery at Serpukhov.

It was not by chance that it was especially at the Vysotsk monastery that the holy Igumen Nikon guided the future iconographer Saint Andrew Rublev (July 4), as once previously the God-bearing Abba Sergius had guided Nikon himself in this monastery to spiritual maturity and an understanding of the rejuvenating and transformative spirit of pure churchly beauty.

In this sacred service of churchly beauty, in constant liturgical activity for the glory of the Life-Originating Trinity, the life-bearing genius of Saint Andrew matured. God destined him for the great visual rendering of the theological and liturgical legacy of Saint Sergius, with the immortal wonderworking icon of the Most Holy Trinity for the iconostasis of the Trinity cathedral. In the iconographic creativity of Saint Andrew Rublev, just as in the temple-building activity of Saint Nikon, and in the hagiographic works of Epiphanius the Wise, we find embodiment and synthesis of the finest traditions of the Byzantine and Russian art.

This creative synthesis was served also by Saint Athanasius of Vysotsk all his life. Living at Constantinople, he continued to work for the Russian Church, and for his native land. To give but one example, he sent to the Vysotsk monastery ten icons of the finest Greek style. He and his disciples translated into the Slavonic language the “Four Hundred Chapters” of Saint Maximus the Confessor, the Chapters of Mark about church services, and the Discourses of Saint Simeon the New Theologian.

In the year 1401, just before his death, the venerable elder copied, and possibly translated himself, a Church Rule, distributed within the Russian Church under the title, “The Eye of the Church.”

Saint Athanasius spent his life in constant work with books. He died at Constantinople in old age in the year 1401 (or perhaps a bit later). Russian chroniclers note him as an elder “virtuous, learned, knowing the Holy Scriptures”, to which “at present his writings give witness.” His Life was written in the year 1697 by the hieromonk Karion [Istomin] of the Moscow Chudov monastery.

Saint Athanasius’s successor and disciple, Saint Athanasius the Younger, successfully directed the spiritual life of the brethren and gave an example by his own God-pleasing life. Saint Athanasius the Younger reposed after a long illness on September 12, 1395. In the ancient manuscripts of the saints it says of him: “Saint Athanasius, igumen of Vysotsk Conception monastery at Serpukhov, a new wonderworker who reposed in the year 6904 (1395) on the twelfth day of September, a disciple of Saint Athanasius, wondrous disciple of Saint Sergius, who later was at Constantinople and reposed there.”

Thirty-five thousand Persian soldiers marched toward Georgia in the year 1795. The Georgian king Erekle II (1762-1798) and his two thousand soldiers declared war on the invaders as they were approaching Tbilisi. The Georgians won the first skirmish, but many perished in the fighting. The enemy was shaken and was preparing to flee the battleground, when several traitors reported to Aqa Muhammed Khan that King Erekle had lost nearly his entire army. This betrayal decided the fate of the battle: the one hundred fifty soldiers who remained in the Georgian army barely succeeded in saving the life of King Erekle, who had willed to perish on the battlefield with his soldiers.

All of Tbilisi was engulfed in flames. The plunderers murdered the people, set fire to the libraries, destroyed the print shop, and vandalized the churches and the king’s palace. They slaughtered the clergy in an especially cruel manner.

Unfortunately, history has not preserved the names of all those martyrs who perished in this tragedy, but we do know that a certain Metropolitan Dositheus of Tbilisi was killed because he would not abandon his flock. While the invaders simply killed most of the clergymen, from Saint Dositheus they demanded a renunciation of the Christian Faith. They commanded him to defile the True and Life-giving Cross of our Lord. But the holy hieromartyr Dositheus endured the greatest torments without yielding to the enemy, and he joyfully accepted death for Christ’s sake. The invaders slaughtered Christ’s devoted servant with their swords.

Saint Dositheus was martyred on September 12 in the year 1795.

No information available at this time.

Saint Theodora of Alexandria and her husband lived in Alexandria. Love and harmony ruled in their family, and this was hateful to the Enemy of salvation. Goaded on by the devil, a certain rich man was captivated by the youthful beauty of Theodora and began with all his abilities to lead her into adultery, but for a long time he was unsuccessful. Then he bribed a woman of loose morals, who led the unassuming Theodora astray by saying that a secret sin, which the sun does not see, is also unknown to God.

Theodora betrayed her husband, but soon came to her senses and realizing the seriousness of her fall, she became furious with herself, slapping herself on the face and tearing at her hair. Her conscience gave her no peace, and Theodora went to a renowned abbess and told her about her transgression. The abbess, seeing the repentance of the young woman, spoke to her of God’s forgiveness and reminded her of the the sinful woman in the Gospel, who washed the feet of Christ with her tears and received from Him forgiveness of her sins. In hope of the mercy of God, Theodora said: “I believe my God, and from now on, I shall not commit such a sin, and I will strive to atone for my deed.”

At that moment Saint Theodora resolved to go off to a monastery to purify herself by labor and by prayer. She left her home secretly, and dressing herself in men’s clothes, she went to a men’s monastery, since she feared that her husband would find her in a women’s monastery.

The igumen of the monastery, in order to test the resolve of the newcomer, would not even bless her to enter the courtyard. Saint Theodora spent the night at the gates. In the morning, she fell down at the knees of the igumen, and said her name was Theodore from Alexandria, and entreated him to let her remain at the monastery for repentance and monastic labors. Seeing the sincere intent of the newcomer, the igumen consented.

Even the experienced monks were amazed at Theodora’s all-night prayers on bended knee, her humility, endurance and self-denial. The saint labored at the monastery for eight years. Her body, once defiled by adultery, now became a vessel of the grace of God and a receptacle of the Holy Spirit.

Once, the saint was sent to Alexandria to buy provisions. After blessing her for the journey, the igumen indicated that in case of a delay, she should stay over at the Enata monastery, which was on the way. Also staying at the guest house of the Enata monastery was the daughter of its igumen. She had come to visit with her father. Attracted by the comeliness of the young monk, she tried to seduce the monk Theodore into the sin of fornication, not knowing that it was a woman standing before her. Meeting with refusal, she committed sin with another guest and became pregnant. Meanwhile, the saint bought the food and returned to her own monastery.

After a certain while the father of the shameless girl, realizing that a transgression had occurred, began to question his daughter about the father of the child. The girl indicated that it was the monk Theodore. The father at once reported it to the Superior of the monastery where Saint Theodora labored in asceticism. The igumen summoned the saint and repeated the accusation. The saint firmly replied: “As God is my witness, I did not do this.” The igumen, knowing of Theodore’s purity and holiness of life, did not believe the accusation.

When the girl gave birth, the Enata monks brought the infant to the monastery where the ascetic lived, and began to reproach its monks for an unchaste life. But this time even the igumen believed the slanderous accusation and became angry at the innocent Theodore. They entrusted the infant into the care of the saint and threw her out of the monastery in disgrace.

The saint humbly submitted to this new trial, seeing in it the expiation of her former sin. She settled with the child not far from the monastery in a hut. Shepherds, out of pity, gave her milk for the infant, and the saint herself ate only wild vegetables.

Bearing her misfortune, the holy ascetic spent seven years in banishment. Finally, at the request of the monks, the igumen allowed her to return to the monastery with the child, and in seclusion she spent two years instructing the child.

The igumen of the monastery received a revelation from God that the sin of the monk Theodore was forgiven. The grace of God dwelt upon the monk Theodore, and soon all the monks began to witness to the signs worked through the prayers of the saint.

Once, during a drought, all the wells dried up. The igumen said to the brethren that only Theodore would be able to reverse the misfortune. Having summoned the saint, the igumen bade her to bring forth water, and the water in the well did not dry up afterwards. The humble Theodore said that the miracle was worked through the prayer and faith of the igumen.

Before her death, Saint Theodora shut herself in her cell with the child and instructed him to love God above all things. She told him to obey the igumen and the brethren, to preserve tranquility, to be meek and without malice, to avoid obscenity and silliness, to love non-covetousness, and not to neglect their communal prayer. After this, she prayed and, for the last time, she asked the Lord to forgive her sins. The child also prayed together with her. Soon the words of prayer faded from the lips of the ascetic, and she peacefully departed to a better world.

