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.

The first lesson at Great Vespers (Genesis 28:10-17) describes Jacob’s dream of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, and the angels ascending and descending upon it. The second lesson (Ezekiel 43:27-44:4) speaks of the gate of the sanctuary which faces east. God enters through this gate, which is shut so that no one else can enter by it. The third reading (Proverbs 9:1-11) talks about the house that Wisdom has built.

These readings are interpreted as prefiguring the Mother of God.

Saint Sozon lived in the late III century. He was from Lykaonia in Cilicia, and originally his name was Tarasios. When he became a Christian, he was baptized and received the name Sozon. A shepherd by profession, he tried to imitate the meekness of the sheep, at which he marveled. “I am ashamed,” he said, “that I am inferior to sheep.”

He studied the Holy Scriptures attentively, and he also guided Christ‘s rational sheep to good pastures. One day, while watering his flock at a spring, Sozon fell asleep under an oak tree, where he had a vision which foretold his impending martyrdom for Christ. He was also informed that the spring would become a source of blessing and of healing for many, since it would be sanctified by God‘s grace. When he awakened, he entrusted his flock to another shepherd and journeyed to Pompeiopolis in Cilicia. Seeing what impiety there was in that city, his heart was profoundly grieved.

Entering one of the temples of the idolaters, he beheld a golden statue representing a pagan “god.” Then, with great courage, he broke off the statue‘s right hand with his shepherd‘s crook and smashed it into tiny pieces, which he distributed to the poor. This caused a great uproar in the city. Maximian, the governor of Cilicia, became very angry, and a search was made to find the culprit. Many innocent people were arrested and tortured in an attempt to force a confession from them.

When Saint Sozon heard about this, he could not permit others to suffer for something he had done. Therefore, he presented himself before the governor and responded to his threats in a calm manner, saying that the statue was not doing anyone much good inside the temple, and so he used the gold for the benefit of the poor.

Maximian asked the Saint how he dared to dishonor their “god” in such a way. Sozon replied, “I did this so that you might know that your ‘god’ is powerless. When I struck off his hand, he did not protest or make any attempt to stop me, nor did he cry out with pain. How could he? Your idol is deaf and dumb and without breath. It cannot see, hear, speak, or defend itself. If your ‘god’ was real, I would not have been permitted to break it.”

When Maximian heard these words, he ordered that Saint Sozon be tortured without mercy. He was suspended and his body was raked with iron claws. Then iron boots were nailed to the soles of his feet, and he was paraded through the city. Throughout his torments, he never ceased to glorify the Savior Christ. Once again he was suspended from a tree and beaten with iron rods, so that his body was mangled and his bones were broken. Amid such torture, the Saint surrendered his soul to God in the year 304.

Seeing that he was dead, the soldiers took him down from the tree and built a large fire to burn his body so that the Christians would not be able to claim it and venerate it. Suddenly, there was thunder and lightning, rain and hail, which put out the fire. The pagans fled in fear, and the holy relics were not damaged. The faithful came at midnight, when it was very dark. They were troubled because they could not find the relics, but a light from Heaven shone upon Christ‘s holy martyr to guide them. Gathering the Saint‘s relics, the Christians gave them an honorable burial.

Many miracles took place at the tomb, and also at the spring where the Saint had his vision under the oak tree. Later, a church was built by the spring, and was dedicated to Saint Sozon. In that holy place praise was offered to the one true God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to Whom be glory throughout all the ages. Amen.

Saint John, Archbishop of Novgorod, was born at Novgorod of the pious parents Nicholas and Christina. He passed his childhood in quiet and peaceful surroundings.

After the death of their parents, John and his brother Gabriel decided to establish a small monastery in honor of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos with their inheritance.

At first they built a wooden church, but a short time later they also built a stone church. Their good intentions were not without difficulties. Before they finished construction on the stone temple, the brothers totally exhausted their means. Only their steadfast and living faith inspired them to continue what they had started. They turned for help with it to the Queen of Heaven, on Whose account this God-pleasing matter was begun.

Because of their unflagging faith and zeal, She manifested Her mercy to them. She told them in a dream that everything necessary for the completion of the temple would be provided. On the following morning, the brothers saw a splendid horse loaded with two sacks of gold. No one came for it, and when the brothers removed the sacks, the horse vanished. Thus did the Mother of God provide for the monastery.

Upon completion of the monastery construction, under the protection of the Mother of God, the brothers were clothed in the monastic schema. Saint John took the name of Elias, and Saint Gabriel took the name Gregory.

The chronicles speak of Saint John being made bishop under the entries for the year 1162. His first archpastoral letter was addressed to the clergy of his diocese. It was filled with an endearing concern about his flock, written in a spirit of fatherly guidance: “It has pleased God and the Most Holy Theotokos, through your prayers, that I, a mere man, should not refuse this high office, of which I am unworthy. Since you yourselves have encouraged me to this service, now listen to me …”

The saint spoke about the vocation of the pastor. He is concerned about his sheep, he not only chastizes, but also heals those who lead a sinful life. “At the beginning of my discourse I ask you not to be too much attached to this world, but rather be instructive to people. Look first of all, that they not give themselves over to drunkenness. You yourselves know, that through this vice most of all, not only do the simple people perish, but we also. When your spiritual children come to you in repentance, then question them with mildness. It is not seemly to impose harsh penances.Do not scorn the reading of books, since if we do not start doing this, then what will distinguish us from the simple unschooled people? … Do not impose penances upon orphans…. Let everything be seemly, for the yoke of Christ ought to be light.”

In the year 1165 Saint John was elevated to archbishop (from that time the Novgorod cathedra became an archbishopric).

The winter of 1170 was a very difficult time for Novgorod. Suzdal forces with their allies laid siege to the city for two days, since the Novgorod people would not accept Prince Svyatoslav. They also took the tribute-tax of the Dvina district which was not subject to them.

In grief the people of Novgorod prayed to God and the Most Holy Theotokos for the salvation of the city. On the third night, while he was praying before an icon of the Savior, Saint John heard a voice ordering him to go to the church of the Savior on Il’ina street, to take the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos and carry it out to the walls of the city.

In the morning the saint told the people about the command and sent his deacon with clergy to the church of the Savior for the icon. Going into the church, the archdeacon bowed down before the icon and wanted to take it, but the icon would not budge. The archdeacon returned to the archbishop and told him what had happened.

Then the saint with all the assembly went to the Il’ina church and on their knees began to pray before the icon. They began to sing a Molieben, and after the Sixth Ode at the kontakion “Protectress of Christians,” the icon itself moved from the place. The people with tears cried out: “Lord, have mercy!”

Then Saint John took the icon and together with two deacons carried it to the city walls. The Novgorodian people saw their doom, for the Suzdal forces and their allies were ready for pillage. In the sixth hour the assault began, and the arrows fell like rain. Then the icon turned its visage towards the city, and tears trickled down from the eyes of the Most Holy Theotokos, which the saint gathered on his phelonion.

A darkness covered the Suzdal forces, they became unable to see and they fell back in terror. This occurred on February 25, 1170. Saint John established a solemn feastday for Novgorod, the Sign of the Most Holy Theotokos (November 27).

The Suzdal army inflicted great harm on the Novgorod region. Here also the archpastor did not remain on the sidelines. He showed fatherly concern for devastated households suffering hunger, and he distributed aid to orphans. Just like other Russian hierarchs, he calmed and soothed the internecine strife in much-suffering Rus by his prayers and his virtue. In 1172, the archpastor journeyed to Vladimir to reconcile Prince Andrew Bogoliubsky with the Novgorod people.

The saint not only shared in the adversity of his people, but most of all he concerned himself with their spiritual enlightenment. Saint John devoted much attention to spiritual conversations, which often occurred in the circle of the clergy and the laypeople. There are preserved about 30 of his instructions concerning Baptism, Confession, the Holy Eucharist.

