Saint of the Day
862 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 133 ratingsSubscribe to hear the story of one of the venerable Saints commemorated each day in the Orthodox Church.
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Saint Seraphim of Vyritsa (1949) (March 21 OC)
April 03, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute - 950 KBBorn in 1866, he married and had three children. In 1920, at the age of 54, he and his wife quietly separated and each entered monastic life. Eventually he became the spiritual father of the St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg, where, as a clairvoyant staretz, he also confessed thousands of laity. He said, "I am the storage room where people's afflictions gather." In imitation of his patron saint, he prayed for a thousand nights on a rock before an icon of St. Seraphim of Sarov. He r...
Our Holy Father Titus the Wonderworker (9th c.)
April 02, 2024 05:01 - 56 seconds - 454 KBVery little is known of him. He took up the monastic life while still very young, and gave himself without reserve to the ascetical struggle, so much so that in the virtues of humility and obedience it was said that he exceeded 'not only the brethren, but all men.' In time, he became abbot of a monastery. During the iconoclast heresy, he stood unswervingly for the holy icons. Both in his own lifetime and after his death he was endowed with the gift of wonderworking. He reposed in peace someti...
Our Holy Mother Mary of Egypt (4th-6th c.)
April 01, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.47 MBHer radiant life is also commemorated on the Fifth Sunday of the Great Fast. The Life of St Mary of Egypt, written by St Sophronios of Jerusalem, is read in its entirety on the Thursday of the Great Canon during Lent. Click on the link to read it. The date of her repose is very unclear: it is given variously as 378, 437, and 522.
St Innocent, enlightener of Alaska and Siberia (1879)
March 31, 2024 05:01 - 2 minutes - 2 MBHe was born in Siberia in 1797 to a clerical family, and became a married parish priest in Irkutsk. A devout explorer, John Kriukov, told him of the great spiritual needs among the Russian and native peoples in Alaska, then Russian territory. Moved to serve Christ in this very difficult environment, he and his family arrived in Alaska in 1824. He quickly learned the Aleut language and worked humbly and tirelessly among the Aleuts. His spiritual classic, An Indication of the Way to the Kingdom...
Commemoration of an Uncondemning Monk
March 30, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute - 539 KB"This monk died joyfully because he had never in his life condemned anyone. He was lazy, careless, disinclined to prayer, but throughout his entire life he had never judged anyone. And when he lay dying, he was full of joy. The brethren asked him how he could die so joyfully with all his sins, and he replied: 'I have just seen the angels, and they showed me a page with all my many sins. I said to them: "The Lord said: 'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' I have never judged anyone and I hope i...
Our Holy Father John the Hermit (4th c.)
March 29, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute - 652 KB"He was the son of Juliana, a Christian woman of Armenia. While still a child, he left his mother and ran off to the desert. He was utterly aflame with love for Christ the Lord. In the beginning he entrusted himself to the guidance of a spiritual father, Pharmutius, who was so pleasing to God that an angel brought him bread every day. John later left him and withdrew into solitude. He let himself down into a dry well and lived there for a full ten years in fasting, prayer and vigils. St Pharm...
St Hilarion the New, abbot of Pelecete, Confessor (754)
March 28, 2024 05:01 - 58 seconds - 916 KBHe took up the monastic life when very young, and lived as a recluse for many years, and gained the grace to heal sicknesses and drive out demons by his prayers. Later he became abbot of the Monastery of Pelekete in Bithynia. During the reign of the Emperor Leo the Isaurian, he and his monastery steadfastly upheld the holy icons, and were fiercely persecuted. Hilarion and his forty monks were exiled to a prison near Ephesus, where the Saint reposed.
St Matrona of Thessalonica (4th c.)