The Lord revealed to the igumen the spiritual accomplishments of the saint, and also her secret. The igumen, in order to remove any dishonor from the deceased, in the presence of the igumen and brethren of the Enata monastery, told of his vision and uncovered the bosom of the saint as proof.

The Enata igumen and brethren shrank back in terror at their great transgression. Falling down before the body of the saint, with tears they asked forgiveness of Saint Theodora. News of Saint Theodora reached her former husband. He received monastic tonsure at this same monastery where his wife had been. And the child, raised by the nun, also followed in the footsteps of his foster-mother. Afterwards, he became igumen of this very monastery.

Saints Sergius and Herman settled on the island of Valaam in 1329. The brethren gathered by them spread the light of Orthodoxy in this frontier land. The Karelian people began to regard Christianity with renewed suspicion, with its authority in the fourteenth century being undermined by the Swedes, who sought to spread Catholicism by means of the sword.

Saints Sergius and Herman died about the year 1353. They are also commemorated on June 28 (Their holy repose).

The Holy Martyrs Demetrius, his wife Euanthea, and their son Demetrian.

Saint Demetrius was a prince and prefect of the city of Skepsis in the Hellespont. Saint Cornelius the Centurion (September 13), the first Gentile converted to Christ by the Apostle Peter, came into his city preaching the Gospel.

Saint Cornelius sowed the seeds of Christianity among many of the inhabitants of Skepsis, and so the pagans arrested him and brought him to trial before the prefect Demetrius. In vain he demanded that the saint renounce Christ, and finally handed him over for torture.

Saint Cornelius bravely endured the torture, while in turn urging the prefect to forsake his pagan errors and turn to the true faith in Christ. Led into a temple of idols, Saint Cornelius destroyed the pagan temple and the idols standing in it by his prayer.

Persuaded of the truth of Christianity by the saint’s preaching and by his miracles, the prefect Demetrius himself came to believe in Christ and was baptized with all his family. Because the saints now believed in Christ, the pagans threw the newly-converted family into prison where they were starved to death.

Saints Diodorus, Didymus, and Diomedes were born in Laodicea in the fourth century, and suffered martyrdom in that city. They were flogged to death.

The Holy Martyr Ia was arrested along with 9,000 Christians by the Persian emperor Sapor II, and they were all brought to the Persian city of Bisada. The chief of the Persian sorcerers demanded that the saint renounce Christ, but she remained unyielding and so she was tortured. Then Saint Ia was thrown into prison. She was beheaded after repeated tortures.

According to Tradition, the sun was darkened at the time of her martyrdom, and the air was filled with a sweet fragrance.

Saint Euphrosynus the Cook was from one of the Palestinian monasteries, and his obedience was to work in the kitchen as a cook. Toiling away for the brethren, Saint Euphrosynus did not absent himself from thought about God, but rather dwelt in prayer and fasting. He remembered always that obedience is the first duty of a monk, and therefore he was obedient to the elder brethren.

The patience of the saint was amazing: they often reproached him, but he made no complaint and endured every unpleasantness. Saint Euphrosynus pleased the Lord by his inner virtue which he concealed from people, and the Lord Himself revealed to the monastic brethren the spiritual heights of their unassuming fellow-monk.

One of the priests of the monastery prayed and asked the Lord to show him the blessings prepared for the righteous in the age to come. The priest saw in a dream what Paradise is like, and he contemplated its inexplicable beauty with fear and with joy.

He also saw there a monk of his monastery, the cook Euphrosynus. Amazed at this encounter, the presbyter asked Euphrosynus, how he came to be there. The saint answered that he was in Paradise through the great mercy of God. The priest again asked whether Euphrosynus would be able to give him something from the surrounding beauty. Saint Euphrosynus suggested to the priest to take whatever he wished, and so the priest pointed to three luscious apples growing in the garden of Paradise. The monk picked the three apples, wrapped them in a cloth, and gave them to his companion.

When he awoke in the early morning, the priest thought the vision a dream, but suddenly he noticed next to him the cloth with the fruit of Paradise wrapped in it, and emitting a wondrous fragrance. The priest, found Saint Euphrosynus in church and asked him under oath where he was the night before. The saint answered that he was where the priest also was. Then the monk said that the Lord, in fulfilling the prayer of the priest, had shown him Paradise and had bestown the fruit of Paradise through him, “ the lowly and unworthy servant of God, Euphrosynus.”

The priest related everything to the monastery brethren, pointing out the spiritual loftiness of Euphrosynus in pleasing God, and he pointed to the fragrant paradaisical fruit. Deeply affected by what they heard, the monks went to the kitchen, in order to pay respect to Saint Euphrosynus, but they did not find him there. Fleeing human glory, the monk had left the monastery. The place where he concealed himself remained unknown, but the monks always remembered that their monastic brother Saint Euphrosynus had come upon Paradise, and that they in being saved, through the mercy of God would meet him there. They reverently kept and distributed pieces of the apples from Paradise for blessing and for healing.

The Kaplunovka Icon of the Kazan Mother of God, after its wondrous appearance in a dream to the priest Ioann, on September 11, 1689 he purchased it from a Moscow iconographer who was passing through the village of Kaplunovka.

On the Third Sunday of the Great Fast, the icon shone with an extraordinary light, and was then transferred into the local Kaplunovka church. The depiction on this icon resembles the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. The Kaplunovka Icon was on the field of battle at Poltava in 1709.

More than once Russian armies prayed before the holy icon. The celebration of the Theotokos in honor of her wonderworking Kaplunovka Icon was established in the year 1766.

No information available at this time.

The Holy Virgins Menodora, Nymphodora, and Metrodora (305-311), were sisters from Bithynia (Asia Minor). Distinguished for their special piety, they wanted to preserve their virginity and avoid worldly associations. They chose a solitary place for themselves in the wilderness and spent their lives in deeds of fasting and prayer.

Reports of the holy life of the virgins soon spread, since healings of the sick began to occur through their prayers. The Bithynia region was governed at that time by a man named Frontonus, who ordered that the sisters be arrested and brought before him.

At first he tried to persuade them to renounce Christ, promising great honors and rewards. But the holy sisters steadfastly confessed their faith before him, rejecting all his suggestions. They told him that they did not value the temporal things of this world, and that they were prepared to die for their Heavenly Bridegroom, for death would be their gateway to eternal life.

Flying into a rage, the governor took out his wrath on Saint Menodora, the eldest sister. She was stripped of her clothes and beaten by four men, while a herald urged her to offer sacrifice to the gods. The saint bravely endured the torments and cried out, “Sacrifice? Can’t you see that I am offering myself as a sacrifice to my God?” Then they renewed their torments with even greater severity. Then the martyr cried out, “ Lord Jesus Christ, joy of my heart, my hope, receive my soul in peace.” With these words she gave up her soul to God, and went to her Heavenly Bridegroom.

Four days later, they brought the two younger sisters Metrodora and Nymphodora to the court. They showed them the battered body of their older sister to frighten them. The virgins wept over her, but remained steadfast.

Then Saint Metrodora was tortured. She died, crying out to her beloved Lord Jesus Christ with her last breath. Then they turned to the third sister, Nymphodora. Before her lay the bruised bodies of her sisters. Frontonus hoped that this sight would intimidate the young virgin.

Pretending that he was charmed by her youth and beauty, he urged her to worship the pagan gods, promising great rewards and honors. Saint Nymphodora scoffed at his words, and shared the fate of her older sisters. She was tortured and beaten to death with iron rods.

The bodies of the holy martyrs were to be burned in a fire, but a heavy rain extinguished the blazing fire, and lightning struck down Frontonus and his servant. Christians took up the bodies of the holy sisters and reverently buried them at the so-called Warm Springs at Pythias (Bithynia).

Part of the relics of the holy martyrs are preserved on Mt. Athos in the Protection cathedral of the Saint Panteleimon Russian monastery, and the hand of Saint Metrodora is on the Holy Mountain in the monastery of the Pantocrator.

Saint Paul the Obedient was an ascetic in the Far Caves at Kiev. Upon assuming the monastic schema at the monastery of the Caves, the monk underwent very burdensome obediences without a murmur, on which the monastery’s Superior had sent him.