His Guidance for Monks is filled with spiritual grandeur: “Once having followed after Christ, monks as actualisers of spiritual life by the Cross ought to live in solitary places, separate from worldly folk. Let them steal nothing for themselves, and let them be wholly dedicated to God. A monk ought always to be a monk, at every time and at every place, both in asleep and awake he should preserve the memory of death, and be fleshless in the flesh.”

“Not for everyone does the monastery serve as a therapy for sensual love, just as silence is for anger, and non-acquisitiveness is for money, and the tomb is for avarice. Monastic life and worldly life are incompatible, just as one would not harness a camel and horse together. The monk bends his neck beneath the yoke of the Creator and ought to pull the plow in the valley of humility, in order to multiply the fine wheat by the warmth of the Life-giving Spirit and to sow the seeds of the reason of God. The black-robed is not his own master; being like gods, take care not to rot in likeness to people, nor fall from the heights like Lucifer… for haughty pride comes from human glory.”

The saint’s spiritual powers of grace were unusual. For his simplicity of soul and purity of heart God gave him power against demons. Once, when the saint prayed by night, as was his custom, he heard something splashing the water in the washbasin. Seeing that there was no one beside him, the saint realized that this was a demon trying to scare him.

The saint made the Sign of the Cross over the washbasin and restrained the devil. Soon the evil spirit could no longer bear the prayer of the saint, which scorched it like fire, and it began to beg to be released from the washbasin. The saint was agreeable, but ordered the demon to carry him from Novgorod to Jerusalem to the Sepulchre of the Lord and back, all in one night. The demon fulfilled the saint’s command, but asked him to tell no one about his shame.

In one of his conversations, the saint told his flock that he knew a man who visited the Holy Land in one night. The revenge of the evil spirit was not slow in coming. It began to scatter women’s things in his cell. Once, when people had gathered in Saint John’s cell, the devil transformed himself into a woman who ran in front of them as if fleeing from the cell.

The saint heard the racket and gently asked, “What has happened, my children, what is the noise all about?” The unruly crowd, shouting various charges of perverse life against the saint, dragged him to the River Volkhov. They put the saint on a raft and released it down along the current of the river. But the raft, contrary to expectation, sailed against the current straight to the Saint George men’s monastery, three versts from Novgorod.

Seeing this, people were ashamed and with weeping and shouts they went along the riverbank after the raft, beseeching the saint to forgive them and to return to the city. The heart of the simple archpastor was filled with joy, not only for himself, but for his flock: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” he prayed, and granted pardon to all.

This happened not long before the death of the saint. Sensing its approach, he put off the hierarch’s omophor and took the schema with the name John, the same name he had in his youth. He appointed his brother, Saint Gregory (May 24) as his successor. The saint died on September 7, 1186 and was buried in the church of Holy Wisdom.

In 1439, repairs were being made at the cathedral of Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) through the zeal of Saint Euthymius; in the portico chapel of Saint John the Forerunner, a stone suddenly came loose and cracked the lid of the tomb standing there. Saint Euthymius gave orders to lift off the boards broken by the stone, and the temple was filled with fragrance.

In the tomb they beheld the incorrupt relics of the saint, but no one was able to identify who this archpastor was. In his cell, Saint Euthymius fervently began to pray for God to reveal to him the name of this saint.

That night a man appeared before him, clothed in the vestments of a hierarch, and said that he was Archbishop John, who was found worthy to serve the miracle of the Most Holy Theotokos in honor of Her Sign.

“I proclaim to you the will of God,” continued the saint, “to celebrate the memory of the archbishops and princes lying here, on October 4, and I shall pray Christ for all Christians.” His memory is also celebrated at the Synaxis of Novgorod hierarchs on February 10. In 1630, a feastday was also established for December 1.

Saint Serapion of Pskov was born at Yuriev (now Tartu), which then was under the rule of Germans, who sought to stamp out Orthodoxy. His parents were parishioners of a Russian church in the name of Saint Nicholas.

Saint Serapion was well versed in the Holy Scripture, and more than once he entered into the defense of Orthodoxy. When they wanted to convert him by force to the foreign faith, he departed to the Tolvsk wilderness, not far from Pskov, where the Pskov ascetic monk Euphrosynus (May 15) began his prayerful work.

Under his nurturing, Saint Serapion began to acquire the wisdom of wilderness life. But soon he happened to undergo temptations. Without a blessing, he wanted to leave his guide and to live an ascetic life in complete solitude. But the Lord brought the inexperienced novice to his senses: after he seriously hurt his leg, he repented of his self-will and disobedience and returned to the Elder.

After he received the Great Schema, he dwelt constantly with Saint Euphrosynus for 55 years, strictly keeping the vow of silence. Brethren began gradually to gather around Saint Euphrosynus, for which the Elder built a temple in the name of the Three Hierarchs and gave a skete rule.

Saint Serapion zealously fulfilled everything commanded of him and was a role model for the monks. The monk so strictly fulfilled the monastic vow of uncovetousness, that a copyist of his life called him “an unburied corpse.” He bore every insult with extraordinary humility, always blaming himself alone, and he himself asked forgiveness of his insulter. The monk deeply sensed the power of communal prayers and he said that “the order of the twelve Psalms” sung alone in the cell cannot equal one “Lord, have mercy” sung in church.

Saint Serapion died on September 8, 1480, on the Feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos. Since the day of repose of Saint Serapion coincides with one of the twelve Great Feasts, his commemoration is on September 7. A Troparion and Kontakion were composed for the saint.

Saint Euphrosynus himself committed the body of his disciple to the earth. By his fervent deeds he had transformed himself into mere “bones, covered by skin.” Saint Serapion was not separated from his spiritual Father even after death: their holy relics were placed beside each other. A common service was composed to Saints Euphrosynus and Serapion (15 May), wherein Saint Serapion is glorified as the first co-ascetic, “companion and friend” of Saint Euphrosynus.

The Hieromartyr Macarius of Kanev lived in the seventeenth century. This was a most terrible time for Orthodox Christians in western Rus. The constant struggles of the Hieromartyr, were an attempt to defend the Orthodox Faith under difficult conditions, when it was possible only to defend the future of the Russian Orthodox Church, which was preserved from the brusque passing of the hurricane of the Unia, endured together with Tatar incursions.

The holy Hieromartyr Macarius was born in 1605 in the city of Ovruch in Volhynia into the illustrious Tokarevsky family, renowned adherents of Orthodoxy. In the years between 1614-1620 the saint studied at the Ovruch Dormition monastery, and upon the death of his parents he became a monk at this monastery, having begun his service as a novice.

In 1625 Saint Macarius, with the blessing of the archimandrite, left the Dormition monastery and was sent to the Pinsk bishop, Avramii, who assigned him to the Pinsk Kupyatichsk monastery. In 1630 he was ordained as hierodeacon, and in 1632 as hieromonk.

Fame about the excellence of the monastic life of the hieromonk Macarius spread beyond the bounds of the Kupyatichsk monastery, and in 1637 the brethren of the Bretsk Symonov monastery turned with a request to the igumen of the Kupyatichsk monastery, Hilarion (Denisevich), to send them Saint Macarius to be their head. But the Kupyatichsk igumen also had need of the hieromonk Macarius.

In 1637 the head of the Kupyatichsk monastery sent him to Metropolitan Peter Moghila of Kiev to hand over money collected by the brethren for the rebuilding of Kiev’s church of the Holy Wisdom, and for the solicitation of help for the construction and repair of damaged monastery churches. Seeing in the hieromonk Macarius a talented son of God’s Church, the Metropolitan issued him a certificate to collect offerings, and in 1638 appointed him head of the Kamenetsk Resurrection monastery (in Grodnensk district).