March 27, 2024 05:01 - 45 seconds - 368 KBShe was a servant of the Jewish wife of the governor of Thessalonica. When she refused to enter the synagogue with her mistress, she was beaten, then locked in a cell until she starved to death. Finally, her mistress ordered her body thrown from the roof of the house and left to lie in the open. Christians took her body and buried it honorably, and the bishop, Alexander, built a church over her grave.
Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel
March 26, 2024 05:01 - 2 minutes - 1010 KBEach of the Great Feasts of the Church is followed by a commemoration of some holy one who figures in the events of the Feast. So, today we commemorate the Holy Archangel Gabriel, who brought the glad news of the conception of Christ to Mary, the Theotokos. The Prologue gives the following teaching: "The herald of the incarnation of the Son of God, he is one of the seven great angels who stand before the throne of God. He revealed to Zacharias the birth of the Forerunner, and said of himsel...
New Confessor/Hieromartyr Tikhon, patriarch of Moscow (1925)
March 25, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute - 743 KBBorn in 1865, he was tonsured a monk in 1891, and consecrated a Bishop in 1891. From 1900, he was Bishop of Alaska, with oversight of the Church throughout North America. In America, he consecrated the first Orthodox monastery on the continent and worked tirelessly to unite all ethnic groups as one flock. In 1907 he was made Bishop of Yaroslavl and returned to Russia. In 1917, he was elected to be the first Patriarch of Moscow since the abolition of the Patriarchate by Tsar Peter the Great...
Saint Zacharias the Recluse of Egypt (4th c.)
March 24, 2024 05:01 - 58 seconds - 903 KBHis father, Carion the Egyptian, forsook his family to become a monk, taking Zacharias with him. Though very young, Zacharias manifested gifts of grace rarely seen among the elders of Sketis. Abba Moses once asked him, 'What does it mean to be a monk?', to which Zacharias replied by taking off his hat and treading it underfoot, saying 'If a man be not so broken, he cannot be a monk.' After shining as a great light among the holy monks of Scetis, he reposed at a young age.
Monk-martyr Nikon and 199 disciples, in Sicily (251)
March 23, 2024 05:01 - 2 minutes - 1.2 MBHe was born in Neapolis (Naples) to a pagan father and a Christian mother, and became an officer in the Roman army. Though he was not baptised, his mother had secretly instructed him in the Christian faith. Once, in a battle, his company was completely surrounded by the enemy, and Nikon recalled his mother's counseling that, whenever he was in trouble, he should make the sign of the Cross and call upon Christ. This he did, and was immediately filled with strength and resolution, so that the e...
Martyr Drosida of Antioch, and five nuns (104)
March 22, 2024 05:01 - 55 seconds - 441 KB'The daughter of the Emperor Trajan, she was seized with five other women when they were gathering the bodies of the martyrs who had suffered for Christ by night, and was for this cruelly mutilated by the Emperor. The five women were terribly tortured and at last thrown into molten copper, where they surrendered their souls to their Lord. But Drosida remained under strict imperial guard. However, she escaped from the court and baptised herself in a river. After eight days she gave her soul in...
Our Holy Father James the Confessor, bishop, of the Studion (8th c.)
March 21, 2024 05:01 - 52 seconds - 712 KBHis birthplace and the place of his episcopate are unknown. He was a monk of the Studion monastery in Constantinople, and a disciple of St Theodore the Studite. As a bishop he was severely persecuted by the iconoclasts in the time of the Emperor Constantine Copronymus, enduring hunger, imprisonment and mocking, thus earning the title "Confessor." Saint Theodore wrote a homily in honor of him.
St Cuthbert the Wonderworker, Bishop of Lindisfarne (687)
March 20, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute - 883 KB'Saint Cuthbert was born in Britain about the year 635, and became a monk in his youth at the monastery of Melrose by the River Tweed. After many years of struggle as a true priest of Christ, in the service both of his own brethren and of the neglected Christians of isolated country villages, he became a solitary on Farne Island in 676. After eight years as a hermit, he was constrained to leave his quiet to become Bishop of Lindisfarne, in which office he served for almost two years. He retur...
