The paschal season of the Church is preceded by the season of Great Lent, which is also preceded by its own liturgical preparation. The first sign of the approach of Great Lent comes five Sundays before its beginning. On this Sunday the Gospel reading is about Zacchaeus the tax-collector. It tells…
Saints Athanasius and Cyril were Archbishops of Alexandria. These wise teachers of truth and defenders of Christ’s Church share a joint Feast in recognition of their dogmatic writings which affirm the truth of the Orthodox Faith, correctly interpret the Holy Scripture, and censure the…
Saints Athanasius and Cyril were Archbishops of Alexandria. These wise teachers of truth and defenders of Christ’s Church share a joint Feast in recognition of their dogmatic writings which affirm the truth of the Orthodox Faith, correctly interpret the Holy Scripture, and censure the…
Saint Athanasius of Synadem and Vologda was a disciple of Saint Alexander of Svir (August 30). After the death of his mentor, he established the Dormition hermitage in the forests of Karelia, not far from the city of Olonets, on an island of Lake Synadem. The slander and pettiness of the local…
Righteous Athanasius of Navolotsk went at the end of the sixteenth century from the Kargopol region to the Olonets land, where he founded a monastery 78 versts from what later became the city of Petrozavodsk. The saint died at a Verkholedsk suburb not far from Shenkursk.
Saint Marcian of Cyrrhus lived in the desert near the city of Cyrrhus. He built a small hut and settled in it, passing his time in prayer, singing Psalms and reading spiritual books. He ate very little food, just enough to keep him alive. Reports of his holy life attracted to him many zealous…
Saint Cyril and his wife Maria were the parents of Saint Sergius of Radonezh (September 25). They belonged to the nobility, but more importantly, they were devout and faithful Christians who were adorned with every virtue. When the child in Maria’s womb cried out three times in church during…
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Saint Maximus the New was the son of King Stephen of Serbia (December 10). He became a monk at Manasija, but had to flee into a mountainous region of Romania because of the Moslems. He was consecrated as Metropolitan of Wallachia. After a life of great spiritual endeavors, he fell asleep in the…
Today little is known about the life of venerable Ephraim the Lesser, the great 11th-century writer, translator, philosopher, and defender of the Georgian Church. His work Reminiscences and other sources, however, provide us with the means to speculate about the major periods of his life and…
Saint Alexi (Shushania) was born September 23, 1852, in the village of Noqalaqevi, in the Senaki district of Samegrelo, to a pious Christian couple. His father died in 1868, after giving the sixteen-year-old future hieromonk his blessing to care for the family. In the same year that his father…