Until the pillaging and seizing of the monastery by the Uniates in 1642, Saint Macarius guided the brethren of the Resurrection monastery. In these harsh times the brethren of the Kupyatichsk monastery elected Saint Macarius as igumen, who led the monastery until 1656. From 1656 through 1659, Saint Macarius headed the Pinsk monastery, and from 1660 as archimandrite Saint Macarius guided the brethren of his original Ovruch Dormition monastery.

More than ten years passed in constant struggle with the Latin Poles in Ovruch. Nothing could compel the brethren to quit the monastery, neither the seizure of the farm lands belonging to the monastery by the Dominicans, nor the rapacious pillaging of moveable property, nor beatings. Only in the year 1671, after the devastation of Ovruch by the Tatars, did the holy archimandrite Macarius leave the monastery, in which there remained not a single monk, and he went to the Kiev Caves Lavra.

But the defenders of Orthodoxy, like Saint Macarius, were needed not only at Kiev, but even more outside of Kiev. Metropolitan Joseph (Neliubovich-Tukal’sky) assigned Archimandrite Macarius as head of the Kanev monastery. Thus, after thirty years of struggle with the Uniates, Saint Macarius was again on the front lines of battle for the Orthodox Faith.

In 1672 Yuri, the son of Bogdan Khmel’nitsky, sought shelter at the Kanev monastery. The hetman Doroshenko, petitioned Metropolitan Joseph for the assignment of Saint Macarius, and repeatedly visited Kanev monastery. In 1675, he switched his allegiance to Russia, after he renounced allegiance to the Turks, evidently, not without counsel from Saint Macarius.

In response the Turkish powers dispatched an army to Little Russia. On September 4, 1678, the aggressors rushed on the monastery. Saint Macarius met the enemy with cross in hand at the entrance to the church. The Turks demanded that the monk hand over to them the monastery treasury. Hearing the answer of the monk, that his treasure was in Heaven, the furious robbers hung the saint hand and foot between two posts.

After two days they beheaded the Hieromartyr on September 7, 1678. Witnesses to the martyric death of Archimandrite Macarius carried his body to the monastery church, in which they were hidden for safety. But the returning Turks placed firewood around the church and burned everything in the temple. When the surviving citizens of Kanev began removing the bodies of those who perished, then only one body was found whole and as though alive. This was the body of the Hieromartyr Macarius, attired in hairshirt, with a cross on his breast and another cross in his hand. The holy body was buried in this temple beneath the altar on September 8, 1678.

The holy Hieromartyr Macarius was a man of highly righteous and spiritual life, glorified while still alive by miracles and the gift of clairvoyance. At Kanev, he healed the blind and the dying.

In 1688, during renovation of the temple, the grave of the Hieromartyr was opened, and the incorrupt body of the saint was found. In connection with the danger of invasion for the Kanev monastery, on May 13, 1688 the holy relics were solemnly transferred to the Pereyaslavl regimental Resurrection church. There also they transferred the beloved book of the Hieromartyr, “Discourse of John Chrysostom on the 14 Epistles of the holy Apostle Paul” (Kiev edition 1621-23) with his signature on one of the pageleafs. Under Bishop Zachariah (Cornelovich) the relics were transferred in 1713 to a new-built temple of the Pereyaslavl Mikhailovsk monastery, and after its closing the relics rested at the Pereyaslavl Resurrection monastery from August 4, 1786.

In 1942, the relics were transferred to the Trinity church in the city of Cherkassa, and from 1965 they have been in the church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos in that same city.

The commemoration of the Hieromartyr Macarius is made twice: September 7, the day of his repose, and on May 13, the transfer of his holy relics.

The Holy Apostle Evodius of the Seventy was, after the holy Apostle Peter, the first bishop in Syrian Antioch. His successor, the Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-Bearer (December 20), disciple of the holy Apostle John the Theologian, mentions him in his Letter to the Antiochians: “Remember your blessed father Evodus, who was made your first pastor by the Apostles.”

Saint Evodius served as bishop for 27 years and died as a martyr under the emperor Nero (54-68). Saint Evodus wrote several compositions. In one of them he writes that the Most Holy Virgin Mary gave birth to the Savior of the world at the age of fifteen.

Other writings of the saint have not survived. A book entitled THE STAR is mentioned by the fourteenth century church historian Nikēphóros Callistus. Saint Evodus received the crown of martyrdom in the year 66.

The Holy Apostle Onesiphorus of the Seventy Saint Paul writes of him: “God grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my bonds. When he was at Rome, he searched for me with great diligence, and found me. May the Lord grant him to find the mercy of the Lord on that day; and you know how much he served me at Ephesus.” (2 Tim 1:16-18).

Saint Onesiphorus was bishop at Colophon (Asia Minor), and later at Corinth. He died a martyr in the city of Parium (not far from Ephesus) on the shores of the Hellespont, where he had gone to proclaim Christ among the local pagans.

The Holy Martyr Eupsychius was born in Caesaria, Cappadocia. In one of the Synaxaria he is called the son of a senator Dionysius. During a time of a persecution against Christians under Hadrian, he was arrested and tortured. After the torture they threw him into prison, where he was healed of his wounds by an angel.

When they set the martyr free, he distributed all his property to the poor. He gave away a certain portion even to his enemies, who had reported him and given him over to torture. Under a new governor, Saint Eupsychius was again arrested. They hung him up and cut his body with iron hooks, and then they cut off his head with a sword. The martyr died under the emperor Hadrian (117-138).

Saint Luke was a monk at the Deep Stream (Βαθέος Ρύακος) Monastery near Triglia, Lykaonia (in Asia Minor), and later became its third Igoumen, He reposed there in peace at the end of the X century.

The Monastery, dedicated to the Transfiguration of Christ. was famed for the strictness of the ascetic life of its monks. The first Igoumen and founder of the monastery was Saint Basil (July 1), and the second was Saint Ignatius (+ September 27, 970).¹

According to the Hagiologion of Metropolitan Sophronios Eustratiadou, Saint Luke is commemorated on September 7. Only Saint Νikόdēmos of the Holy Mountain (July 14) lists his commemoration on December 27.

¹ Some sources list Saint Peter (September 7) as the second Igoumen.

Saint Cloud was born in 520. When his father was killed in battle in 524 he and his brothers were brought up by their grandmother Saint Clotilde (June 3). His brothers were murdered by their uncles Childebert and Clotaire to prevent them from succeeding to the Frankish throne. Saint Cloud escaped and lived as a hermit, renouncing any claim to the throne.

Later, Saint Cloud was ordained to the holy priesthood, and lived a life of virtue and good works. He died around 560.

The future Saint Macarius was born in 1788 into the noble Ivanov family, and was baptized with the name Michael in honor of Saint Michael of Tver (November 22). His parents Nicholas and Elizabeth had an estate in the village of Shepyatino in the Dimitrov district in the Orel province. They also owned property in other provinces, including the village of Zhelezniki in Orel Province where they lived. The Ivanovs moved to Moscow in 1794 so Elizabeth could receive medical treatment for tuberculosis.

Michael’s beloved mother died on January 21, 1797, and was buried in the Saint Andronicus monastery. The nine-year-old Michael moved to the village of Karachev to live with his sister Daria and her husband Simeon Peredelsky, who had been elected to the District Court of Karachev. Michael received his primary education there in the local parish school.

Around 1801, Michael and his two brothers moved into the house of his aunt Anna M. Verevkina, where they were educated along with her own son. In 1802, when he was fourteen, Michael and his brother Alexis were hired as assistant bookkeepers in the District Treasury of Lgov. Although the job was difficult, Michael carried out his duties with precision and care that he attracted the attention of the provincial authorities.

In 1805 Michael was appointed as head of the Financial Board (Treasury) in Kursk. When he was not working, he liked to spend his time reading or playing the violin. Michael’s father died on March 17, 1806 after a long illness, and was buried near the parish church at Turischev.

