5th Saturday of Great Lent: of the Akathist to the Theotokos
On the Fifth Saturday of Great Lent, the Saturday of the Akathist, we commemorate the “Laudation of the Virgin” Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos. In 625, when the emperor Heraclius was fighting the Persians, the Khan sent forces to attack Constantinople by land and by sea. Patriarch…
Martyrs Agathopodes the Deacon and Theodulus the Reader at Thessalonica
The Holy Martyrs Agathopodes the Deacon and Theodulus the Reader lived in Thessalonica during the reign of the emperor Diocletian (284-305) and Maximian (284-305) and were among the church clergy. The holy Deacon Agathopodes was very old, and Saint Theodulus very young. Both distinguished…
Saint Publius lived a life of asceticism in the Egyptian desert during the reign of the emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363). Before a military campaign against the Persians, the emperor sent a devil to explore the way for the army to go. The venerable Publius foresaw the intent of the emperor. He…
Saint Mark was born in Athens. He related his life to Abba Serapion who, by the will of God, visited him before his death. He had studied philosophy in his youth. After the death of his parents, Saint Mark withdrew into Egypt and settled into a cave of Mount Trache (in Ethiopia). He spent…
Saint Plato was born in the year 735 into a pious Christian family of the parents, Sergius and Euphemia. Orphaned early on, the boy was taken to be raised by relatives, who gave him a fine education. When he grew up, he began life on his own. The saint occupied himself in the first years in the…
Saint Theodora of Thessaloniki was born of Christian parents named Anthony and Chrysánthē, who lived on the island of Aegina. Loving Christ from a young age, she forsook worldly pursuits. When she reached her majority, Saint Theodora was married and soon gave birth to a daughter. During an…
Translation of the relics of Saint Job, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia
After his death in 1607, the relics of Patriarch Job were buried by the western doors of the Dormition Church of the monastery in Staritsa. Many miracles took place at his grave. In 1652, on the recommendation of Metropolitan Nikon of Novgorod, Tsar Alexei ordered that the relics of Saint Job and…
The Kasperov Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos. Tradition says that this holy icon had been brought to Cherson from Transylvania by a Serb at the end of the sixteenth century. Passing down from parent and child, the icon had come to a certain Mrs. Kasperova of Cherson in 1809. One night in February…
Saints Claudius, Diodoros, Victor, Victorinus, Pappios, Serapion, and Nikephoros are most probably the same saints who are commemorated on January 31. See their Life on that date.
Saint Hypomone (Αγία Υπομονή), who suffered during the pre-Nicene persecutions, is not mentioned in the Synaxaristes of Saint Νikόdēmos (July 14), nor in the printed Menaia, but she is mentioned in Vatican Codex 1104 f. 986, which contains her Service, composed by Saint Theophanes…