Martyrs Chrysanthos and Daria, and those with them at Rome (283)
March 19, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute - 877 KBChrysanthos was the only son of Polemon, a prominent pagan in Rome. As befit his status, he was given every opportunity for secular learning, but seemed unable to acquire worldly wisdom. By God's providence, copies of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles came into his possession and, reading them avidly, he was enlightened and desired above all to be a Christian. He found a priest, Carpophorus, who instructed him in the Faith and baptised him. When his father discovered Chrysanthos' conve...
St Ananias (Aninus) the Wonderworker (?)
March 18, 2024 05:01 - 2 minutes - 1020 KB"Born in Chalcedon, he was little of stature, like Zaccheus, but great in spirit and faith. He denied himself to the world at the age of fifteen and settled near the River Euphrates in a little hut, where he atoned for his sins, and prayed to God, at first with his teacher Mayum and then, after Mayum's death, alone. By the power of his prayers he filled an empty well with water, healed the sick of various pains and tamed wild beasts. There was a tamed lion with him as his servant. He had insi...
St Alexis, the Man of God (411)
March 17, 2024 05:01 - 2 minutes - 1010 KBHe was born of pious and noble parents in Rome in the time of the Emperor Honorius. His parents, Euphemianus and Agalais, set a high standard of godly living: his father, though wealthy, sat down to dine only once a day, at sunset. By his parents' arrangement Alexis was married at a young age. However, without ever living with his new wife, he fled to Edessa in Mesopotamia, where he lived in asceticism for eighteen years, presenting himself as a beggar in order to avoid the praise of men. Whe...
Holy Apostle Aristobulus of the Seventy, first Bishop of Britain (1st c.)
March 16, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute - 584 KB"He was the brother of the Apostle Barnabas and was born in Cyprus. He was a follower of the Apostle Paul, who mentions him in his Epistle to the Romans (16:10). When the great Apostle Paul created many bishops for different parts of the world, he made this Aristobulus bishop of Britain (i.e. England). In Britain there was a wild people, pagan and wicked, and Aristobulus endured among them unmentionable torments, misfortunes and malice. They smote him without mercy, dragged him through the st...
Holy Martyr Alexander (270-275)
March 15, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute - 745 KB"He was from the town of Side in Pamphylia. The Emperor Aurelian's governor asked him who he was, to which Alexander replied that he was a pastor of the flock of Christ. 'And where is this flock of Christ', further enquired the evil and suspicious governor. Alexander replied: 'Over the whole world live the people whom Christ the Lord created, among whom those who believe in Him are His sheep, but those who have fallen away from their Creator, who are enslaved to creation and the work of men's...
St Benedict of Nursia, abbot (547)
March 14, 2024 05:01 - 2 minutes - 2.18 MBHis name, Benedictus, means "Blessed" in Latin. He was born in 480 in Nursia, a small town northeast of Rome. He had only rudimentary schooling: he wrote later of his fear that through book-learning he might 'lose the great understanding of my soul.' At an early age he fled to a monastery where he was tonsured; he then withdrew to a remote mountain, where he lived or several years in a cave, perfecting himself in prayer. His only food was some bread brought to him by Romanus, the monk who had...
Translation of the Relics (847) of St Nicephoros, Patriarch of Constantinople (827)
March 13, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute - 647 KBHis main commemoration is on June 2; today we commemorate the return of his holy relics to Constantinople. Nicephoros was Patriarch during the time of the iconoclasts, and openly opposed the Emperor Leo the Armenian's heretical policies. For this he was exiled to a monastery on the island of Prochonis, which he himself had built when Patriarch. After living there for thirteen years, he reposed around 827. In time, the iconoclast Emperors died, and the Emperor Michael, with his mother Theodo...