Michael visited the Ploschansk Hermitage, twenty-four miles from his family’s estate in Schepyatino, in October of 1810. From there he wrote to his brothers saying that he was leaving the estate to them, for he intended to remain at the hermitage. His only condition was that they donate 1000 rubles to build a stone church at Turischev where their father was buried.

Those closest to Michael never knew whether his visit to Ploschansk was accidental or premeditated. He did seem inclined to the monastic life, but perhaps he did not make a final decision to become a monk until he had observed the monastic life at Ploschansk.

Michael entered the Ploschansk Hermitage of the Theotokos at the age of twenty-two. It had no large buildings, no great wealth, and was far from populated areas. Perhaps he was attracted by the unpretentiously humble circumstances of the place. There were fifty monks at the Hermitage, led by Hieromonk Joannicus.

Michael was enrolled as a novice a month after arriving at Ploschansk, and was tonsured as a rassophore on December 24, 1810 with the name Melchizedek. He did not mind the privation and hard work at the Hermitage, but there were no Elders there capable of offering spiritual guidance.

Hearing that Elders of lofty spiritual life were living in the forests of Bryansk, and in the monasteries of the Orel and Kursk dioceses, Father Melchizedek longed to meet them and profit from their teaching. However, the opportunity did not arise for some time.

In 1814, he went on pilgrimage to Kiev, where he venerated the relics of various saints. On the way back, he met some experienced Elders and was able to converse with them.

Father Paul, who came from a family of Rostov merchants, and who was tonsured on Mount Athos, became the new Superior of Ploschansk in 1815. He noticed Father Melchizedek’s zeal for the monastic life, and for fulfilling his obediences. On March 7, 1815 Father Paul tonsured him as a monk with the new name Macarius. A few days later, on March 12, Bishop Dositheus of Orel and Sevsk ordained Father Macarius as a hierodeacon.

Schemamonk Athanasius (Zakharov), a disciple of Saint Paisius Velichkovsky (November 15) was visiting Ploschansk in 1815. He had lived at White Bluff Monastery and Florischev Hermitage in the Vladimir Province. While at Ploschansk, Father Athanasius fell off a bench and dislocated a joint in his leg. He went to Cholnsk Monastery in 1816 and partially recovered, but he could no longer walk without a crutch. In 1817 he returned to Ploschansk, and Father Macarius moved to his cell to take care of him.

Elder Athanasius had a great influence on the spiritual development of Father Macarius, who revered him as his Father and teacher. For seven years he had lived in the Neamts Monastery, where he was tonsured by Saint Paisius Velichkovsky. Father Athanasius finished the course of his earthly life on October 17, 1825, and died in the arms of Father Macarius. He had lived at Ploschansk for ten years, and Father Macarius derived much benefit from his Elder’s example.

Father Athanasius had copies of the translations of the ascetical Fathers made by Saint Paisius, and he himself had translated the Life of Saint Gregory of Sinai, the Catechetical Homilies of Saint Theodore the Studite, the homilies of Saint Gregory Palamas, and many other profitable writings. Not only did Father Macarius read and copy these translations and absorb the wisdom contained in them, he later published them for the benefit of others.

Father Macarius was ordained to the holy priesthood by Bishop Dositheus of Orel and Sevsk on May 27, 1817. When Igumen Paul retired to the bishop’s residence at Kaluga in 1818, he was replaced by Hieromonk Seraphim, a disciple of Father Basil (Kishkin), the Superior of White Bluff Hermitage. Father Seraphim brought good order to Ploschansk, instructing the monks in the spiritual life.

With Father Seraphim’s blessing, Father Macarius made a pilgrimage to Kiev in 1819 with Hierodeacon Palladius. There they met Archimandrite Anthony, who later became Archbishop of Voronezh and Zadonsk. On the way back to Ploschansk, the two visited Glinsk Hermitage. Father Macarius became acquainted with Hierodeacon Samuel, who was experienced in mental prayer. Since Father Athanasius had never spoken to him of this activity, Father Macarius was gratified to meet someone who could speak about it from personal experience.

In 1824, Father Macarius went to Rostov to venerate the relics of Saint Demetrius (September 21 and October 28). On that same trip he visited Optina Monastery and its new Skete for the first time.

Two of Father Macarius’s spiritual guides passed away within a short time: Elder Athanasius in 1825, and Igumen Seraphim in 1826. Hieromonk Marcellinus was appointed as Superior of Ploschansk in addition to his duties as Bishop Gabriel’s steward. He continued to live at Orel for two years, while the Ploschansk Hermitage was administered by Father Anatole, the treasurer.

Father Macarius was made dean of the Hermitage on June 10, 1826. In January of 1827, he was assigned as confessor at the Holy Trinity Convent of Sevsk. This began his period of spiritual direction and spiritual correspondence which lasted until his death. He did not assume such a role on his own, but only in obedience to the will of the bishop.

In 1828 Father Leonid (Nagolkin) came to Ploschansk from the Saint Alexander of Svir Monastery with several disciples. Father Macarius thought that the arrival of Father Leonid was the answer to his prayers, for Father Leonid was a man of great spiritual wisdom. This holy Elder, who had struggled against many visible and invisible foes, was able to give useful advice to those who were experiencing temptations. He understood from personal experience that those who wish to serve the Lord must prepare their souls for temptation (Sirach 2:1). He agreed to Father Macarius’s repeated requests to accept him as a spiritual son and disciple. When Father Leonid moved to Optina in 1829, Father Macarius kept in touch with him through letters.

Father Macarius visited Optina and Father Leonid in 1831 on his way to Petersburg, where Bishop Νikόdēmos of Orel was serving his term in the Holy Synod. He appointed Father Macarius as treasurer and steward, much to the latter’s chagrin. Father Macarius did not care for the bustle of the city, and longed to return to the tranquility of the monastery, yet he remained in his position out of obedience to the bishop.

After serving for almost a year in Petersburg, Father Macarius returned to Ploschansk Hermitage. On the way back, he visited Father Leonid again at Optina. He also submitted a request to Father Moses to be admitted to the Skete at Optina as soon as this might be arranged. The desired transfer from Ploschansk to Optina did not take place until January 14, 1834.

Father Macarius had lived at Ploschansk for twenty-three years, and always retained a certain fondness for the place for the rest of his life. Father Macarius finally arrived at Optina on February 5, 1834.

At the age of forty-six, Father Macarius placed himself at the feet of Father Leonid, humbling himself and demonstrating complete obedience. At first, he helped the Elder with his correspondence, but later his responsibilities increased. In October of 1836 he was appointed as confessor for the monastery. After Father Anthony was assigned to Saint Nicholas Monastery in Maloyaroslavets as abbot, Father Macarius succeeded him as Superior of the Skete on December 1, 1839. Father Macarius’s relationship with Father Leonid did not change because of his new position. He never did anything without consulting Father Leonid, and always attributed any success he achieved to the blessing and prayers of his Elder.

Father Macarius remained humble and obedient to Father Leonid until the Elder’s death on October 11, 1841. Even when Father Leonid was transferred from the Skete to the Monastery in 1836, Father Macarius visited him every day to ask his advice on various matters.

During his final illness, Father Leonid told his spiritual children to go to Father Macarius for spiritual counsel. Seeing in Father Macarius the same spiritual gifts possessed by Father Leonid, people recommended him to their friends and acquaintances. As a result, the number of Father Macarius’s disciples grew larger every year. He was also assigned as instructor of the new novices, and of those who were about to be tonsured.

Father Macarius received visitors from morning until night, and also kept up an extensive spiritual correspondence. Sometimes he was exhausted by the crowds of people, and by the number of letters he had to write. His humility and love for people who were afflicted in body and in spirit would not permit him to curtail his activities, however.