He was never idle, and when he was not at an obedience, he ground the grain under the millstone, wearing down his body by this heavy work and attaining ceaseless inner prayer. The Church honors his memory on September 10, on the day of his namesake Saint Paul, Bishop of Nicea.

Saint Joasaph of Kubensk, Wonderworker of Vologda, was baptized with the name Andrew. His parents, Prince Demetrius Vasilievich of Lesser Zaozersk (a descendant of holy Prince Theodore Rostislavich, of Smolensk and Yaroslavl), and Princess Maria, were known for their deep piety, which they imparted to the future ascetic. At twenty years of age, Prince Andrew accepted tonsure at the Kamenny Monastery of the Savior at Kubensk with the name Joasaph, in honor of Saint Joasaph, the Prince of India (November 19).

Saint Joasaph gained a good reputation for himself by complete obedience, keeping the fasts, by his zeal in prayer, and love for books. The brethren of the monastery were amazed at the gracious meekness and humility of the young ascetic. Under the spiritual nurture of the experienced Elder Gregory, afterwards Bishop of Rostov, Saint Joasaph progressed in virtue. He led the life of a hermit in his cell and attained to a high spiritual level. Saint Joasaph lived an ascetic life at the Kamenny Monastery of the Savior for five years.

In the final year of his life, he partook of food only once during the week and received the Holy Mysteries each Sunday. Before his death, Saint Joasaph took leave of the brethren, consoling and admonishing the monks not to grieve over his departure. When the brethren gathered in his cell, the venerable one asked that the Prayers for the Departure of the Soul from the Body be read. He prayed to the Lord and to His All-Holy Mother, not only for himself, but for all the brethren of the monastery. Then he lay down upon his bed and died with prayer on his lips, on September 10, 1453.

Saint Apelles

Saint Apelles was an important figure in the early Church, who labored diligently to spread the message of the Gospel. His zeal led him to Rome, where he became a support for the faithful. He knew the Apostle Paul, who mentioned him in the Epistle to the Romans (16:10): "Greet Apelles, who is approved (or "has been tested") in Christ."

Saint Apelles is said to have died at Smyrna as a good soldier of Christ, laboring until his last breath to make firm the Gospel. Some say he was the Bishop of Heraklion in Trakhis.

Saint Luke (or Loukias)

Saint Luke, or Loukias (not the Evangelist), lived during the first century. Some lists of these Saints identify him as the Evangelist Luke, who was also one of the 70 Apostles, but Greek sources say he was someone other than the Evangelist Luke (άλλος του Ευαγγελιστή Λουκά). However, Saint Demetrios of Rostov, and Slavic Tradition say that he was the Evangelist Luke (See his Life on October 18).

Today's Saint was consecrated as the Bishop of Laodikeia in Syria, and completed the course of his life spreading the Gospel and caring for his flock, as a faithful servant of Jesus Christ.

Saint Clement

Saint Paul refers to Clement in his Epistle to the Phillipians (4:3). After mentioning the women Euodia and Syntykhe, who assisted him in proclaiming the Gospel, he speaks of Clement as one of his coworkers, "whose names are in the Book of Life."

Saint Clement later became a bishop at Sardika in Asia Minor. Eusebius mistakenly identified him with Clement of Rome (History of the Church 3. 15, 1). Today's Saint reposed after enduring many trials in order to strengthen his flock, and to hand down to them the truth of the Gospel.

Saints Apelles, Luke (Loukios), and Clement are also commemorated together on April 22.

Saint Barypsabas (Βαρυψάβας) of Dalmatia was a hermit and a Martyr, the guardian of the blood of Christ. According to one source, a righteous man named Jacob, who was present at the crucifixion of the Savior, collected blood and water from the Lord’s side in a vessel made from a gourd. In order to conceal the holy object from wicked men, Jacob filled the vessel with oil; and from its contents many healings and miracles took place. After Jacob’s death, the vessel passed to two hermits. One of them, before his death, gave the vessel to Barypsabas, or perhaps to the Syrians, who later fought in the area of ​​Kattara Sukhrei (Σουχρεῶν), in Persia. Before his martyrdom in the second century, Saint Barypsabas gave the vessel to his disciple. The author of the Life of Saint Barypsabas, published in Acta Sanctorum (BHG, No. 238), is unknown.

The story of those who shed the Savior's blood appears in the MENOLOGION of Basil II (X century), which also mentions the martyrdom of Saint Barypsabas. Some villains, who heard about the miracles and healings from the hidden vessel containing the blood of Christ, decided to seize the vessel and use it for mercenary purposes. After attacking Barypsabas during the night, they killed him, but they did not find what they were looking for in the vessel.

According to Saint Νikόdēmos the Hagiorite, the vessel, of which Barysabas was the guardian, did not contain the actual blood and water which flowed from Christ's side, but rather from an icon of Christ, when some Jews stabbed His side on the icon.

The legend of the "Miracle in Berite" (BHG, No. 780) is attributed to Saint Athanasios the Great, Patriarch of Alexandria. However, according to the Roman Martyrology, this miracle occurred in 765. The blood from the icon of the Savior in Berite was transferred to Constantinople in the X century, during the reign of Emperor John Tzimiskes.

The Holy Right-Believing Empress Pulcheria, daughter of the Byzantine emperor Arcadius (395-408), was coregent and adviser of her brother Theodosius the Younger (408-450). She received a broad and well-rounded education, and distinguished herself by her wisdom and piety, firmly adhering to Orthodox teaching. Through her efforts the church of the Most Holy Theotokos was built at Blachernae, and also other churches and monasteries.

Through the intrigues of enemies and of Eudokia, the wife of the emperor Theodosius the Younger, Saint Pulcheria was removed from power. She withdrew into seclusion, and lived a pious life. Without her benificent influence, conditions in the capital deteriorated. She returned after a while, following the urgent request of her brother. Then the unrest provoked by emerging heresies was quelled.

After the death of Theodosius the Younger, Marcian (450-457) was chosen emperor. Saint Pulcheria again wanted to withdraw into her seclusion, but both the emperor and officials entreated her not to refuse the throne, but to marry the emperor Marcian. For the common good she consented to become Marcian’s wife if she were allowed to preserve her virginity within the marriage. They were married, but lived in purity as brother and sister.

Through the efforts of Saint Pulcheria, the Third Ecumenical Council was held at Ephesus in 431 to address the heresy of Nestorius; and also the Fourth Ecumenical Council which was convened at Chalcedon in the year 451, to deal with the heresies of Dioscorus and Eutychius.

Saint Pulcheria built the church of the Mother of God at Blachernae at Constantinople, and also found the relics of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (March 9).

Throughout her life Saint Pulcheria defended the Orthodox Faith against various heresies. After giving away her wealth to the poor and to the Church, she died peacefully at the age of fifty-four in the year 453.

Saints Peter and Paul were bishops at Nicea. Saint Peter defended the Orthodox Faith against the iconoclasts during the reign of Leo the Isaurian (813-820) and endured suffering for this. He died no earlier than the year 823.

Four Letters of Saint Theodore the Studite to Saint Peter are known, written between the years 816-823. No account about the life of Saint Paul of Nicea has been preserved. His name is first mentioned in the so-called “Petrine” Greek Prologue of the eleventh century.

No information available at this time.

Saint Joachim, the son of Barpathir, was of the tribe of Judah, and was a descendant of King David, to whom God had revealed that the Savior of the world would be born from his seed. Saint Anna was the daughter of Matthan the priest, who was of the tribe of Levi. Saint Anna’s family came from Bethlehem.

The couple lived at Nazareth in Galilee. They were childless into their old age and all their life they grieved over this. They had to endure derision and scorn, since at that time childlessness was considered a disgrace. They never grumbled, but fervently prayed to God, humbly trusting in Him.

Once, during a great feast, the gifts which Joachim took to Jerusalem as an offering to God were not accepted by the priest Reuben, who considered that a childless man was not worthy to offer sacrifice to God. This pained the old man very much, and he, regarding himself the most sinful of people, decided not to return home, but to settle in solitude in a desolate place.

