The Hieromartyr Gregory, Enlightener of Great Armenia, was born in the year 257. He was descended from the line of the Parthian Arsakid emperors. The father of St Gregory, Anak, in striving after the Armenian throne, had murdered his kinsman, the emperor Kursar, in consequence of which all the line…
Saint Gregory of Pelsheme, Vologda, was born in the city of Galich, Kostroma governia. He came from the line of the Lopotov nobility. When the youth reached age fifteen, his parents wanted him to marry, but they died, without seeing this come to pass. Young Gregory distributed the inheritance left…
Saint Michael the first Metropolitan of Kiev, according to the Joakimov chronicle, was a Syrian by birth, but according to other chronicles, he was a Bulgarian or Serb. In the year 989, he arrived at Korsun with other clergy for holy Prince Vladimir (July 15), not long after Vladimir’s…
Saint Rhipsime had fled to Armenia, together with her abbess and fellow nuns, to avoid entering into marriage with the emperor Diocletian (284-305), who was charmed by her beauty. Diocletian sent a letter to the Armenian emperor Tiridates asking that he either send Rhipsime back, or wed her…
Saint Gaiana was the abbess of a women’s monastery in Asia Minor. When the emperor Diocletian (284-305) saw a portrait of St Rhipsime, he fell in love with her and wanted to marry her. She refused, saying that she was a bride of Christ. Fearing that the emperor’s agents would seize…
These nuns suffered with Sts Rhipsime and Gaiana in the fourth century. They were run through with swords, and their bodies thrown to be devoured by wild beasts.