Father Macarius had always loved reading and studying patristic literature. At Ploschansk, he had copied many translations done by Saint Paisius Velichkovsky which were in the possession of Schemamonk Athanasius. His knowledge and understanding of the Fathers increased at Optina under the guidance of Father Leonid, a disciple of Father Theodore of Svir, who was himself a disciple of Saint Paisius. Father Anthony, abbot of the Skete and Father Moses, abbot of the Monastery, both encouraged the study of patristic books. Conditions for the publication of these manuscripts, translated and corrected by Saint Paisius, were quite favorable, for Optina possessed the best copies of these writings.

In 1845, Ivan V. Kireyevsky, the editor of The Muscovite, asked Father Macarius to write a biography of Saint Paisius for his magazine. In 1846, Father Macarius was visiting the Kireyevskys at their estate, and the discussion turned to the lack of spiritual books offering instruction in the Christian life. Natalia Kireyevsky, the spiritual daughter of Father Macarius since 1838, happened to have some manuscripts of ascetical literature. They both asked Father Macarius, “What prevents us from offering these spiritual treasures to the world?”

At the beginning of 1847 a biography of Father Pasius Velichkovsky, with extracts from his writings, was published. Over the course of time, sixteen books of patristic literature were published under the Elder’s supervision, including works by Saint Nilus of Sora, Saints Barsanuphius and John, Saint Simeon the New Theologian, and Saint Isaac of Syria.

In 1853, Father Macarius resigned as Superior of the Skete of Saint John the Baptist, and was succeeded by Father Paphnutius. This took place on November 30, exactly fourteen years from the time Father Macarius had first assumed the office.

In 1859, one of Father Macarius’s spiritual daughters, was at the point of death. Maria asked Father Macarius to pray that God would spare her life so that she could see her son again. The Elder told her that she would recover, and that they would both die around the same time. The old woman told her friends of this prediction, saying, “Beware my death, for it is connected with the Elder’s death.” Maria died on August 23, 1860 in the presence of Father Macarius and Father Leonid Kavelin.

On August 26, the Elder became ill with ischuria. A doctor who happened to be at Optina saw him and treated him with drugs. Father Macarius felt worse that evening, and so they sent for a certain nobleman’s personal physician. That doctor was not available, so Father Kavelin went to another doctor to ask for advice. Father Macarius showed no improvement, so he received Holy Unction and the life-giving Mysteries of Christ. On September 2, he received two gifts which delighted him. One was an enamel icon of the Vladimir Mother of God from Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, which he wore on his breast. The other was a cross containing a relic of the Cross of Christ.

The Elder felt weaker on September 4, and received Holy Communion after Vespers. During his illness the brethren who cared for him read the daily rule of prayer for him at the proper times. He also asked them to read certain portions of the writings of the holy Fathers.

On September 5, Father Macarius was moved from his small bedroom into the larger reception room where the air was fresher. During the night the ninety-year-old Schemamonk Hilarion reposed, and the church bell was rung three times according to the custom of the Monastery, indicating that one of the brethren had departed. Many of Father Macarius’s disciples and some visitors in the guesthouse thought that the bell tolled for him. They became alarmed until it was announced that Father Hilarion had passed away.

The Elder experienced shortness of breath on September 6. He received Communion, and was visited by two doctors, but there was nothing they could do for him. Father Macarius felt worse that evening, and received Holy Communion a second time around 8:00 P.M. Around midnight he talked with his confessor for about half an hour, receiving absolution and forgiveness of his sins.

Father Macarius asked to have the prayer for the dying read, which he heard while sitting in a chair. The Canon and Akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos were also read, and the Canon to the Sweetest Lord Jesus Christ was read during Matins. During these readings it appeared that the Elder’s sufferings were alleviated.

During the night Father Macarius asked to be moved several times from the bed to the chair. He was calm and peaceful, and thanked those around him for caring for him. At 6:00 the next morning he received Holy Communion for the last time.

At 7:00 on the morning of September 7, 1860, Father Macarius departed to the Lord while the Ninth Ode of the Canon for the Departure of the Soul from the Body was being read. Two years before his death, he was secretly tonsured into the Great Schema. Therefore, a schema which had been blessed on the Lord’s Sepulchre was placed on his body. Several Panikhidas were offered for his soul throughout the day.

Father Macarius was laid to rest on September 10, in a grave prepared for him opposite the altar of the Saint Nicholas chapel in the main church. He was buried to the right of the grave of Father Leonid, his friend and fellow ascetic.

The Moscow Patriarchate authorized local veneration of the Optina Elders on June 13,1996. The work of uncovering the relics of Saints Leonid, Macarius, Hilarion, Ambrose, Anatole I, Barsanuphius and Anatole II began on June 24/July 7, 1998 and was concluded the next day. However, because of the church Feasts (Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, etc.) associated with the actual dates of the uncovering of the relics, Patriarch Alexey II designated June 27/July 10 as the date for commemorating this event. The relics of the holy Elders now rest in the new church of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God.

The Optina Elders were glorified by the Moscow Patriarchate for universal veneration on August 7, 2000.

Saint Cassiani (Cassianḗ) is a well-known Byzantine poet (ποιήτρια), who lived during the reign of Emperor Theophilos (829 – 842).

She was tonsured about the year 820, and founded a convent on Xerolophos, one of Constantinople's seven hills. There (according to the monk George the Sinful) she led "an ascetic and philosophical life" which was pleasing to God. She was an energetic Igoumeness who not only regulated the life of the convent, but also found time to pursue her literary interests. She combined the talents of poet, theologian and musician, writing hymns and composing musical settings for them. Originally sung by her nuns, many of her compositions have enduring value. At least twenty-three of her hymns were later included in the Church's liturgical books.

One of Saint Cassiani's most famous hymns is sung during Matins on Holy Wednesday, on the subject of the woman who had fallen into many sins, which is based on Saint Luke's Gospel (7:36-50).

Another of her hymns is sung in the Canon of Matins for Holy Saturday, and is repeated at the Midnight Office on Holy Pascha: "Do not weep for me, O Mother, beholding in the tomb the Son Whom thou hast conceived without seed in thy womb, for I shall arise. . ."

Saint Cassiani is not mentioned in the Synaxaristes (Synaxaristés), yet the inhabitants of Kasos, because of the similarity of her name with that of their island, celebrate her Feast Day on September 7. A special Church Service was composed in her honor, and it was published in Alexandria in 1889 by the "Reformed" (or "Reorganized") printing house.

It is strange, however, that this Service was dedicated to Patriarch Sophronios of Alexandria, who in turn gave it to Metropolitan Germanos (Germanós) of Thebes to be printed (on September 1, 1889). Thus, Cassiani's glorification by the Church of Alexandria was somehow formalized, as the inhabitants of Kasos desired.

For centuries Saint Cassiani's name has appeared at the end of all the lists of Byzantine poets. The first known list was compiled by Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos (Nikēphóros Kállistos Xanthopoulos) in the first half of the XIV century.

Saint Cassiani is depicted among the holy ascetics and other monastics in the icon for the Triumph of Orthodoxy on the first Sunday of Lent.

In Phrygia, not far from the city of Hieropolis, in a place called Cheretopos, there was a church named for the Archangel Michael, built over a miraculous spring.

This church was built by a certain inhabitant of the city of Laodicia in gratitude to God for healing his mute daughter. The holy Chief Commander Michael appeared to this man in a dream and revealed to him that his daughter would receive the gift of speech after drinking from the water of the spring. The girl actually did receive healing and began to speak. After this miracle, the father and his daughter and all their family were baptized. In fervent gratitude, the father built the church in honor of the holy Chief Commander Michael. Not only did Christians begin to come to the spring for healing, but also pagans. In so doing, many of the pagans turned from their idols and were converted to the faith in Christ.

