The first day of the Forefeast of Theophany falls on January 2. Like the hymns for the Nativity, many of the Church’s hymns of this period are slightly modified versions of the hymns of Holy Week. One of the hymns at Matins today says that the coming Feast of Theophany will be “even…
Saint Seraphim of Sarov, a great ascetic of the Russian Church, was born on July 19, 1754. His parents, Isidore and Agathia Moshnin, were inhabitants of Kursk. Isidore was a merchant. Toward the end of his life, he began construction of a cathedral in Kursk, but he died before the completion of the…
Saint Sylvester, Bishop of Rome (314-335) was born at Rome of Christian parents named Rufinus and Justa. His father soon died, and the saint remained in the care of his mother. Sylvester’s teacher, the presbyter Quirinus, gave him a fine education and raised him as a true Christian. When he…
Saint Sylvester of the Caves lived during the twelfth century and was igumen of the Mikhailovsk Vydubitsk monastery at Kiev. He continued the work of Saint Nestor the Chronicler (October 27) and he wrote nine lives of the holy saints of the Kiev Caves. In the service to the Fathers venerated in the…
Righteous Juliana of Lazarevo and Murom presents an astonishing example of a self-denying Russian Christian woman. She was the daughter of the nobleman Justin Nediurev. From her early years she lived devoutly, kept the fasts strictly and set aside much time for prayer. Having been orphaned at an…
The Hieromartyr Theogenes was bishop of the Asia Minor city of Parion at the beginning of the fourth century. During the reign of the emperor Licinius (311-324), a coruler with Constantine the Great, the tribune Zalinkinthius demanded that he give up the priesthood, to renounce Christ and to enlist…
Saint George (Zorzes) was from Georgia, and was sold into slavery when he was young. His master, a Muslim from the Greek island of Mytilene, forced him to embrace Islam and renamed him Sali. After his master died, George remained on the island and opened a small shop. In 1770, when he was seventy…