St Gregory the Great (the Dialogist), Pope of Rome (604)
March 12, 2024 05:01 - 1 minute - 1.68 MBHe was born in Rome to a wealthy senatorial family. He received a good education in secular and spiritual learning, and became Prefect of Rome. While still in the world, he used his great wealth mostly for the good of the Church, building six monasteries in Sicily and another in Rome itself. At this monastery, dedicated to the Apostle Andrew, Gregory was tonsured a monk. He was appointed Archdeacon of Rome, then, in 579, Papal legate to Constantinople, where he lived for nearly seven years. H...
St Sophronios, patriarch of Jerusalem (638)
March 11, 2024 05:01 - 2 minutes - 2.32 MBHe was born in Damascus to an eminent family, and was well educated in his youth. Discontented with the wisdom of the world, he entered monastic life in the monastery of St Theodosius, where he became the lifelong friend and disciple of John Moschos. Together they visited the monasteries and hermitages of Egypt; they later wrote down their discoveries among the holy monks in the classic Spiritual Meadow. After the death of his teacher, St Sophronius traveled to Jerusalem, which had just been ...
Martyrs Codratus (Quadratus) and those with him (258)
March 10, 2024 06:01 - 2 minutes - 1.91 MB'In a time of persecution of Christians, many of the faithful fled to the mountains and caves. The mother of this Codratus did so. She was pregnant at that time, and gave birth to Codratus in a forest, dying almost at once. He was kept safe and fed by the providence of God and his guardian angel. Codratus grew up in solitude with nature. He who gave manna from heaven to the Israelites in the wilderness released a sweet dew from a cloud onto the mouth of the child Codratus. When he was twelve ...
The Holy Forty Martyrs of Sebastia (Sebaste) (320)
March 09, 2024 06:03 - 1 minute - 709 KBThey were all soldiers under one general, taken captive in the time of Licinius for their faith in Christ. They were stripped naked and cast onto a frozen lake at Sebastia in Pontus. They endured the entire night, encouraging each other to be patient. Some accounts say that their persecutors placed warm baths in their sight on the shore to entice them to renounce Christ. Finally one of their number, broken by his sufferings, apostatized and left the company. One of the guards, named Aglaius, ...
St Theophylactus, bishop of Nicomedia (845)
March 08, 2024 06:03 - 1 minute - 850 KB"Theophylact was from the east; his native city is unknown. In Constantinople he became a close friend of Tarasius, who afterwards became Patriarch of Constantinople (see Feb. 25). Theophylact was made Bishop of Nicomedia. After the death of Saint Tarasius, his successor Nicephorus (see June 2) called together a number of Bishops to help him in fighting the iconoclasm of Emperor Leo the Armenian, who reigned from 813 to 820. Among them was Euthymius, Bishop of Sardis (celebrated Dec. 26), who...
Holy Hieromartyrs of Cherson (4th c.)
March 07, 2024 06:03 - 2 minutes - 2.12 MBThese seven holy Bishops give a vivid picture of the dangers endured by those who traveled to proclaim the Gospel of Christ in the early centuries of the Church. All seven were sent as missionary bishops to Cherson on the Black Sea, and all seven died there as Martyrs. Hermon, Bishop of Jerusalem, first sent Ephraim and Basileus; Basileus raised the son of the prince of Cherson to life, after which many believed and were baptized. The unbelievers, though, bound him by the feet and dragged him...
The 42 Martyrs of Ammorion (845)
March 06, 2024 06:03 - 2 minutes - 1.18 MBThey were taken captive when Amorion in Phrygia fell to the Muslims in 838, during the reign of Emperor Theophilus. Many of them were officers, and because of their status and reputation, their captors, rather than kill them, attempted to convert them to Islam. The forty-two were kept in a miserable dungeon in Syria, where they were alternately promised the highest honors and privileges if they would convert and threatened with the most horrible consequences if they refused. This continued fo...
St Mark the Ascetic (5th c.)