At this church of the holy Chief Commander Michael, a certain pious man by the name of Archippus served for sixty years as church custodian. By his preaching and by the example of his saintly life he brought many pagans to faith in Christ. With the general malice of that time towards Christians, and especially against Archippus, the pagans thought to destroy the church in order to prevent people from coming to that holy place of healing, and at the same time kill Archippus.

Toward this end they made a confluence of the Lykokaperos and Kufos Rivers and directed its combined flow against the church. Saint Archippus prayed fervently to the Chief Commander Michael to ward off the danger. Through his prayer the Archangel Michael appeared at the temple, and with a blow of his staff, opened a wide fissure in a rock and commanded the rushing torrents of water to flow into it. The temple remained unharmed. Seeing such an awesome miracle, the pagans fled in terror. Archippus and the Christians gathered in church glorified God and gave thanks to the holy Archangel Michael for the help. The place where the rivers plunged into the fissure received the name “Chonae”, which means “plunging.”

The Chudov (“of the Miracle”) monastery in Moscow is named for this Feast.

The Martyrs Eudoxius, Zeno, Macarius and their Companions received a martyric death for Christ under the emperor Maximian Galerius, the successor of the emperor Diocletian.

Saint Eudoxius held the high position of a military commander in the imperial armies. He was a Christian, as were his friend Zeno and his house steward Macarius. After the emperor Diocletian issued an edict that Christians who refused to offer sacrifice to idols were to be put to death, many people fled to various lands with their families to avoid torture and death. At this time Saint Eudoxius resigned his high position, and with his wife Saint Basilissa and all their family abandoned their property and went into hiding in the region of Armenian Melitene.

The governor of Melitene sent soldiers to search for Eudoxius. When they found Eudoxius, he was attired in white garb. Not recognising him, the soldiers began to question whether a certain military commander Eudoxius had come into these parts. Not revealing who he was, the saint invited the soldiers into his home, fed them and gave them lodging for the night.

Saint Eudoxius considered his encounter with the soldiers as a sign from the Lord of his impending death by martyrdom. In the morning, he disclosed to his guests that he was the one whom they were seeking. In gratitude for the hospitality, the soldiers offered to conceal from the authorities that they had found Saint Eudoxius. However, the saint would not consent to this.

Setting his affairs in order, he told his wife not to weep for him, but on the contrary to celebrate the day of his martyric death. Donning his military garb, he went with the soldiers to the governor. Saint Basilissa and his friends Saints Zeno and Macarius followed after Saint Eudoxius.

The governor tried to persuade Saint Eudoxius to offer sacrifice to the idols and by this safeguard his life, exalted rank and property. Saint Eudoxius firmly refused, denouncing the folly of anyone who would worship soulless idols. He removed his soldier’s belt, the emblem of his authority, and threw it in the governor’s face.

Soldiers present at this, secret Christians, did the same thing, and they numbered more than a thousand men. The embarrassed governor asked the emperor what he should do. He was ordered to try the ringleaders and set the others free.

After prolonged tortures, they led Saint Eudoxius forth to execution. Following after her husband, Saint Basilissa wept, and his friend Saint Zeno also wept for the martyr. Saint Eudoxius again urged his wife not to mourn him, but rather to rejoice that he was worthy of the crown of martyrdom. He asked that she bury his body in a place called Amimos.

To his weeping friend Saint Zeno Saint Eudoxius predicted that they would enter the Kingdom of Heaven at the same time. Emboldened by these words, Zeno loudly declared himself a Christian, for which he was immediately sentenced to death.

Later, Saint Basilissa took her husband’s body without hindrance, and buried it in the place where he had requested. After this, they arrested the saint and led her before the governor. Desiring to share the fate of her husband, she fearlessly denounced both the governor and his false gods, the idols. The governor, however, saw her intent and would not torture her, but instead sent her away. As she left, the saint said to him that God would see her intention to suffer for her faith and would accept this intent as an accomplished deed.

Seven days later, Saint Eudoxius appeared to his wife in a vision and bade her to inform his friend and house steward Macarius, that both he and Saint Zeno awaited the arrival of Macarius. Macarius immediately went to the governor and declared himself a Christian, for which he was sentenced to death and beheaded. Many Christians also suffered martyrdom during this time.

Saint Archippus, son of devout Christians from the city of Hieropolis, at age ten went to pray in the church of the holy Chief Commander Michael and he remained at this temple to serve as church caretaker. He led a strict and ascetic manner of life, constantly at fasting and prayer.

He persuaded many pagans who came to the holy spring to accept holy Baptism, to forsake pagan impiety, and to turn to the One True God and Savior Jesus Christ. Tenacious pagans headed by idolous priests repeatedly tried to kill Saint Archippus, but each time the Lord delivered him out of their hands.

Finally, the pagans devised a plan to destroy the church and at the same time kill also Archippus by flooding the spot where both the church and the curative spring stood. Seeing the preparations for this wicked deed, Saint Archippus firmly resolved not to abandon the holy place, and he prayed to God and to the Archangel Michael to preserve the church and the spring. The Lord heard his prayer, and the saint witnessed the great Miracle of the Chief Commander Michael at Colossae. Miraculously delivered from death, Saint Archippus lived at the church into his old age, and he died peacefully at the age of 70. Christians buried the saint at Colossae, at the place of his deeds.

The Martyr Romulus lived during the reign of the emperor Trajan (98-117) and was a confidant of the emperor by virtue of his office of military commander. At the time, Trajan was waging war in the East to put down uprisings against the Romans by the Iberians, Sarmatians, and Arabs.

In the year 107, and again a second time in 115, the emperor conducted a review of the military strength of his army, and found in his troops upwards of 11,000 Christians. Trajan immediately sent these Christians into exile in Armenia in disgrace. Saint Romulus, in view of this, reproached the emperor for his impiety and the sheer folly to diminish the army’s strength during a time of war. Saint Romulus, moreover, acknowledged that he himself was a Christian. The enraged Trajan had the holy martyr subjected to a merciless beating, after which Saint Romulus was beheaded.

The Christian soldiers sent into exile in Armenia were killed by various forms of execution.

The Hieromartyr Cyril, Bishop of Gortyna, lived during the time of the emperor Diocletian and his co-emperor Maximian (284-305). As a Christian he was brought to trial before the governor Agrippina and after interrogation he was thrown into prison. One night the saint heard a voice commanding him to go to Rome.

In the morning the doors of the prison were open, and the idols overthrown and destroyed. On the road to Rome Saint Cyril had a vision: Saint Philoxenos appeared and said that he would receive two crowns, one of a hierarch and the other of a martyr.

At Rome, Saint Cyril rendered great help to the Church by his preaching. When a persecution against Christians started up, Saint Cyril went to Jerusalem to encourage the Christians living there. Along the way he had a vision and received a command not to neglect Crete.

When he arrived there, Saint Cyril was chosen bishop of the city of Gortyna. He was then 60 years of age. Still on the episcopal throne of Gortyna at age 95, Saint Cyril was brought to trial at the start of a new persecution against Christians and sentenced to death. He was beheaded with the sword in the vicinity of Raukos at the beginning of the fourth century.

Saint Cyril is commemorated on June 14 on the Greek calendar.

The Martyrs Cyriacus, Faustus the Presbyter, (Habib) Abibas the Deacon, and eleven other martyrs suffered martyrdom for Christ at Alexandria under the emperor Decius (249-251). During the persecution, they all steadfastly confessed themselves as Christians before the governor Valerius. They were beheaded by the sword, about the year 250. Their bodies were buried by Christians in Alexandria.

Saint David of Egypt before his entry into a monastery was the leader of a band of bandits in Egypt, in the desert of Hermopolis. He had committed many murders and other wicked deeds. As he grew older, he contemplated his life and was filled with fear because of his past crimes. Leaving his gang of bandits, he went to the monastery intending to repent of his wickedness.