When Saint Anna learned what humiliation her husband had endured, she sorrowfully entreated God with prayer and fasting to grant her a child. In his desolate solitude the righteous Joachim also asked God for this. The prayer of the saintly couple was heard. An angel told them that a daughter would be born to them, Who would be blessed above all other women. He also told them that She would remain a virgin, would be dedicated to the Lord and live in the Temple, and would give birth to the Savior. Obeying the instructions of the heavenly messenger, Saints Joachim and Anna met at the Golden Gate in Jerusalem. Then, as God promised, a daughter was born to them and they named her Mary.

Saint Joachim died a few years later at the age of 80, after his daughter went to live in the Temple. Saint Anna died at the age of 70, two years after her husband.

Saints Joachim and Anna are often invoked by couples trying to have children.

The Holy Martyr Severian (+ 320) suffered for Christ in Armenian Sebaste during the governorship of Licius, when Christians were persecuted under the emperor Licinius. Even before his martyr’s deed, Saint Severian had shown sincere compassion for 40 Christian soldiers, suffering for confessing the Name of Christ. He visited the captives in prison, raised their spirits, and appealed to their valor and stoic strength. These martyrs met their death at Lake Sebaste (March 9).

Half a year later, Severian was also brought to trial for confessing the Christian Faith, and he was subjected to cruel tortures. Deeply devoted to the will of God, Saint Severian called out to the Lord during his torment, imploring Him for the strength to endure the suffering and to complete his deed of martyrdom.

After intense torture, and unbroken in his faith, the holy martyr was suspended from the city wall with one stone chained around his neck, and another chained to his feet, and so he died. His body was carried by Christians of Sebaste to his home, where the local inhabitants thronged to take their leave of him and to ask for his holy prayers. Amidst all this a dead man who had not yet been buried arose, a servant of Saint Severian, who got up from his deathbed to follow his master’s final path. He continued to live another fifteen years, never leaving the burial place of the holy martyr.

Saint Joseph of Volokolamsk, in the world John Sanin, was born on November 14, 1440 (1439 according to another source) in the village of Yazvisch-Pokrov, not far from the city of Volokolamsk. He was born into a pious family with his father named John (in monasticism Joannicius) and his mother Marina (in schema Maria). The seven-year-old boy John was sent to the pious and enlightened Elder Arsenius of the Volokolamsk-Exaltation of the Cross monastery to be educated.

Distinguished by rare qualities and extraordinary aptitude for church service, for one year the talented youth studied the Psalter, and, the following year, the entire Holy Scripture. He became a reader and singer in the monastery church. Contemporaries were astonished at his exceptional memory. Often, without having a single book in his cell, he would do the monastic rule, reciting from memory from the Psalter, the Gospel, the Epistles, and all that was required.

Even before becoming a monk, John lived a monastic lifestyle. Thanks to his reading and studying of Holy Scripture and the works of the holy Fathers, he dwelt constantly in contemplation of God. As his biographer notes, he “disdained obscene and blasphemous talk and endless mirth from his childhood years.”

At twenty years of age John chose the path of monastic striving and, leaving his parents’ home, he went off into the wilderness nigh to the Tver Savvin monastery, to the renowned Elder and strict ascetic, Barsanuphius. But the monastic rule seemed insufficiently strict to the young ascetic. With the blessing of Elder Barsanuphius, he set off to Borov to Saint Paphnutius of Borov (May 1), who had been a novice of Elder Nikḗtas of the Vysotsk monastery, who in turn was a disciple of Saint Sergius of Radonezh and Athanasius of Vysotsk.

The simple life of the holy Elder, the tasks which he shared with the brethren, and the strict fulfilling of the monastic rule suited John’s spiritual state. Saint Paphnutius lovingly accepted the young ascetic who had come to him, and on February 13, 1460 he tonsured him into monasticism with the name Joseph, thus realizing John’s greatest wish. With love and with zeal the young monk shouldered the heavy obediences imposed upon him, in the kitchen, the bakery, the infirmary. Saint Joseph fulfilled this latter obedience with special care, “giving food and drink to the sick, taking up and arranging the bedding, so very anxious and concerned with everything, working, as though attending to Christ Himself.”

The great spiritual abilities of the young monk were evidenced in the Church reading and singing. He was musically talented and possessed a voice that “in church singing and reading was like that of a swallow and wondrously harmonious, delighting the hearing of listeners, as much as anyone anywhere.” Saint Paphnutius made Joseph ecclesiarch in church, so that he would observe the fulfilling of the Church rule.

Joseph spent about seventeen years in the monastery of Saint Paphnutius. The strict efforts of monastic obedience under the direct guidance of the experienced abbot was for him an excellent spiritual schooling, having educated him into a future instructor and guide of monastic life. Towards the end of the life of Saint Paphnutius, Joseph was ordained hieromonk and, in accord with the final wishes of Saint Paphnutius, he was appointed Igumen of the Borov monastery.

Saint Joseph decided to transform the monastic life along strictly coenobitic principles, following the example of the Kiev Caves, Trinity-Saint Sergius, and Saint Cyril of White Lake monasteries. But this met with strong opposition from a majority of the brethren. Only seven pious monks were of one mind with the igumen. Saint Joseph decided to visit Russian coenobitic monasteries, to investigate the best arrangement for monastic life. He arrived together with the Elder Gerasimus at the Saint Cyril of White Lake monastery, which itself presented a model of strict asceticism on the principles of a coenobitic monastery rule.

His acquaintance with the life of these monasteries strengthened Saint Joseph’s views. But, after he returned to Borov monastery at the wish of the prince, Saint Joseph encountered again the former staunch resistance of the brethren to change from their customary rule. Therefore, he resolved to found a new monastery with a strict coenobitic rule, so he took seven like-minded monks to Volokolamsk, his native region, to a forest known to him since childhood.

In Volokolamsk at the time, the prince was Boris Vasilievich, the pious brother of Great Prince Ivan III. Hearing of the virtuous life of the great ascetic Joseph, he gladly received him and allowed him to settle on the outskirts of his principality, at the confluence of the Rivers Struga and Sestra. The selection of this spot was accompanied by a remarkable occurrence: a storm blew down the trees before the eyes of the astonished travelers, as though clearing the place for the future monastery. Here the ascetics set up a cross and built a wooden church in honor of the Dormition of the Mother of God in June 1479, which was consecrated on August 15, 1479. This day and year stand in history as the date of the founding of the monastery of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God as “volok’ lamsk” [“broken-up peninsula”], later named after its founder.

The monastery was built rather quickly. Much of the work in the construction of the monastery was done by the founder himself. “He was skilled in every human craft: he felled trees, carried logs, he chopped and sawed wood.” By day he toiled with everyone at the construction of the monastery, but spent his nights in solitary cell prayer, remembering always that “Desires kill the sluggard, for his hands do not choose to do anything” (Prov 21:25).

Good reports about the new ascetic attracted disciples to him. The number of monks soon increased to a hundred men, and the venerable Joseph strove to be a good example for his monks in everything. Preaching temperance and spiritual sobriety in all things, his external appearance was no different than the others. His simple, cold-weather rags were his constant clothing, and bast shoes (made from bark) served as his footwear.

He was the first one to appear in church, he read and sang in the choir beside the others, he gave instruction and was the last to leave church. At nights the holy igumen walked around the monastery and the cells, safeguarding the peace and prayerful sobriety of the brethren entrusted him by God. If he chanced to hear a frivolous conversation, he rapped on the door and quietly withdrew.

Saint Joseph devoted much attention to the inner ordering of the life of the monks. He himself led a strict cenobitic life in accord with the Rule he compiled, to which all the services and obediences of the monks were subordinated, and it governed their whole life, “whether in their comings or goings, their words or their deeds.” At the core of the rule was total non-covetousness, detachment from one’s own will, and constant work. The brethren possessed everything in common: clothing, footwear, food and other things.

None of the brethren could take anything into their cell without the blessing of the igumen, not even a book or an icon. Part of the trapeza meal of the monks, by general consent, was given away to the poor. Work, prayer, spiritual efforts filled the life of the brethren. The Jesus Prayer never vanished from their lips. Festivity was viewed by Saint Joseph as a chief weapon for demonic seduction. Saint Joseph invariably imposed upon himself quite burdensome obediences. The monastery was occupied with the copying and transcription of Service Books and the writings of the holy Fathers, so that the Volokolamsk book collection soon became one of the finest of Russian monastic libraries.

