Lives of all saints commemorated on October 21

In the spiritual experience of the Russian Church, veneration of the holy Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica is closely linked with the memory of the defense of the nation and Church by the Great Prince of Moscow, Demetrius of the Don (May 19).

Saint Demetrius of the Don smashed the military might of the Golden Horde at the Battle of Kulikovo Field on September 8, 1380 (the Feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos), set between the Rivers Don and Nepryadva. The Battle of Kulikovo, for which the nation calls him Demetrius of the Don, became the first Russian national deed, rallying the spiritual power of the Russian nation around Moscow. The “Zadonschina,” an inspiring historic poem written by the priest Sophronius of Ryazem (1381), is devoted to this event.

Prince Demetrius of the Don was greatly devoted to the holy Great Martyr Demetrius. In 1380, on the eve of the Battle of Kulikovo, he solemnly transferred from Vladimir to Moscow the most holy object in the Dimitriev cathedral of Vladimir: the icon of the Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica, painted on a piece of wood from the saint’s grave. A chapel in honor of the Great Martyr Demetrius was built at Moscow’s Dormition Cathedral.

The Saint Demetrius Memorial Saturday was established for the churchwide remembrance of the soldiers who fell in the Battle of Kulikovo. This memorial service was held for the first time at the Trinity-Saint Sergius monastery on October 20, 1380 by Saint Sergius of Radonezh, in the presence of Great Prince Demetrius of the Don. It is an annual remembrance of the heroes of the Battle of Kulikovo, among whom are the schemamonks Alexander (Peresvet) and Andrew (Oslyab).

Saint Hilarion the Great was born to pagan parents in the year 291 in the Palestinian village of Thabatha near Gaza. As a young man, he was sent to Alexandria for his education. There he became acquainted with Christianity and was baptized. After hearing an account of the angelic life of Saint Anthony the Great (January 17), Hilarion went to meet him, desiring to study with him and learn what is pleasing to God. Hilarion soon returned to his native land to find that his parents had died. After distributing his family’s inheritance to the poor, Saint Hilarion went forth into the desert surrounding the city of Maium.

In the desert the Saint endured violent struggles with impure thoughts, vexations of the mind, and the burning passions of the flesh, but he defeated them through heavy labor, fasting and fervent prayer. The devil sought to frighten him with phantoms and apparitions. While he was praying Saint Hilarion would sometimes hear children crying, women wailing, and the roaring of lions and other wild beasts. He understood that the demons were causing these terrors in order to drive him out of the wilderness. He overcame his fear by resorting to fervent prayer. Once, some thieves fell upon Saint Hilarion, and he persuaded them to forsake their lawless life by the power of his words.

Soon all of Palestine heard about Saint Hilarion and of the miracles he worked. The Lord granted the holy ascetic the power to cast out unclean spirits. With this gift of grace he loosed the bonds of many of those who were afflicted. The sick came for healing, and the Saint cured them without asking for any payment, saying that the grace of God is freely received, and must be freely given (Matthew 10:8).

Such was the grace that he received from God that he could tell by the smell of someone’s body or clothing which passion was afflicting his soul. They came to Saint Hilarion desiring to save their souls under his guidance. With his blessing, monasteries began to spring up throughout Palestine. Going from one monastery to another, he instituted a strict ascetic manner of life.

About seven years before his death (+ 371-372) Saint Hilarion moved back to Cyprus, where the ascetic lived in a solitary place until the Lord summoned him to Himself.

Saint Hilarion is sometimes depicted holding a scroll which reads: "The tools of a monk are steadfastness, humility, and love according to God." In iconography, is depicted as an old man with a brown, rush-like beard divided into three points.

The Transfer of the Relics of Saint Hilarion, Bishop of Meglin, to the Bulgarian city of Trnovo, occurred in the year 1206. Prior to this event, the body of the saint rested in the city of Meglin.

