1st Saturday of Great Lent: The Miracle of the Boiled Wheat
Today we remember the miracle of Saint Theodore the Recruit and the boiled wheat. Fifty years after Saint Theodore’s martyrdom, Emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363), devised a plan to corrupt the Christians during the first week of Great Lent. He knew that Christians purify themselves…
Saint Theophylactus lived at Constantinople in the eighth century during the time of the Iconoclast heresy. After the death of the iconoclast emperor Leo IV the Khazar (775-780), Emperor Constantine VI (780-797) ascended the throne. At the same time, the holy Patriarch Paul (August 30), not having…
Saint Lazarus of Murom was a Greek, born at Constantinople. In his native city he became a monk at the High-Mount monastery under the Elder Athanasius Diskotes, builder of many monasteries. Eight years later, Lazarus was under the guidance of Bishop Basil of Caesarea. In the year 1343 Bishop Basil,…
Igumen Athanasius labored in the monastery of Saint Lazarus of Murom, or Murmansk, in the mid-fifteenth century. Unfortunately, there is no information about his godly life. After his repose, the body of Saint Athanasius was placed in a special chapel, and here his chains are kept as evidence of…
Saint Hermes (Hermḗs) is mentioned by the Holy Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (16:14). According to Tradition, he was the Bishop of Dalmatia and reposed in peace. In the Synaxarion of Hippolyte Delehaye (1902) he is called Ermylos. In the Paris Codex 13 f. 296 he is listed on April 8…
Saint Theodoritus was a presbyter and keeper of sacred vessels at the cathedral church in Antioch. This church was built and richly adorned by the emperor Saint Constantine the Great (May 21) and his son Constantius, and the people called it “the Golden church.” Having occupied the…
Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God “of the Sign”
In March of 1898, several intruders, hoping to undermine popular belief in the miraculous power of the Kursk Icon, decided to destroy it. During the All-night Vigil in the Cathedral of the Sign, they secretly placed a powerful bomb with a timer at the foot of the Icon of the Mother of God. At two…
Saint Felix of Burgundy, Bishop of Dunwich, Enlightener of East Anglia
Saint Felix, the Apostle of East Anglia, was born in the Burgundy region of Gaul (now France). It was he who converted Sigebert (September 27), King of East Anglia, while he was in exile in Gaul. He was forced to flee there, in order to save himself from the intrigues of his kinsmen. When Saint…