With each passing year the monastery of Saint Joseph flourished all the more. In the years 1484-1485 a stone church of the Dormition of the Mother of God was built in place of the wooden one. In the Summer of 1485 “artistic masters of the Russian land” painted within it, Dionysius the Iconographer with his sons Vladimir and Theodosius. Saint Joseph’s nephews, Dositheus and Bassian Toporkov, participated in the adornment of the new Church. In 1504 a heated church in honor of the Holy Theophany was set up, followed by the establishment of a bell-tower and next to the bell tower, a church named in honor of the Hodēgḗtria (Directress)Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos.

Saint Joseph trained a whole school of renowned monks, some of whom gained notoriety in the arena of church-historical activity since they were “good pastors,” while others gained fame with works of enlightenment. Some were remembered as worthy examples of pious monastic struggles. History has preserved for us the names of many disciples and co-ascetics of the holy Volokolamsk igumen, who continued to develop his ideas.

Among the disciples and followers of Saint Joseph were: the Metropolitans of Moscow and All Rus: Daniel (+ 1539) and Macarius (+1563); the Archbishop of Rostov Bassian (+1515); the Bishops of Suzdal: Simeon (+1515), Dositheus of Krutitsa (+1544), and Savva of Krutitsa (called the Black). The activity and influence of Saint Joseph were not limited to the monastery. Many laypeople went to him to receive advice. With a pure spiritual insight he penetrated into the deep secrets of the souls of questioners and clairvoyantly revealed to them the will of God. Everyone living around the monastery considered him their spiritual Father and protector. Eminent nobles and princes asked him to be godfather for their children. They revealed their souls to him in confession, they asked for letters of guidance to help them fulfill his directives.

The common folk found at the monastery the means for sustaining their existence on occasions of extreme need. The number of those fed through monastery resources sometimes approached 700 people. “All of the Volotsk land are inclined to good, enjoying peace and quiet. And the name Joseph, as something sacred, is on everyone’s lips.”

The monastery was famed not only for its piety and help for the suffering, but also for its manifestations of the grace of God. During Matins of Holy Saturday, the righteous monk Bessarion once saw the Holy Spirit in the form of a white dove, sitting upon the Shroud of the Lord, which was being carried by Saint Joseph. The Abbot, bidding the monk to keep silent about the vision, himself rejoiced in spirit, hoping that God would not forsake the monastery. This monk had seen the souls of dying brethren, white as snow, issuing forth from their mouths. To Saint Joseph himself was revealed the day of his end, and he fell asleep in the Lord with joy, having received the Holy Mysteries and assuming the schema.

The saintly life of Saint Joseph was neither easy nor placid. In these difficult times for the Church in Russia, the Lord raised him up as a zealous defender of Orthodoxy in the struggle with heresies and churchly disputes. Saint Joseph exerted quite a great effort in denouncing the Judaizers, who tried to poison and distort the foundations of Russian spiritual life. Just as the holy Fathers and teachers of the Ecumenical Councils had elaborated on the teachings of Orthodoxy in responding to the ancient heresies (which contended against the Spirit, Christ, or icons), so also Saint Joseph was summoned forth by God to oppose the false teachings of the Judaizers and to compile the first manual of Russian Orthodox theology, his large book The Enlightener.

Even earlier, preachers from the Khozars had come to Saint Vladimir (July 15), trying to convert him to Judaism. But the great Baptizer of Rus repudiated the pretensions of the rabbis. After this, Saint Joseph writes, “the Great Russian land dwelt for five centuries in the Orthodox Faith, until the Enemy of salvation the devil, should bring the cunning Jew to the city of Novgorod.”

Along with the retinue of the Lithuanian prince Michael Olelkovich, who came to Novgorod in 1470, the Jewish preacher Skhariya (Zachariah) accompanied them. Playing upon the deficiencies of faith and of learning on the part of certain clergy, Skhariya and his accomplices sowed distrust among the petty-minded towards the church hierarchy, inclining them towards a revolt against the spiritual authorities, tempting them with the idea of “self-authority,” i.e. a capricious self-determination of each individual in matters of faith and salvation. Those they tempted gradually pushed towards a full break with the Church: they disdained the holy icons, and repudiated the veneration of the saints, basic elements of Orthodox popular morality.

Ultimately, they led the religiously blind and deluded to a denial of the saving Mysteries and the fundamental teachings of Orthodoxy, outside of which there is no knowledge of God: the teaching of the Most Holy Trinity and the teaching of the Incarnation of the God-man our Lord Jesus Christ. If decisive measures were not taken, “all of Orthodox Christianity would be doomed by heretical teachings.” So the question was posed for history. The Great Prince Ivan III, enticed by the Judaizers, invited them to Moscow. He had two of the most prominent of the heretics made archpriests, one at the Dormition, the other at the Archangel Michael cathedrals of the Kremlin, and he summoned to Moscow even the arch-heretic Skhariya himself.

All those close to the prince were led astray by the heresy, beginning with the clerk heading the government, Theodore Kuritsyn, whose brother became a ringleader of the heretics. Even the in-law of the great prince, Elena Voloshanka, accepted the Judaizers. And finally, the heretical Metropolitan Zosimas was installed upon the bishop’s Throne of the great Moscow Hierarchs Peter, Alexis and Jonah.

Saint Joseph and Saint Gennadius, Bishop of Novgorod (December 4), called for a struggle against the spread of the heresy. Saint Joseph wrote his first epistle “Concerning the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity” while still a monk at the Paphnutiev Borov monastery in the year 1477. From the very beginning the Dormition Volokolamsk monastery became a bulwark of Orthodoxy in the struggle against the heresy. Here Saint Joseph wrote his chief works, The Enlightener, engendered with his fiery anti-heretical epistles, or as the monk himself unassumingly called them, “book exercises.” The works of Saint Joseph and Archbishop Gennadius were crowned with success. In 1494 the heretic Zosimas was deposed from the bishop’s Throne, and in the years 1502-04 the malicious and unrepentant Judaizers, who blasphemed against the Holy Trinity, Christ the Savior, the Most Holy Theotokos and the Church,were condemned at a church council.

Saint Joseph had many other trials and tribulations, but each time the Lord tried him according to the measure of his spiritual strength. The saint angered the Great Prince Ivan III, who only towards the end of his life reconciled with the saint and repented of his former weakness for the Judaizers. The saint also angered the Volotsk appenage prince Theodore, on whose lands Joseph’s monastery was situated. In 1508 the saint suffered wrongful interdiction from Saint Serapion, Archbishop of Novgorod (March 16), with whom, however, he soon reconciled.

In 1503, a Council at Moscow, under the auspices of Saint Joseph and his disciples, adopted a “Conciliar Reply” concerning the indissolubility of church properties, “therefore all church-acquired property is essentially the acquired property of God, pledged, entrusted, and given to God.” The legacy of the canonical works of Igumen Joseph is notably in “The Nomocanon Codex,” a vast codex of canonical rules of the Orthodox Church, begun by Saint Joseph and completed by Metropolitan Macarius.

There are opinions about the differences of outlook and discord between the two great pedagogues of Russian monasticism at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries: Saint Joseph of Volotsk and Saint Nilus of Sora (May 7). In the historical literature these views usually present them as proclaiming two “contrary” currents within Russian spiritual life: external action and inner contemplation. This is profoundly incorrect. Saint Joseph in his Rule synthesized these two aspects of the Russian monastic tradition, proceeding without interruption from the Athonite blessing given to Saint Anthony of the Kiev Caves, through Saint Sergius, and down to our own day.

The Rule presupposes the need for a full inner regeneration of man, submitting one’s whole life to the task of salvation and deification [Greek theosis] not only for each individual monk, but also for the collective salvation of the whole human race. A great emphasis in the Rule is put on the demand to monastics for constant work in connection with inward and churchly prayer, “the monk should never be on holiday.” Work, as “a collective deed,” comprised for Joseph the very essence of church life: faith, embodied in good works, is the realization of prayer.