He begged the igumen to accept him as one of the brethren, but the igumen refused. He explained to David that their monastic life was very severe and would be beyond his strength. David persisted and finally, he revealed to the igumen, that he was the notorious robber David. He said that if they did not accept him, he would return to his former life, then come back and plunder the monastery and kill the monks.

Then the igumen allowed him into the monastery, and to the surprise of all, David became an excellent monk. By his severe efforts David surpassed all the monks. After a certain time the Lord sent the Archangel Gabriel to David to say that the Lord had forgiven him. Saint David, in his great humility, could not believe that the Lord would forgive such a great sinner as he was, in such a short time. The Archangel then said to him, that because of his doubt David would become speechless. David asked that he should be permitted to say his prayers, monastic rule and share in the church services. This was granted him, but the rest of the time he remained speechless. Towards the end of his life, Saint David received from God the power to perform miracles. He healed many of the sick and cast out evil spirits. Having lived in such manner for many years, he fell asleep in the Lord.

Saint Maxim was born in 1886 in Zdynia in the Lemko region of Carpatho-Rus which was then a part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in present day Poland. His father, Tymofej, was the cantor of Zydnia’s Greek Catholic church. After completing his education in the nearby town of Jaslo and Nowy Sacz, he entered the Greek Catholic Basilian monastery in Krakow. Dissatisfied with the attempts to Latinize the Eastern rite to make it more acceptable to the Roman Catholic majority and also attempts to denationalize the Rusyns, he crossed the border into the Russian empire and entered the famed Orthodox monastery at Pochaev. It was while at the monastery that his outstanding potential attracted the attention of the illustrious Bishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky) who enrolled him in the Orthodox seminary in Zhitomir.

He completed his seminary studies in 1911 and that same year married Pelagia Grigoryuk and was ordained to the Holy Priesthood. At that time in the Lemko region there was a growing movement away from the Greek Catholic Church to the Orthodox Faith of their ancestors. Fr. Maxim returned home to serve the Orthodox faithful in the villages of Hrab, Vysovatka and Dovhe. After serving his first Divine Liturgy in Hrab on December 2, 1911, the Austrian authorities, suspicious of the Orthodox Faith for its alleged “Russian sympathies,” issued an order forbidding any further Orthodox services. Father Maxim ignored the order and continued to conduct services in village homes. He was repeatedly fined and held under temporary arrest. Before Pascha in 1912, he was again arrested with his friend and spiritual father, Father Ignatij Hudyma, and held in prison for two years in a Lviv prison until their trial began on March 9, 1914. After being found not guilty he immediately returned to his native village and continued minister to his Orthodox parishioners.

Martyrdom

With the outbreak of World War I, Father Maxim was again arrested and imprisoned on August 4, 1914 along with his entire family. Father Maxim, his father, mother, brother, and wife were forced to travel on foot to the prison while being prodded by the bayonets of the soldiers. In prison they were placed in separate cells and denied the opportunity to see each other. This time, however, there would be no court trial. On the morning of September 6, Father Maxim awoke in his cell and read his morning prayers as usual. Austrian soldiers led the twenty-eight year old priest from his cell to a wall in the prison courtyard where he was bound and blindfolded. As he was being led from his cell Father Maxim realized where they were taking him and humbly and with dignity asked, “Be so good as not to hold me. I will go peacefully wherever you wish.” There they ripped his priestly cross from his chest and threw it to the dirt, marking an “X” with chalk over his heart for a target. Before the command to execute the priest was given, Father Maxim was heard to shout: “Long live the Rus’ people, long live Orthodoxy!” As the shots rang out the martyr slumped to the ground. To assure that he was dead three more blasts of a revolver were emptied into his head. On September 12, Saint Maxim’s father, his pregnant wife, and brother were sent to the concentration camp at Talerhof in the far western part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. While in the camp Pelagia gave birth to a son she named Maxim in honor of his father. Like his father, the younger Maxim also entered the priesthood serving the Lemko Rusyn people faithfully until his death in 1991.

His Canonization

In September 1994, the official glorification of Saint Maxim began in the courtyard of the Gorlice Court House where the saint had been martyred, where a bronze plaque marking the tragic event was placed on the wall. Following this service, a procession of hierarchs, including our Metropolitan Nicholas of blessed memory, clergy and faithful entered the Holy Trinity Church in Gorlice for the service of glorification.

For the glorification of a saint, ordinarily the saint’s relics would be exhumed from their grave and transferred in procession to the church. The bishops of the Orthodox Church of Poland decided to delay the transfer, fearing it would provoke the areas’ Roman Catholics who reluctantly tolerate the Orthodox presence. Finally on September 5-6, 2007, the martyr’s relics were transferred from the village cemetery in Zdynia to the Holy Trinity Church in Gorlice, Poland where they are enshrined on the right side of the icon screen.

The Witness of Martyrs

Our Lord said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). The life of this new hieromartyr (priest-martyr) echo the words of Jesus. Saint Maxim had no fear of threats from the government, imprisonment, abuse, insults and even a firing squad. When this newly-ordained priest was arrested for serving an Orthodox Divine Liturgy his first action on being freed was to immediately return to his flock and resume his priestly ministry. The Lord’s words in the Book of Revelation apply well to Saint Maxim: “Be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10).

In my many years working as a hospice chaplain I have often been summoned by doctors and nurses to the bedside of a terminally ill patient who is fearful of his approaching death. These medical professionals assume, rightly so, that it is primarily an active faith that can help a person face this fear. The promise of the Lord Jesus to us is that if we believe in Him and our lives are joined to His we have nothing to fear in death. But while the death and resurrection of our Savior have removed our fear of death, Jesus does not desire that all of our fears vanish. He does want us to be afraid of something! He wants us to be afraid of the right things, to be fearful of things that should be fear: “…fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). The life of Saint Maxim Sandovich, faithful priest shines forth this truth!

— Father Edward Pehanich

The Kiev-Bratsk Icon of the Mother of God was at first in the church of Saints Boris and Gleb in the city of Vyshgorod (Kiev), where it miraculously appeared in the year 1654. In 1662, when Russia was at war with Poland (1659-1667), the city was dealt heavy losses by the Crimean Tatars fighting on the side of the Polish. The temple of the holy Passion-Bearers Boris and Gleb was destroyed and defiled. But the Providence of God preserved the holy wonderworking icon of the Mother of God, which was taken out of the church beforehand and set off along the Dniepr. The relics of the saints were hidden beneath a crypt.

The river carried the icon to the Podol section of Kiev, where it was joyfully taken up by the Orthodox and with due reverence transferred to the Bratsk (Brotherhood) monastery. The icon is described in the records of church property of the Kiev-Bratsk monastery, made in the year 1807.

There existed a “Song about the Wonderworking Kiev-Bratsk Icon of the Mother of God”, compiled soon after the year 1692. The Kiev-Bratsk Icon of the Mother of God is commemorated four times during the year: September 6, May 10, June 2, and on Saturday of the Fifth Week of Great Lent. All these days are dedicated to the miraculous appearance of the holy icon in 1654. The original icon has not been preserved. The copy was painted from it “measure for measure,” and is at present located in the Kiev monastery of the Protection of the Mother of God.

The Arapet, or “Arabian” Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos appeared while the holy Apostle Thomas (October 6) was evangelizing Ethiopia, Arabia, and India.

Instead of the usual three stars (signifying the perpetual virginity of the Mother of God), the outer garment of the Theotokos has three circles with the head of an angel inside each one. In this feature, it resembles the icons “In Giving Birth you Preserved your Virginity” (“A Virgin Before and After Giving Birth”) (October 17) and “O All-Hymned Mother” (October 6).

