Lives of all saints commemorated on April 15

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday is the celebration of the triumphant entrance of Christ into the royal city of Jerusalem. He rode on a colt for which He Himself had sent, and He permitted the people to hail Him publicly as a king. A large crowd met Him in a manner befitting royalty, waving palm branches and placing their garments in His path. They greeted Him with these words: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel! (John 12:13).

This day together with the raising of Lazarus are signs pointing beyond themselves to the mighty deeds and events which consummate Christ’s earthly ministry. The time of fulfillment was at hand. Christ’s raising of Lazarus points to the destruction of death and the joy of resurrection which will be accessible to all through His own death and resurrection. His entrance into Jerusalem is a fulfillment of the messianic prophecies about the king who will enter his holy city to establish a final kingdom. “Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on an ass, and on a colt, the foal of an ass” (Zech 9:9).

Finally, the events of these triumphant two days are but the passage to Holy Week: the “hour” of suffering and death for which Christ came. Thus the triumph in a earthly sense is extremely short-lived. Jesus enters openly into the midst of His enemies, publicly saying and doing those things which mostly enrage them. The people themselves will soon reject Him. They misread His brief earthly triumph as a sign of something else: His emergence as a political messiah who will lead them to the glories of an earthly kingdom.

Our Pledge

The liturgy of the Church is more than meditation or praise concerning past events. It communicates to us the eternal presence and power of the events being celebrated and makes us participants in those events. Thus the services of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday bring us to our own moment of life and death and entrance into the Kingdom of God: a Kingdom not of this world, a Kingdom accessible in the Church through repentance and baptism.

On Palm Sunday palm and willow branches are blessed in the Church. We take them in order to raise them up and greet the King and Ruler of our life: Jesus Christ. We take them in order to reaffirm our baptismal pledges. As the One who raised Lazarus and entered Jerusalem to go to His voluntary Passion stands in our midst, we are faced with the same question addressed to us at baptism: “Do you accept Christ?” We give our answer by daring to take the branch and raise it up: “I accept Him as King and God!”

Thus, on the eve of Christ’s Passion, in the celebration of the joyful cycle of the triumphant days of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday, we reunite ourselves to Christ, affirm His Lordship over the totality of our life, and express our readiness to follow Him to His Kingdom:

... that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:10-11).

Very Rev. Paul Lazor

Saint Aristarchus was one of the Seventy Apostles, whom the Lord Jesus Christ sent to proclaim the good news of the Gospel (Luke. 10:1-24).

Saint Aristarchus, a co-worker of the holy Apostle Paul, became bishop of the Syrian city of Apamea. His name is repeatedly mentioned in the Acts of the Holy Apostles (Acts 19:29, 20:4, 27:2) and in the Epistles of Saint Paul (Col. 4:10, Philemon 1:24). He accompanied Saint Paul on his travels (Acts 16:29), and was Bishop of Apamea, Syria.

Saint Aristarchus is commemorated on April 15 with Saints Pudens and Trophimus and on September 27 together with Saints Mark and Zenas.

Saint Pudens was one of the Seventy Apostles whom the Lord Jesus Christ sent before him with the good news of the Gospel (Luke 10:1-24).

Saint Pudens is mentioned in Saint Paul’s second Epistle to Timothy (2 Tim. 4:21). He occupied high position as a member of the Roman Senate. The saint received the foremost Apostles Peter and Paul in his home, where believing Christians gathered. His house was converted into a church, receiving the name “Pastorum”. According to Tradition, the holy Apostle Peter himself served in it as priest.

Saint Pudens suffered martyrdom at Rome under the emperor Nero (54-68). He is also commemorated on January 4.

Saint Trophimus was one of the Seventy Apostles, whom the Lord Jesus Christ sent to proclaim the good news of the Gospel (Luke. 10:1-24).

Saint Trophimus hailed from the city of Edessa. His name is mentioned in the Acts of the Holy Apostles (Acts 20:4) and in Saint Paul’s second Epistle to Timothy (2 Tim. 4:20). He was a disciple and companion of the Apostle Paul, sharing with him all the sorrows and persecution.

Saint Trophimus is also commemorated on January 4.

The Holy Women Martyrs Basilissa (Vasilissa) and Anastasia lived in Rome and were converted to Christianity by the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. They devoted themselves to the service of the Lord.