On the other hand, Saint Nilus of Sora had lived the ascetic life for a number of years on Mt. Athos, and he brought from there the teaching about the contemplative life and “the Jesus Prayer” as a means of a hesychastic service of monks to the world, as a constant spiritual activity, in connection with the physical work necessary for sustaining one’s life.

But spiritual work and physical work are but two aspects of the same Christian vocation: a vital continuation of the creative activity of God in the world, encompassing as much the ideal as well as the material spheres. In this regard Saints Joseph and Nilus are spiritual brothers, varied in continuing the Church Tradition of the holy Fathers, and are heirs to the precepts of Saint Sergius of Radonezh. Saint Joseph highly regarded the spiritual experience of Saint Nilus and sent his own disciples to him to study inner prayer.

Saint Joseph was also an active proponent of a strong centralized Moscow realm. He was one of the originators of the teaching about the Russian Church as the recipient and bearer of the piety of the Byzantine Empire, “the Russian land has now surpassed all in piety.” The ideas of Saint Joseph, possessing tremendous historical significance, were further developed later by his disciples and followers. From them came the Pskov Spaso-Eleazarov monastery Elder Philotheus with his own teaching about Moscow as the Third Rome. He declared, “Two Romes have fallen, Moscow is the third, and a fourth there shall not be.”

These views of the Josephites on the significance of monasteries possessing properties for church building, and the participation of the Church in social life, were set amidst the conditions of the struggle for centralized power by the Moscow prince. His opponents were separatists who tried to disparage these views for their own political ends, surreptitiously using the teaching of Saint Nilus of Sora about “non-acquisitiveness,” the withdrawal of monastics from worldly matters and possessions.

This supposed opposition engendered a false view on the hostility between the trends of Saints Joseph and Nilus. In actuality, both trends legitimately coexisted within the Russian monastic Tradition, complementing each other. As is evidenced from the Rule of Saint Joseph, its basis was complete non-acquisitiveness, and renunciation of the very concepts of “yours-mine.”

The years passed. The monastery flourished with the construction work and efforts of Saint Joseph, and as he got old, he prepared himself for life eternal. Before his end he received the Holy Mysteries, then summoned all the brethren. He gave them his peace and blessing, and peacefully fell asleep in the Lord on September 9, 1515.

The funeral oration to Saint Joseph was composed by his nephew and disciple, the monk Dositheus Toporkov.

The first Life of the saint was written in the 1540s by a disciple of Saint Joseph, Bishop Savva the Black of Krutitsa, with the blessing of Macarius, Metropolitan of Moscow and all Rus (+ 1564). It entered into the Great MENAION Readings compiled by Macarius. A second redaction of the Life was written by the Russified Bulgarian writer Lev the Philolog with the assistance of Saint Zenobius of Otensk (October 30).

Local celebration of Saint Joseph was established at the Volokolamsk monastery in December of 1578, on the hundred year anniversary of the founding of the monastery. On June 1, 1591, the church-wide celebration of his memory was established under Patriarch Job. Saint Job, a disciple of the Volokolamsk saint, tonsured Saint Germanus of Kazan, and was a great admirer of Saint Joseph and was author of the Service to him, which was included in the MENAION. Another disciple of Saints Germanus and Barsanuphius was also the companion and successor to Patriarch Job, the Hieromartyr Patriarch Hermogenes (February 17), a spiritual leader of the Russian people in the struggle for liberation under the Polish incursion.

The theological works of Saint Joseph comprise an undeniable contribution within the treasury of the Orthodox Tradition. As with all Church writings inspired by the grace of the Holy Spirit, they continue to be a source of spiritual life and knowledge, and they have their own theological significance and pertinence.

Saint Joseph’s chief book was written in sections. Its original form, completed at the time of the 1503-1504 councils, included eleven sections. In the final redaction, compiled after the death of the saint and involving a tremendous quantity of scrolls, The Book against the Heretics or The Enlightener includes sixteen sections, prefaced by An Account of the Newly-Appeared Heresies. The first section expounds the Church teaching about the teaching of the Most Holy Trinity; the second, about Jesus Christ, the True Messiah; the third, about the significance within the Church of the prophecies of the Old Testament; the fourth, about the Incarnation of God; the fifth through seventh, about the veneration of icons. In the eighth through tenth sections, Saint Joseph expounds on the fundamentals of Christian eschatology. The eleventh section is devoted to monasticism. In the twelfth the ineffectiveness of the anathemas and sanctions imposed by heretics is demonstrated. The final four sections consider methods of the Church’s struggle with the heretics, and the means for their correction and repentance.

Saint Joseph is also commemorated on September 9 and February 13.

Today we commemorate the glorification of Saint Theodosius on September 9, 1896, and the uncovering of his holy relics.

Saint Theodosius is also commemorated on February 5.

Saint Theophanes, Confessor and Faster, was born into a family of pagans. In his youth Theophanes came to believe in Christ, was baptized and secretly left his pagan parents to go to Mount Dabis to an Elder, who had lived there in asceticism for seventy-five years.

The ascetic taught the young man to read the Scriptures, and instructed him in the rules of monastic life. Five years later the Elder died, and Saint Theophanes spent the next 58 years in his cave in solitude. Then he came down from the mountain and began to preach Christ among the pagans, and he converted many to Christianity.

By order of the Roman emperors Carlus (282-283) and his sons Numerian and Carlinus (283-284), Saint Theophanes was seized and subjected to torture. The holy confessor bravely endured his sufferings and was released alive. Having returned to the mountain, Saint Theophanes lived there for another seventeen years and died in peace.

Saint Chariton endured martyrdom with Saint Staton at an unknown time and place.

Saint Nikḗtas the Hidden lived at Constantinople and occupied the position of “chartolarium” (“letter-writer”). They call him “the Hidden,” because living in the world amid the bustle of the city, with secret exploits of faith, he attained spiritual perfection and was a great saint of God. His saintly life was revealed through unusual circumstances.

Two friends, a certain priest and the deacon Sozon, had quarreled. The priest died, and the deacon grieved that they had not been able to be reconciled. He told an experienced Elder of the sin that tormented his conscience. He gave Sozon a letter and ordered him to give it to the first person whom he would meet at midnight at the temple of Hagia Sophia, the Wisdom of God.

Saint Nikḗtas the Chartolarian appeared before him. Having read the letter, he began weeping and said, that it made him responsible for this, and that it was beyond his strength, but with the prayers of the Elder who had sent Sozon, he would strive to accomplish this. Making a prostration before the church doors, Saint Nikḗtas said: “Lord, open to us the doors of Thy mercy,” and the doors of the temple flew open by themselves. Leaving the deacon at the threshold, Saint Nikḗtas began to pray, and Sozon saw that he shone with a strange light.

Afterwards they went from the church, and the doors again closed. Approaching the church of the Blachernae Mother of God, Saint Nikḗtas again began praying and again the doors opened in front of them. In the church there shone a light, and from the altar came two rows of priests, among whom Deacon Sozon recognized his dead friend. Saint Nikḗtas quietly said: “Father, speak to your brother, and cease the enmity between you.”

Immediately the priest and Deacon Sozon greeted each other. They embraced one another with love and were reconciled. The priest went back, and the doors closed by themselves. Saint Nikḗtas said to the deacon: “Brother Sozon, save your soul both for your sake, and for my benefit. To the Father who sent you, say that the purity of his holy prayers and his trust in God made possible the return of the dead.”

After these words Saint Nikḗtas became invisible to Sozon. Having returned to his spiritual Father and Elder, the deacon thanked him with tears, that through his prayers, the great hidden saint of God Nikḗtas the Chartolarian had removed the sin from both the living and the dead.

The Third Ecumenical Council was convened in the year 431 in the city of Ephesus (Asia Minor) during the reign of the emperor Theodosius the Younger (408-450). The Council was convened to investigate without further delay, the false teachings of Patriarch Nestorius of Constantinople (428-431).

Contrary to the dogmas of the Ecumenical Church, Nestorius dared to assert that the Son of God Jesus Christ is not one Person (Hypostasis), as Holy Church teaches, but is rather two distinct persons, one Divine, and the other human.

Regarding the Most Holy Theotokos, he impiously asserted that She should not be called the Mother of God, but rather only the mother of the man Christ. The heresy of Nestorius is opposed to one of the basic dogmas of the Christian Faith: our Lord Jesus Christ’s divine and human natures.