The Holy Prophet Zachariah and the Righteous Elizabeth were the parents of the holy Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord, John. They were descended from the lineage of Aaron: Saint Zachariah, son of Barach, was a priest in the Jerusalem Temple, and Saint Elizabeth was the sister of Saint Anna, the mother of the Most Holy Theotokos. The righteous spouses, “walking in all the commandments of the Lord” (Luke 1:6), suffered barrenness, which in those times was considered a punishment from God.

Once, during his turn of priestly service in the Temple, Saint Zachariah was told by an angel that his aged wife would bear him a son, who “will be great in the sight of the Lord” (Luke 1:15) and “will go before Him in the spirit and power of Elias” (Luke 1:17).

Zachariah doubted that this prediction would come true, and for his weakness of faith he was punished by becoming mute. When Elizabeth gave birth to a son, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit she announced that his name was John, although no one in their family had this name.

They asked Zachariah and he also wrote the name John down on a tablet. Immediately the gift of speech returned to him, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, he began to prophesy about his son as the Forerunner of the Lord.

When King Herod heard from the Magi about the birth of the Messiah, he decided to kill all the infants up to two years old at Bethlehem and the surrounding area, hoping that the new-born Messiah would be among them.

Herod knew about John’s unusual birth and he wanted to kill him, fearing that he was the foretold King of the Jews. But Elizabeth hid herself and the infant in the hills. The murderers searched everywhere for John. Elizabeth, when she saw her pursuers, began to implore God for their safety, and immediately the hill opened up and concealed her and the infant from their pursuers.

In these tragic days Saint Zachariah was taking his turn at the services in the Temple. Soldiers sent by Herod tried in vain to learn from him the whereabouts of his son. Then, by command of Herod, they murdered this holy prophet, having stabbed him between the temple and the altar (MT 23: 35). Elizabeth died forty days after her husband, and Saint John, preserved by the Lord, dwelt in the wilderness until the day of his appearance to the nation of Israel.

On the Greek calendar, Saints Zachariah and Elizabeth are also commemorated on June 24, the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist.

The Hieromartyr Athansius of Bretsk was Belorussian and was born in about the year 1597 into a pious Christian family named Philippovich. He received a serious upbringing, and he knew the theological and historical literature, as is evidenced in the diary of the saint, which has been preserved.

In his youth, Saint Athanasius for a while was a teacher in the houses of Polish merchants. In the year 1627, he accepted tonsure under Igumen Joseph at the Vilensk monastery of the Holy Spirit. Saint Athanasius was ordained hieromonk in the year 1632, and made head of the Duboisk [Dubovsk] monastery near Pinsk.

Saint Athanasius, with a special blessing of the Theotokos, re-established Orthodoxy within the boundaries of the ancient Russian territories that had been seized by the Polish Reche. Between the years 1638-1648 Saint Athanasius fulfilled his obedience as igumen of the Bretsk-Simeonov monastery. The monk endured much abuse from the Uniates and illegal persecution from the civil authorities. Three times he endured being locked up in prison.

The saint was sent to the authorities at Kiev to appear before a religious tribunal, but he was acquitted, and returned to his own monastery. For ten years Saint Athanasius, finding himself among persons maliciously disposed towards him, led a constant struggle for Holy Orthodoxy, his faithfulness to which is evidenced by his sufferings.

Attempts to wear down the spiritual endurance of the saint were to no avail. He again went to trial, after which the monk was sentenced to death by execution, for his cursing of the Unia. Saint Athanasius died as a martyr on the night of September 4-5, 1648 (the Uncovering of Relics was on July 20, 1679).

The Holy Prince Gleb, in Holy Baptism David, was one of the first Russian martyrs called “Passion-Bearers.” He suffered together with his brother Prince Boris (Roman in Holy Baptism). After the murder of Saint Boris, Svyatopolk the Accursed sent to his younger brother Prince Gleb a messenger with false information about their father, Great Prince Vladimir, who had died from illness, thereby using deceit to murder another possible claimant to the Kievan throne.

The deceived Prince Gleb hastened off to Kiev with a small company. His apprehensive brother Yaroslav, having caught up with him at Smolensk, was unable to delay the saint, who did not suspect such wickedness on the part of his brother Svyatopolk.

Not far from Smolensk the assassins came upon the boat of Saint Gleb, who made no resistance, but asked meekly that they should spare him because of his young age. At the command of the murderers Gleb’s cook slit his throat. The body of the prince was buried in a desolate place not far from Smolensk, “between two tree-trunks,” i.e., in a simple wooden coffin (+1015). In the year 1019-1020 his brother Yaroslav found the grave of Saint Gleb. The body, being incorrupt, was transferred to Vyshgorod near Kiev and buried beside holy Prince Boris.

Later on, the relics of the brothers were transferred (May 2) into the church of Saint Basil the Great, and there at the crypts of these holy Passion-Bearers many miracles were worked. Metropolitan John of Kiev compiled a service to the Passion-Bearer princes and also established a feastday for them together on July 24, which dates from the first half of the eleventh century.

The Russian Church from of old has venerated these brothers, who unceasingly have rendered prayerful assistance to their native land, particularly in years of grievous tribulation. Thus, just before the Battle of the Neva in 1240, the Passion-Bearers Boris and Gleb appeared in a vision to one of the soldiers of holy Prince Alexander Nevsky (November 23, August 30, and May 23), and they aided the Russians during the combat.

The chronicles are filled with the accounts of the various manifestations of mercy, witnessed at their tombs, and of the victories gained through their help. Many churches and monasteries were built throughout Russia in honor of the holy Passion-Bearers Boris and Gleb.

The Martyrs Tathuil (Thiphael) and his sister Bebaia (or Thivea) suffered for their bold and effective preaching of Christianity among the pagans. After long and intense torture, the pagans suspended the holy Martyr Thiphael on a tree and cut him with a saw. His sister Saint Bebaia was killed with a spear thrust in the neck.

The Holy Martyr Sarbelus was a pagan priest who lived during the reign of the emperor Trajan (98-117) He and his sister Bebaia were converted by Saint Barsimaius, the Bishop of Edessa (January 29). They both received the crown of martyrdom.

This Saint Sarbelus appears to be the same one who is commemorated on January 29 and October 15.

The martyred soldiers Juventinus and Maximus suffered during the reign of the emperor Julian the Apostate, whom they served as bodyguards. Once, while he was at Antioch, Julian decided to defile the food of the Christians by sprinkling all the food in the marketplaces with blood offered to idols. Saints Juventinus and Maximus openly condemned the emperor’s course of action and they boldly denounced him for his apostasy from the Christian Faith. After merciless beatings they were both put to death on orders of the impious emperor.

The Martyrs Urban, Theodore, Medimnus and seventy-seven companions suffered at Nicomedia during the reign of the Arian emperor Valentus (Valens) (364-378 or 379). The Orthodox bishop Evagrius was banished from the Church of Constantinople, and Christians not wishing to accept the Arian heresy were locked up in prison and subjected to various outrages.

Driven to the point of despair, the Orthodox Christians decided to ask for protection from the emperor and they sent 80 chosen men of religious rank, headed by Saints Urban, Theodore and Medimnus.

Hearing their justified complaints, the emperor flew into a rage, but he knew how to hide his wrath. He quietly summoned the eparch Modestus and ordered him to put the delegates to death. Modestus put them upon a ship, telling them that they all would be sent to prison. Instead, he ordered the ship’s officers to burn the ship on the open sea. The ship was set afire and for a while, it floated upon the sea. Finally, reaching a place called Dakizis, the ship burned up with all the holy martyrs on board.

The Martyr Abdias [or Abidas] suffered in Persia during the reign of the emperor Izdegerd I for his refusal to renounce Christ and instead worship the sun and fire. He died after many tortures, and until his final breath, he gave thanks to God for permitting His chosen one to die for His Holy Name.