Saint Hilarion received a fine Christian upbringing. At eighteen, he entered a monastery. Because of his virtuous and strict life he was chosen to be igumen of the monastery. He was very concerned about the salvation of the monks’ souls. He unceasingly exhorted those souls entrusted to him not to waste precious time intended to prepare for salvation, and eradicated drunkenness in the monastery.

In 1134, when the Bogomil heresy was spreading through Bulgaria, he was consecrated bishop of Meglin. The followers of the heresy believed that “good and evil manifest themselves as independent principles, and a struggle between the two ensues.” Saint Hilarion tirelessly fought against the Bogomils with apostolic zeal and fervent prayer. He continually unmasked their heresy and exposed their hypocritical guise of piety. In refuting the teaching of the heretics, Saint Hilarion said:

“You are not Christians at all, since you are hostile to the Cross of Christ the Savior. You do not acknowledge the One God, you slander the teachings of the Old Testament venerated by Christians. You deceive people by hypocritical meekness while full of pride. True piety is not possible in those who do not see their own heart’s corruption, but by those who ask God’s grace with prayer and humility. Evil thoughts, envy, vanity, greed, lies are not the deed of some evil thing within man to be conquered by mere fasting. These vices are the fruit of self- love which demands rooting out by spiritual efforts.”

Because of the saint’s exhortations many of the heretics abandoned their false teaching and returned to the holy Church. Saint Hilarion also successfully struggled against the rise of the Armenian Monophysite heretics in Bulgaria, who acknowledged only the divine nature of Christ. The saint fell asleep in the Lord in 1164.

Saint Hilarion, Schemamonk of Kiev Caves, a strict ascetic, was a disciple and co-ascetic with Saint Theodosius (May 3). Imitating the example of his teacher, Saint Hilarion prayed to God with tears day and night, while observing a strict fast. His contemporaries knew him as a chronicler, who toiled over the copying of books in the cell of Saint Theodosius. During this time his teacher chanted Psalms and spun wool. Saint Hilarion lived an ascetic life during the eleventh century. His memory is also celebrated on August 28 and on the second Sunday of Great Lent.

Saint Hilarion of Gdov and Pskov Lake, was a disciple of Saint Euphrosynus of Pskov (May 15). In 1460 on the banks of the River Zhelcha, not far from Gdov, he founded the Ozersk [Lake] Monastery of the Protection of the Mother of God. The monastery bordered the territory of the Livonian Knights, and the monks constantly suffered the incursions of that military order. Despite harsh conditions and insufficient means, Saint Hilarion maintained a high level of pious and ascetic life at the monastery, and made great efforts to adorn and build up the monastery.

Saint Hilarion reposed on March 28, 1476 and was buried in the church of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos in the monastery he founded. Afterwards, a church was built at the monastery in honor of the Nativity of Christ. The left chapel was dedicated to the founder of the Gdov monastery. Saint Hilarion of Gdov is also commemorated on October 21, on the Feast of his heavenly patron and namesake.

Saint Theophilus and James, Abbots of Omutch in Pskov, lived the ascetic life on the island of Konev together with Saint Arsenius (June 12). In the year 1396, in the Pskov diocese at the River Omutch, not far from the city of Porkhov, Saints Theophilus and James established a wilderness monastery in honor of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos. They fell asleep in the Lord about the year 1412.

The Martyrs Gaius, Dasius, and Zoticus of Nicomedia suffered martyrdom in the year 303, under the emperor Diocletian (284-305), because they destroyed a pagan temple. After enduring many tortures, they had stones tied around their necks, and were drowned in the sea.

Saint Philotheos of Dionysiou Monastery on Mount Athos was a native of Elateia, and was born in 1526. Fearing the Turks, his parents moved away to Chrysoupolis in Macedonia, where his father soon died. The child Philotheos and his brother were seized by the Turks and then thrown into prison.

They were delivered in a miraculous manner by the Mother of God. She appeared to the children in the likeness of their mother and led them to the monastery of the Most Holy Theotokos in the city of Neapolis in Asia Minor. At this monastery the brothers received the monastic tonsure. By progressing through all the obediences assigned by the Igoumen they attained the position of ecclesiarchs.