According to the false teaching of Nestorius, Jesus Christ was born as an ordinary man, and afterwards because of His sanctity of life, He was somehow joined to the Godhead. With this blasphemous teaching of Nestorius the Enemy of the race of man, the devil, attempted to undermine the Christian Faith on these points: that the Pre-eternal God the Word, the Son of God, actually was incarnate in the flesh of the All-Pure Theotokos. Having become Man, He thereby redeemed the human race from slavery to sin and death by His own suffering and death, and by His glorious Resurrection He trampled down Hades and death and opened the path to the Kingdom of Heaven to those who believed in Him, and to those striving to live according to His commandments.

A long while before the convening of the Ecumenical Council, Saint Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria, repeatedly tried to reason with the heretic Nestorius. Saint Cyril in his letters explained the mistakes of judgment by Nestorius, but Nestorius stubbornly continued with his teachings.

Saint Cyril wrote about the danger of the rising heresy to Celestine, the Pope of Rome, and to other Orthodox bishops, who also attempted to reason with Nestorius. When it became clear that Nestorius would continue with his teachings and that they were becoming widespread, the Orthodox bishops appealed to the emperor Theodosius the Younger for permission to convene an Ecumenical Council. The Council was convened on the day of the Most Holy Trinity, June 7, 431.

Two hundred bishops attended the Council. Nestorius also arrived in Ephesus, but he did not appear at the Council even though the Fathers suggested three times that he attend the sessions. Then the Fathers began to discuss the heresy in the absence of the heretic.

The sessions of the Council continued from June 22 to August 31. At the Council of Ephesus were present such famous Fathers of the Church as Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Juvenal of Jerusalem, Memnon of Ephesus (Saint Celestine, Pope of Rome, was unable to attend because of illness, but he sent papal legates).

The Third Ecumenical Council condemned the heresy of Nestorius and confirmed the Orthodox teaching on these matters: that it is necessary to confess the Lord Jesus Christ as One Person (Hypostasis) in two natures, the Divine and the Human, and that the All-Pure Mother of the Lord be acclaimed as Ever-Virgin and truly the Theotokos. In the guidance of the Church the holy Fathers issued eight Canons, and the “Twelve Anathemas against Nestorius” by Saint Cyril of Alexandria.

Saint Ciaran (Kieran), who has been described as a lamp shining with the light of knowledge, was born in 512 and raised in Connacht, Ireland. His father was a builder of chariots. He was one of eight children, at least two of whom also embraced the religious life.

Saint Ciaran had a special affinity for animals, and even had a fox for a pet. The future saint left home as a boy, driving a cow before him to pay for his keep. He went to study with Saint Finnian of Clonard (December 12), and became one of the “twelve apostles to Ireland.” Some of the others were Saint Columba of Iona (June 9), Ninnidh (Nennius) of Lough Erne (January 16), and Saint Brendan the Voyager (May 16).

There is a story that one day the students were studying the Gospel of Saint Matthew when Saint Ninnidh came into class without a book. He asked Ciaran to lend him his, which he did. So when Finnian tested the class, Ciaran knew only the first half of the Gospel. The other students laughed and called him “Ciaran half-Matthew.” Saint Finnian silenced them and said, “Not Ciaran half-Matthew, but Ciaran half-Ireland, for he will have half the country and the rest of us will have the other half.”

After spending some time in Clonard, Ciaran visited other monasteries, including that of Saint Enda (March 21) on Aran, where he was ordained to the holy priesthood. He left there because of a vision which Saint Enda interpreted for him. Then he went to Scattery Island to study under Saint Senan (March 8). Later, he went to visit his brothers Luachaill and Odhran, who had a foundation at a place called Isel. Ciaran’s charity was so great that his brothers asked him to leave. They said, “Brother, leave us for we cannot live in the same place with you and feed and keep our brethren for God, because of your unbounded lavishness.”

Saint Ciaran left them and set off with his books in a bag. On the way he met a stag and placed the bag on its back. He followed the animal until he came to Lough Ree opposite Hare Island, where he founded a monastery. Leaving his brother Donnan (January 7) as abbot, he went to dwell in the wilderness.

With nine other companions, Saint Ciaran founded another monastery at Clonmacnoise on the banks of the River Shannon. Within seven months, he became ill and asked to be taken outside and laid on the ground. He looked up at the heavens and said something about the way being steep and difficult. He departed to the Lord at the age of thirty-three.

Clonmacnoise was a thousand years old when it was suppressed by Henry VIII. The monastery was destroyed by Reformation armies in 1552, but the ruins are still very impressive. There is a cathedral, seven other churches, three high crosses, and two stumps of round towers. Fifty kings are said to be buried here with the abbots and monks of the monastery.

Saint Ciaran’s crozier survives to the present day.

The Nativity of Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary: The Most Holy Virgin Mary was born at a time when people had reached such a degree of moral decay that it seemed altogether impossible to restore them. People often said that God must come into the world to restore faith and not permit the ruin of mankind.

The Son of God chose to take on human nature for the salvation of mankind, and chose as His Mother the All-Pure Virgin Mary, who alone was worthy to give birth to the Source of purity and holiness.

The Nativity of Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary is celebrated by the Church as a day of universal joy. Within the context of the Old and the New Testaments, the Most Blessed Virgin Mary was born on this radiant day, having been chosen before the ages by Divine Providence to bring about the Mystery of the Incarnation of the Word of God. She is revealed as the Mother of the Savior of the World, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Most Holy Virgin Mary was born in the small city of Galilee, Nazareth. Her parents were Righteous Joachim of the tribe of the Prophet-King David, and Anna from the tribe of the First Priest Aaron. The couple was without child, since Saint Anna was barren.

Having reached old age, Joachim and Anna did not lose hope in God’s mercy. They had strong faith that for God everything is possible, and that He would be able to overcome the barrenness of Anna even in her old age, as He had once overcame the barrenness of Sarah, spouse of the Patriarch Abraham. Saints Joachim and Anna vowed to dedicate the child which the Lord might give them, to the service of God in the Temple.

Childlessness was considered among the Hebrew nation as a Divine punishment for sin, and therefore the righteous Saints Joachim and Anna had to endure abuse from their own countrymen. On one of the feastdays at the Temple in Jerusalem the elderly Joachim brought his sacrifice to offer to God, but the High Priest would not accept it, considering him to be unworthy since he was childless.

Saint Joachim in deep grief went into the wilderness, and there he prayed with tears to the Lord for a child. Saint Anna wept bitterly when she learned what had happened at the Jerusalem Temple. Never once did she complain against the Lord, but rather she prayed to ask God’s mercy on her family.

The Lord fulfilled her petitions when the pious couple had attained to extreme old age and prepared themselves by virtuous life for a sublime calling: to be the parents of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, the future Mother of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Archangel Gabriel brought Joachim and Anna the joyous message that their prayers were heard by God, and of them would be born a most blessed daughter Mary, through Whom would come the Salvation of all the World.

The Most Holy Virgin Mary surpassed in purity and virtue not only all mankind, but also the angels. She was manifest as the living Temple of God, so the Church sings in its festal hymns: “the East Gate… bringing Christ into the world for the salvation of our souls” (2nd Stikhera on “Lord, I Have Cried”, Tone 6).

The Nativity of the Theotokos marks the change of the times when the great and comforting promises of God for the salvation of the human race from slavery to the devil are about to be fulfilled. This event has brought to earth the grace of the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of Truth, piety, virtue and everlasting life. The Theotokos is revealed to all of us by grace as a merciful Intercessor and Mother, to Whom we have recourse with filial devotion.

The Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God “Of the Sign” is one of the most ancient icons of the Russian Church. In the thirteenth century during the Tatar invasion, when all the Russian realm was put to the extremest tribulation, the city of Kursk, ravaged by the Horde of Batu, fell into desolation.