When the emperor Nero (54-68) persecuted Christians and gave them over to torture and execution, Saints Basilissa and Anastasia took the bodies of the holy martyrs and gave them reverent burial. Rumors of this reached Nero, so Saints Basilissa and Anastasia were locked up in prison. They subjected them to cruel tortures: they scourged them with whips, scraped their skin with hooks, and burned them with fire. The holy martyrs remained unyielding, however, and bravely confessed their faith in Christ the Savior. By Nero’s command, they were beheaded with the sword (+ ca. 68).

The Holy Martyr Suchias and his 16 Georgian Companions were illustrious dignitaries who served at the court of the Albanian (Hagbanite) ruler (i.e. “Caucasian Albania” on the present day territory of Azerbaizhan).

Escorting the Albanian ruler’s daughter Satenika, wife of the Armenian emperor Artaxar (88-123), Saint Suchias and his sixteen companions arrived in Artashat, the ancient capital of Armenia (the city was later destroyed by the Romans in the year 163).

Preaching there at the time was a Greek Christian named Chrysos, who had been enlightened and ordained by the holy Apostle Thaddeus (August 21). The Georgian dignitaries came to believe in Christ the Savior, and they resolved to devote their lives to the service of God. All seventeen of the newly-converted followed Chrysos into Mesopotamia. When Bishop Chrysos baptized them in the waters of the Euphrates, they were permitted to behold the Lord of Glory, Jesus Christ.

The holy martyrs set up a cross at the place of their Baptism and named it the “Cross of the Annunciation.” Bishop Chrysos gave all the saints new names: the eldest was called Suchias (replacing his old name Bagadras), and his companions were named Andrew, Anastasius, Talale, Theodoritus, Ivherion, Jordan, Kondrat, Lukian, Mimnenus, Nerangius, Polyeuctus, James, Phoka, Domentian, Victor and Zosimas.

After the martyric death of Bishop Chrysos, Saint Suchias became the spiritual leader of the brethren. All soon resettled in a wild locality on Mount Sukaketi, not far from the mountain village of Bagrevandi. Here the former dignitaries led very strict ascetic lives. The scant mountain vegetation served as their food, and they drank from a cold spring of water.

The new ruler of pagan Albania, Datianos, learned that his former officials had accepted Christianity and had gone into solitude. He sent his associate Barnapas with a detachment of soldiers to persuade them to return to court and return also to their former faith. Barnapas searched for Saint Suchias and his companions, but keeping their vow of service to God, they refused all entreaties.

Then by order of Barnapas, Saint Suchias and his companions were stretched out and nailed to the ground, and then burned. After this, their bodies were dismembered and scattered all about Mount Sukaketi, from which the martyrs received also the title the “Mesukevians” (more correctly, “Sukaketians”). This occurred in the year 123 (by another account, in the year 130; although an Athos manuscript of the eleventh century from the Ivḗron monastery gives the year as 100).

The holy relics of the martyrs remained incorrupt and unburied until the fourth century, when they were placed in graves and consigned to the earth by local Christians (the names of the holy martyrs were found written on a cliff).

The holy hieromartyr Gregory, Enlightener of Armenia (September 30), built a church on this spot and established a monastery. And afterwards, a curative spring of water was discovered there.

The Holy Martyr Savva, a Goth, lived during the fourth century. At this time the Arian bishop Wulfilas preached Christianity among the Goths, and Saint Savva was among those who were baptized.

Saint Savva led a virtuous life, devout, peaceful, temperate, simple, and quiet. He avoided women, and spent all his days in prayer. He often sang in church and devoted himself to its welfare, boldly preaching Christianity.

The Gothic princes and judges, under the influence of the pagan priests, began a persecution against the Christians and demanded that they eat meat offered to idols. Many of the pagans, to save the lives of their friends and relatives who had accepted Christianity, gave them ordinary meat instead of meat offered to idols.

Some Christians agreed to such a ruse, but Saint Savva refused and declared that Christians ought to confess their faith without dissimulation. After this, Saint Savva was driven out by those who lived in his village, but they later asked him to return. When the persecution of Christians had intensified, the fellow villagers of Saint Savva decided to go to the judge and swear that there were no Christians among them. Saint Savva declared, “Do not swear for me, because I am a Christian.”

The inhabitants then swore that there was only one Christian in their village. On the judge’s orders, Saint Savva was brought to him. The judge, seeing his poverty, decided that he could neither help nor harm anyone, so he set him free.

