The Annunciation of our Most Holy Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary
The Feast of the Annunciation is one of the earliest Christian feasts, and was already being celebrated in the fourth century. There is a painting of the Annunciation in the catacomb of Priscilla in Rome dating from the second century. The Council of Toledo in 656 mentions the Feast, and the…
The Feast of the Annunciation to the Most Holy Theotokos is celebrated on one day March 25, exactly nine months before the Nativity of Christ. There is one day of Prefeast (March 24), followed by the Feast itself. On March 26, we celebrate the Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel. Because the Feast of…
On the Leavetaking of the Feast of the Annunciation, the Church commemorates the Archangel Gabriel, who announced the great mystery of the Incarnation of Christ to the Virgin Mary. There is no period of Afterfeast due to Great Lent.
The Archangel Gabriel was chosen by the Lord to announce to the Virgin Mary about the Incarnation of the Son of God from Her, to the great rejoicing of all mankind. Therefore, on the day after the Feast of the Annunciation, the day on which the All-Pure Virgin is glorified, we give thanks to the…
Venerable Gabriel, Founder of Lesnov Monastery in Bulgaria
Saint Gabriel, founder of the Lesnov monastery near the city of Kratov. Receiving a large inheritance after the death of his parents, he rejected marriage and became a monk on a mountain at Lesnov. There he built a church in the name of the Archangel Michael, and gathered many monks around him. He…
Bishop Gabriel (Kikodze) was born November 15, 1825, in the village of Bachvi, in the western Georgian district of Ozurgeti in Guria. His father was the priest Maxime Kikodze. From 1840 to 1845, Gabriel (Gerasime in the world) studied in Tbilisi and at the theological seminaries in Pskov and Saint…
Saint Vsevolod (in Baptism Gabriel), Wonderworker of Pskov
Holy Prince Vsevolod of Pskov, in Baptism Gabriel, a grandson of Vladimir Monomakh, was born at Novgorod, where in the years 1088-1093 and 1095-1117 his father ruled as prince. His father was the holy prince Saint Mstislav-Theodore the Great (April 15). In the year 1117, when Great Prince Vladimir…
Saint Gabriel the Lesser was a major figure in the eighteenth-century Georgian Church. Few details of his life are known, but it is evident that the education he received was quite good for the period. Striving toward the monastic life but still living in the world, Gabriel tried in every way to…
Child Martyr Gabriel of Bialystok (+ 1690) was killed in Poland when he was only six years old. One day when his parents were not home, he was lured out of his house by a man named Schutko, and then killed. After thirty years, the martyred child’s body was found to be incorrupt.
Martyrs Shio, David, Gabriel, and Paul of Akhalkalaki in Georgia
The holy monk-martyrs Shio the New, David, Gabriel and Paul labored in the David-Gareji Wilderness at the end of the 17th century. Saint Shio was from the village of Vedzisi in the Kartli region. His parents, Papuna and Tamar, were wealthy and highly influential people. They had eight children:…
Translation of the relics of the Right-believing Igor-George, Tonsured Gabriel, Grand Prince of Chernigov, and Kiev
The Transfer of Relics of Saint Igor, Great Prince of Kiev The Kievan Great Prince Igor Ol’govich, in holy Baptism George (September 19), in the year 1146 suffered defeat and was taken captive by prince Izyaslav, who imprisoned him in one of the monasteries of Russian or Southern…
Saint Gabriel was a monk of the Ivḗron Monastery on Mt. Athos. In summer he would withdraw to the inaccessible cliffs, and in winter he would return to the monastery and observe a strict rule of silence. Clad in a coarse robe and eating nothing but roots and herbs, Saint Gabriel was truly a…
The Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel is celebrated on the day after the Annunciation, and a second time on July 13. It was instituted in the ninth century, perhaps to celebrate the dedication of a church at Constantinople. Originally, the Feast was observed on October 16 (Juan Mateos, Le Typikon De…
Saint Gabriel I, Patriarch of Serbia (family name Raicha), occupied the cathedra in the mid-seventeenth century, a time when the Moslem fanaticism had become intense. In the urgent need for both cathedral and country the saint went to collect alms at Walachia, and from there to Moscow. In Moscow in…
The Holy Patriarch Gabriel was a member of the noble Raich family. In 1655, with the permission of the Turks, he travelled to Vlahὶa and Russia to raise money for the needs of the Serbian Orthodox Church. He also attended a Council in Russia together with the Patriarch of Antioch. This Council…