One day in the environs of the city a hunter noticed the ancient icon, lying on a root face downwards to the ground. The hunter lifted it and saw that the image of the icon was similar to the Novgorod “Znamenie” Icon. With the appearance of this icon immediately there appeared its first miracle. Just as the hunter lifted up the holy icon from the earth, right then, at that place where the icon lay, gushed up strongly a spring of pure water. This occurred on September 8, 1259. The hunter decided not to leave the icon in the forest and settled on as a resting place an ancient small chapel, in which he put the newly-appeared image of the Theotokos. Soon inhabitants of the city of Ryl’a heard about this, and being in location not far away, they began to visit the place of the appearance for venerating the new holy image.

They transferred the icon to Ryl’a and put it in a new church in honor of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos. But the icon did not long remain there. It disappeared and returned to its former place of appearance. The inhabitants of Ryl’a repeatedly took it and carried it to the city, but the icon incomprehensibly returned to its former place. Everyone then realized, that the Theotokos preferred the place of appearance of Her Icon. The special help granted by the Mother of God through this icon is bound up with important events in Russian history: with the war of liberation of the Russian nation during the Polish-Lithuanian incursion in 1612, and the 1812 Fatherland war. From the icon several copies were made, which also were glorified.

In the year 1340, two monks came and settled in a cave on the hill where the monastery is now located. After reading his usual Prayer Rule, one of them went to the top of the hill, and and suddenly he beheld the Theotokos standing on a rock and enveloped in flames. He summoned the other monk, who also witnessed the miracle. A third witness of the vision was the shepherd John Bosoy. He ran to the hill, and the three of them glorified God. The Most Holy Theotokos left the imprint of her right foot on the stone where she had stood, and this filled up with water. Since that time, many people have been healed at this miraculous spring.

In 1559 Metropolitan Neophytus of Constantinople, on his journey through Volhynia, visited the noblewoman Anna Goiskaya living at the estate of Orlya, not far from Pochaev. As a farewell blessing he left Anna an icon of the Mother of God which he brought from Constantinople. They began to notice a radiance coming from the icon. In 1597 Anna’s brother Philip was healed of an ailment before the eyes of a monk who lived on the hill at Pochaev. She then gave the wonderworking image to the monk. The icon was placed in a church which was built in honor of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos. A monastery was later established there, and Anna Goiskaya provided a large portion of the money needed for construction.

The following is one of the more famous accounts of help from the Queen of Heaven through her wonderworking Pochaev Icon.

A monk of Pochaev monastery was taken into captivity by the Tatars. Held as a slave, he thought of the Pochaev monastery, its holy things, the divine services, and the church singing. In particular the monk yearned to be in Pochaev for the approaching Feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos. He prayed tearfully to the Mother of God for deliverance from captivity, and suddenly, through the prayers of the Holy Virgin, the walls of the dungeon disappeared, and the monk found himself standing before the walls of the Pochaev monastery.

The Pochaev Icon is also celebrated on Friday of Bright Week and on July 23.

The Kholm Icon of the Mother of God, by a tradition transmitted through Bishop James the Emaciated, was painted by the Evangelist Luke. It was brought from Greece to Russia in the time of Saint Vladimir, who after Baptism received many icons as a gift from Constantinople.

The Kholm image of the Mother of God is rendered on a board of cypress wood. In the year 1261 at the time of an invasion of the Tatar (Mongol) Horde, the city of Kholm was pillaged, and the icon of the Theotokos also suffered: the jeweled frame was taken, the painting damaged and the icon itself thrown down. After an hundred years the holy icon was relocated and solemnly placed in the Kholm cathedral. On the icon there remain two deep gashes: one on the left shoulder of the Theotokos, the other on Her right hand. There is a tradition that the invading Tatars were punished after they plundered and damaged the holy icon. They lost their sight, and their faces became distorted. Accounts of the miraculous signs worked by the Kholm Icon of the Mother of God, are recorded in a book by Archimandrite Joannicius (Golyatovsky) entitled THE NEW HEAVEN.

The Icon of Sophia, the Wisdom of God (Kiev), occupies an unique place in the Russian Orthodox Church. On the icon is depicted the Theotokos, and the Hypostatic Wisdom, the Son of God incarnate of Her.

In Wisdom or Sophia, ponders the Son of God, about Whom in the Proverbs of Solomon it says: “Wisdom has built a house for herself, and has set up seven pillars” (9:1). These words refer to Christ, the Son of God, Who in the Epistles of Saint Paul is called “Wisdom of God” (1 Cor.1:30), and the word “house” refers to the Most Holy Virgin Mary, of Whom the Son of God is incarnate.

The arrangement of the icon bears witness to the fulfillment of this prophecy. On the Kiev icon of Sophia is a church, and standing there is the Mother of God in a robe with a veil on her head, under an archway of seven pillars. The palms of Her hands are outstretched, and her feet are set upon a crescent moon. The Theotokos holds the Pre-eternal Christ Child, blessing with Her right hand, and holding the Infant with Her left.

On the cornice of the entrance are inscribed the words from the Book of Proverbs: “Wisdom has built a house for herself, and has set up seven pillars.” Over the entrance are depicted God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. From the mouth of God the Father issues the words: “I am affirmation of Her footsteps.”

Along both sides the seven Archangels are depicted with outstretched wings, holding in their hands symbols of their duties. On the right side: Michael with flaming sword; Uriel with a lightning flash hurling downwards; Raphael with alabaster vessel of myrrh. On the left side: Gabriel with a lily blossom; Selaphiel with a scale; Jerudiel with royal crown; and Barachiel with flowers on a white shawl.

Under a cloud with the crescent moon, serving as a footrest for the Mother of God, is a staircase with seven steps (depicting the Church of God on earth). Those standing on the seven steps are the Old Testament witnesses of the manifestation of Wisdom, the Forefathers and the Prophets.

On each of the seven steps are inscribed: faith, hope, love, purity, humility, blessedness, glory. The seven steps of the staircase are set upon the seven pillars, on which images are inscribed, and their explanation taken from the Apocalypse.

The Syamsk Icon of the Mother of God was found at the Syamsk-Vologda monastery, established in the sixteenth century. In the year 1542, during a fire at the monastery, only the wonderworking icon was saved. After the fire, the monastery was rebuilt.

In the year 1770, a church was built at the monastery in honor of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, and in it was placed this wonderworking icon.

The Glinsk Icon of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos appeared in the seventeenth century in the Glinsk wilderness of the Kursk region. A monastery was established in 1648 and received its name from the noble Glinsky family.

The Domnitsa Icon of the Mother of God appeared in the year 1696 on the bank of the Domnitsa River in Chernigov diocese, not far from the city of Berezna. At the place of appearance of the icon a monastery was established, in which was situated the wonderworking image. In the year 1771 the inhabitants of the city prayed before the holy icon and were delivered from plague through the intercession of the Theotokos.

The Isaakov Icon of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos appeared in the year 1659, not far from the village of Isaakievo. The peasants wanted to take the icon to their own village, but they were not able. They then turned to the priest, and he got vested, and in the company of choir and people with church banners, went to the place of the appearance of the icon of the Mother of God.

In the branches of a willow tree was the icon, radiating an extraordinary light like the sun. After the singing of a Molieben the priest reverently took the icon with the tree branch and carried it to the Isaakievo village into the parish church.

On the following day the icon was not in the church. It was at the place where it was first found. At this place of the appearance of the wonderworking icon they built a chapel, around which a skete was formed.

With the blessing of Saint Jonah, Metropolitan of Yaroslavl and Rostov, at the place of the chapel there was built in 1662 a wooden church in honor of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos. In the year 1758 a stone church was built in place of the wooden, into which they transferred this icon.

The Lukianov Icon of the Nativity of the Theotokos is from a church in honor of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in the village of Ignatiev. In 1594, it appeared three times in the wilderness area of Pokovitino-Ramen’e, not far from the village.

The priest Gregory, after he consulted with his parishioners, petitioned the blessing of Patriarch Job to transfer the church to the place of the appearance of the icon. The priest was also resettled with the transferred church.

During a Polish-Lithuanian invasion the church was looted. In the year 1640, the Monk Lukian arrived in Ramen’e from an Uglich monastery and found in the neglected church two icons which remained unharmed: the temple icon of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, and an Altar icon: the Smolensk Mother of God. A new church was built at the Lukianov monastery in honor of the appearance of the two wonderworking icons.

This wonderworking icon depicting the Nativity of the Theotokos is venerated on the Greek island of Ithaca.