March 05, 2024 06:03 - 1 minute - 582 KBSt Mark was a disciple of St John Chrysostom, tonsured a monk at the age of forty by St John himself. He then withdrew to the Nitrian desert and lived for sixty years as a hermit, devoting himself to fasting, prayer, and writing spiritual discourses. Saint Mark knew all the Holy Scriptures by heart. His compassion was so great that he wept at the distress of any of God's creatures: once he wept for the blind pup of a hyena, and the pup received its sight. Though he lived alone in the deser...
St James the Faster of Phoenecia (6th c.)
March 04, 2024 06:03 - 1 minute - 838 KB"He lived in the sixth century. He was so perfected in godliness that he was able to heal the gravest illnesses by his prayers. But the enemy of the human race brought a heavy temptation on him. There was once sent to him a woman who had been corrupted by some mockers. She pretended to weep before him, but enticed him to sin. Seeing that he would fall into sin, James put his left hand into the fire and held it there until it was completely burned. Seeing this, the woman was filled with fear a...
Holy Martyrs Eutropius, Cleonicus and Basiliscus (308)
March 03, 2024 06:01 - 1 minute - 1.48 MBThey were fellow-soldiers and kinsmen of St Theodore the Tyro (Feb. 17). When St Theodore received his martyrdom, they were kept in prison because the governor of Amasia was unwilling to execute them. But a new and crueler governor, Asclepiodotus, took his place and ordered the three soldiers of Christ to be brought to him. At first, the governor used flattery and bribery to attempt to turn the three from Christ. He invited Eutropius to dine with him, but Eutropius refused, quoting the Psalm ...
Hieromartyr Theodotus, bishop of Cyrenia (326)
March 02, 2024 06:01 - 1 minute - 629 KBKnown for his wisdom and virtue, he was chosen as Bishop of Cyrenia on the island of Cyprus. When a persecution broke out against the Christians under the Emperor Licinius, Theodotus was arrested and subjected to many tortures. His torturer Sabinus urged him repeatedly to renounce Christ and worship the idols, but Theodotus replied, 'If you knew the goodness of my God, who, it is my hope, will by these brief tortures make me worthy of eternal life, you would wish to suffer for Him as I do.' T...
Martyr Eudocia of Heliopolis (2nd c.)
March 01, 2024 06:01 - 2 minutes - 1000 KBEudocia was from Heliopolis of Phoenicia (now Baalbek in Lebanon). A surpassingly beautiful pagan, she led a licentious life and became wealthy from the gifts of her many lovers. One day an elderly monk, Germanus, came to Heliopolis and stayed with a Christian whose house adjoined Eudocia's. At night, he began to read aloud from the Psalter and a book on the Last Judgment. From next-door, Eudocia heard him. Her heart was reached, and she stood attentively all night, listening to every word in...
St John Cassian the Roman (435)
February 29, 2024 06:01 - 3 minutes - 2.9 MBThe Synaxarion calls him "Our Father Cassian, chosen by God to bring the illumination of Eastern monasticism to the West". He was born in Scythia of noble parents, and was well educated in secular things. But, thirsting for perfection, he left all behind and travelled with his friend Germanus to the Holy Land, where he became a monk in Bethlehem. After becoming established in the monastic life for several years, St John felt a desire for greater perfection, and sought out the Fathers of the E...
Holy New Martyr Kyranna (1751)
February 28, 2024 06:01 - 1 minute - 694 KBThis pious and beautiful maiden lived in a village near Thessalonica. One day a Janissary, come to collect taxes, laid eyes on her and was struck by lust. When she refused his advances, the wicked official brought her before the judge in Thessalonica and, using other soldiers as false witnesses, said that she had agreed to marry him and to convert to Islam. To all these claims Kyranna replied, 'I am a Christian, and I have no bridegroom but Christ, to whom I have offered my maidenhood as a do...