Meanwhile, the persecution continued. Soon, Atharid, one of the Gothic military commanders, descended on the village during the Feast of Holy Pascha. Saint Savva was preparing to greet the Great Feast with Bishop Guthik, but along the way an angel returned him to his own village. The priest Sapsal had recently arrived there from Greece. Soldiers arrested Sapsal and Saint Savva, whom they did not even allow to get dressed.

The priest rode on a cart, but Saint Savva had to walk naked behind the cart through the thorns, and they beat him with rods and switches. The Lord preserved the martyr, so that in the morning when they reached the city, Saint Savva said to his oppressors, “Look at my body, and see whether there are any traces of the thorns or of your blows.”

The soldiers were astonished, seeing the martyr healthy and unharmed, without the slightest trace of injury. Then they stretched Saint Savva on the axles of a cart, and they beat him the whole day. During the night, a certain pious woman got up to prepare food for the household, and seeing the martyr, she set him free. He began to help her with the housework.

During the day, by Atharid’s order, they suspended Saint Savva from the lintel of the house. They placed meat offered to idols before him and the priest, offering to set them free if they ate it. The priest Sapsal replied, “We would prefer that Atharid crucify us, than to eat meat defiled by devils.”

Saint Savva asked, “Who has sent this food?”

“Master Atharid,” the servant replied.

“There is only one Master, God, Who is in Heaven,” said the martyr. In anger one of the servants struck Saint Savva in the chest with a spear. Everyone thought that the martyr was dead, but the saint did not feel any pain. He said to the one who had struck him, “Your blow felt as if you had struck me with soft wool.”

Atharid gave orders to put Saint Savva to death. They left the priest Sapsal tied up, and led Saint Savva to the River Mussova to drown him. Along the way the saint gave thanks to God for allowing him to suffer for His Holy Name.

During all this the servants said, “Why shouldn’t we free this innocent man? Atharid will not find out if we free him.” Saint Savva heard them and cried out, “Do as you are commanded! For I see angels coming with glory to receive my soul!” Then they threw the martyr into the river, after they tied a large beam of wood to his neck.

Saint Savva suffered on April 12, 372, when he was thirty-eight years old. The executioners recovered the body of the martyr and threw it on shore, but Christians later hid it. Still later, one of the Scythian leaders, the Christian Junius Saran, brought the relics of Saint Savva to Cappadocia, where they were reverently received by Saint Basil the Great (January 1).

On June 20, 1992, the Romanian Orthodox Church glorified the Holy Martyr Savva of Buzău. This was the third canonization in its history, following those in 1517 and 1955-56.

The Romanian Orthodox Church has established the annual Feast Day of Saint Savva as April 12th. His Feast Day is on April 15 according to Slavic usage, but on April 18 in Greek practice.

Saint Ephraim the Great of Atsquri—one of the most important figures in the Georgian Church of the 8th and 9th centuries—was a disciple and companion of Saint Grigol of Khandzta.

On his way from Klarjeti in southern Georgia to Abkhazeti in the northwest, Saint Grigol met the young Ephraim and immediately perceived in him a like-minded companion and the future wonderworker and bishop of Atsquri.

Grigol promised to take the young man as his disciple. On his way back to Klarjeti Saint Grigol accompanied Ephraim and another youth, Arsenius, the future Catholicos of Georgia. He entrusted the upbringing of these two holy youths to his spiritual sons Christopher and Theodore.

The brothers of Khandzta Monastery objected to the arrival of the youths, since the monastery rules prohibited young visitors. But Saint Grigol told them that God had revealed this as His will and that, after being raised at the monastery, these young men would be like spiritual successors of Saint Ephraim the Syrian and Saint Arsenius the Great.

Saint Ephraim was later consecrated bishop of Atsquri and became a major figure in the Church of his time. He significantly contributed to the definitive strengthening of the autocephaly of the Georgian Church. As a result of his labors, the Georgian Church received a blessing from Antioch to prepare its own chrism in Mtskheta.

Saint Ephraim administered the diocese of Atsquri for forty years. God endowed him with the gifts of prophecy, wonderworking, and healing. He lived to an advanced age and reposed peacefully. Even today, those who approach his holy relics are healed of their infirmities.

Saint Ephraim of Atsquri is also mentioned in the Life of Saint Arsenius the Great [commemorated September 25].