St Raphael, bishop of Brooklyn (1915)
February 27, 2024 06:03 - 4 minutes - 3.46 MBHe was born in Syria in 1860, in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. In his childhood, his family took refuge in Lebanon after their parish priest, St Joseph of Damascus (July 10) was martyred; but they later returned to Damascus. In 1879 he was tonsured a monk and entered into the service of Patriarch Hierotheos of Antioch. The Balamand Seminary had been closed since 1840, but the young monk was offered a scholarship at the Constantinople Patriarchate's seminary at Halki. Returning to Sy...
St Porphyrius, bishop of Gaza (420)
February 26, 2024 06:01 - 2 minutes - 2.68 MBHe was born to a wealthy, noble family in Thessalonica around 347. Filled more and more with a yearning for God, he abandoned his worldly possessions and traveled to Egypt, living for five years as a monk at Sketis. From there he went to Palestine, where he lived for another five years in a cave in the Jordan desert. Suffering from a severe ailment, he was forced to move to Jerusalem; there he was suddenly and completely cured following a vision on Golgotha, in which he saw the Good Thief com...
St Tarasios, archbishop of Constantinople (806)
February 25, 2024 06:01 - 3 minutes - 1.63 MBHe was a nobleman born in Constantinople, and distinguished himself in a secular career, rising in the year 780 to the rank of protasecretis, Principal Secretary of State to the Emperor Constantine VI and his mother the Empress Irene, who was serving as regent. His life took a sudden turn when, in 784, Patriarch Paul IV resigned, recommending Tarasios as the only man capable of restoring the Patriarchate, ravaged by the iconoclast heresy, to true Faith and full communion with the other Pat...
Saint Aethelberht (Ethelbert), first Christian King of Kent (616)
February 24, 2024 06:01 - 1 minute - 834 KBIn 597, a party of forty missionary monks, led by St Augustine of Canterbury (May 28), was sent to Britain by the holy Pope Gregory the Great, to bring the blessed Gospel of Jesus Christ to the English people. Aethelberht, who had been King of Kent for thirty-six years, received the monks favorably, allowed them to preach in his kingdom, and invited them to establish their headquarters in Canterbury, his capital city, which already contained a small, ruined church dedicated to St Martin of To...
Our Venerable Father Alexander the Unsleeping (430)
February 23, 2024 06:01 - 4 minutes - 2.2 MBHe was born sometime in the mid-fourth century on an island in the Aegean. For a time he lived successfully in the world, receiving a good education in Constantinople, then serving for a time for the Prefect of the Praetorium. But, becoming aware of the vanity of worldly things, he answered Christ's call, gave away all his goods to the poor and entered a monastery in Syria. After four years in obedience, he came to feel that the security of monastic life was inconsistent with the Gospel comma...
Uncovering of the relics of the Holy Martyrs at the gate of Eugenius at Constantinople (395-423)
February 22, 2024 06:01 - 1 minute - 1.08 MB"At the time of the holy Patriarch Thomas I of Constantinople (607-610), the relics of some unknown holy Martyrs were discovered buried in the district of Eugenius. As soon as the Patriarch exposed them for the veneration of the people who gathered from all over the city, numerous healings took place. "Many years had gone by when a clergyman named Nicolas, who worked as a book copyist, learnt by divine revelation that among these anonymous relics were those of Saint Paul's disciples, the h...
St Eustathius, archbishop of Antioch (337)
February 21, 2024 06:01 - 1 minute - 1.27 MBHe was consecrated Bishop of Berea (Aleppo) in Syria, then of Antioch in 324. He took an active part in the Council of Nicea against the Arian heresy. His zeal for the Faith aroused the hatred of various heretics, who convened a council in Antioch where, by means of slanders and false witnesses, they were able to have the holy bishop deposed and exiled to Thrace, where he died a few years later. The deposition of the Saint caused a schism in the Church of Antioch which was not healed until...
St Bessarion the Great, wonder-worker of Egypt (466)
February 20, 2024 06:01 - 3 minutes - 1.81 MB"An Egyptian by birth, Abba Bessarion was initiated into the angelic life by Saint Anthony the Great. He later became a disciple of Saint Macarius, the founder of Scetis (19 Jan.), and then set out to lead the life of a wanderer, borne hither and thither by Providence like a bird by the wind. All his wealth lay in the Gospel, which he always had in his hand. Living in the open air, he patiently endured all weathers, untroubled by care for a dwelling or for clothing. Fortified by the strength ...
Apostles Archippus and Philemon of the Seventy, and Martyr Apphia
February 19, 2024 06:01 - 55 seconds - 444 KBArchippus was the son of Saints Philemon (Nov. 22) and Apphia (Feb. 15), and, like them, was a disciple of the Apostle Paul, who calls him "our fellow soldier" (Philm. 2). He and his father preached the Gospel at Colossae, and Archippus probably served as a priest for the church that gathered there at his family's house (Col. 4:17). Archippus' fervor in preaching the Gospel of Christ so angered the pagans that they seized him and brought him before the governor Androcles. When the Saint refus...
St Leo the Great, pope of Rome(461)
February 18, 2024 06:01 - 2 minutes - 1.06 MBPope Leo was one of the great bastions of Orthodoxy during the time of the monophysite heresy and its offshoots. 'According to some, this Saint was born in Rome, but according to others in Tyrrenia (Tuscany), and was consecrated to the archiepiscopal throne of Rome in 440. In 448, when St Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople [also commemorated today], summoned Eutyches, an archimandrite in Constantinople, to give account for his teaching that there was only one nature in Christ after the Inc...
Great-martyr Theodore the Tyro (~306)
February 17, 2024 06:01 - 3 minutes - 1.67 MBThe Greek Tyron means "conscript." This holy Martyr of Christ came from Pontus and was a Roman legionary during Maximian's persecution (~303). Though he had been a Christian since childhood, he kept his faith secret while in the army. While his cohort was stationed near a town called Euchaita, he learned that the people there were being terrorized by a dragon which lived in the neighboring forest. He set off to face the dragon, praying to God that the outcome of the contest would be a sign to...
Martyrs Pamphilius and those with him, at Caesarea in Palestine (308)
February 16, 2024 06:01 - 2 minutes - 1.22 MBThese twelve holy Martyrs suffered in the reign of Diocletian. "The first of these, Pamphilius, was priest in the church at Caesarea in Palestine; a learned and devout man, he corrected the mistakes of various copiers in the text of the New Testament. He himself copied this saving Book and gave it to any who desired it. The second was a deacon, Valentine, old in years and white with wisdom. He was a great expert in the Holy Scriptures, knowing them by heart. The third was Paul, a respected...
Holy Apostle Onesimos (~109)
February 15, 2024 06:01 - 56 seconds - 449 KBHe was a Phrygian by birth, a slave of Philemon, to whom the Apostle Paul addressed his epistle. Onesimos escaped from Philemon and fled to Rome, where he was converted to the Faith by St Paul. St Paul sent him back to his master, who at St Paul's urging gave him his freedom. He served the Church for many years before dying a martyr, beaten to death with clubs. Saint Onesimos is also commemorated on November 22, with Sts Philemon, Archippus and Aphia; and on January 4 at the Synaxis of the...
Our Holy Father Auxentius (470)
February 14, 2024 06:01 - 2 minutes - 2.29 MBHe was of Persian origin, born in Syria. As a young man, he distinguished himself as a member of the court of the Emperor Theodosius the Younger. Seeing the vanity of the world's honors and pleasures, he became a monk in Constantinople; but when the people began to praise his holiness, he fled to Mount Oxeia near Chalcedon, which later became known as Auxentius' Mountain. There he built a small hut and lived in reclusion; but in time he was discovered by some shepherds, and the faithful began...