Meanwhile, Eudokia, the mother of Saint Philotheos, had also settled into a women’s monastery in this same city, through the mysterious guidance of Divine Providence. For many years she knew absolutely nothing of the fate of her children. Visiting a men’s monastery with several other nuns for the Feast Day of its church, Eudokia recognized her sons. In answer to her question about how they chanced to be there they replied, “You ought to know, for you yourself freed us from the Turks and led us from the prison.” Thus Eudokia became convinced of the intercession of the Mother of God, for it had only been in praying to the Theotokos that she had found any consolation. When the brethren learned of the joyous reunion of the mother and her sons, as well as their miraculous deliverance, they gathered around them and glorified the Lord.

In 1551, after his mother’s repose, Saint Philotheos went to the Holy Mountain at the age of 25. He joined the brethren of Dionysiou Monastery, where his ascetic struggles were an example to many. Later, seeking greater quietude, he pretended to have suffered from an illness and become deaf, and then he retired to a cave outside the monastery. There he emerged as an admirable ascetic and a conqueror of demons. When his feigned illness was revealed, he was forced to change his place of residence, so that people would not honor him. In his new home he acquired three disciples. Devoting himself to deeds of prayer, Saint Philotheos attained high spiritual perfection and was granted the gift of clairvoyance.

In 1610 the venerable one peacefully fell asleep in the Lord at the age of eighty-four. Before his death he bade his disciples not to bury his body, but rather to cast it dishonorably into the forest to be eaten by beasts and birds. His disciples fulfilled the wish of their Elder, but the All-Good God glorified the saint’s relics with a wondrous radiance. A monk took his skull and gave it to the saint’s disciples.

The life of the venerable one was written by the monk Daniel of Dionysiou, copying an older codex, which was compiled by the monk Agapios Lantos in 1802, which was later published in Venice in 1872.

Saint Bessarion (Sarai) was a Serb who was born in Bosnia in 1714. Longing for the monastic life, he was tonsured at the Monastery of Saint Savva in the Holy Land in 1738. He returned to Serbia and lived in a cave for several years as a hesychast, and received from God the grace of working miracles.

About this time there was a great deal of unrest in the regions of the Banat and Transylvania because many Romanian Orthodox Christians had been forced into union with Rome. At Karlovits, Patriarch Arsenius had heard of Saint Bessarion’s holy and ascetical life, and asked to see him. After ordaining him to the holy priesthood, he sent him to defend the Orthodox Faith northwest of the Carpathian Mountains.

Saint Bessarion left for the Banat in January of 1774, and was warmly received by the local people. Hundreds of people came to hear him preach, and many of them returned to the Orthodox Church. He encouraged his listeners not to abandon the faith which their fathers had passed down to them, but to remain firm and steadfast in it.

Preaching at Timishoara, Lipova-Arad, Deva, Orashtie, Salishtea of Sibiu, and other places, he would set up a wooden cross in the middle of each village, and people would gather to hear him. In each place, he was able to bring most of the people back into the fold of the Orthodox Church. This, of course, did not please the Roman Catholic authorities.

On April 26, 1744, Saint Bessarion was arrested by the Austrian army while on his way to Sibiu. They took him to Vienna, where he was placed on trial, and then thrown into the Kufstein prison on the orders of Empress Maria Teresa. There he endured much suffering because of his confession of the Orthodox Faith. After about a year in chains and tortures, he surrendered his soul to God.

Saint Bessarion the Confessor was glorified by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church in 1950, and the date of his annual commemoration was designated as October 21.

Saint Sophronius was originally from Ciorara-Sebesh in Alba county in Romania. From his childhood, he demonstrated a great love for Christ and the Church, so it was not surprising that he eventually received the monastic tonsure.

He returned to his village in 1756, and established a small hermitage called Cioara Skete in the forest. Several disciples came to join him there, drawn by reports of his holy life. Seeing the persecution of the Orthodox by the Catholic authorities at that time, Saint Sophronius traveled through many villages of Ardeal, encouraging people to remain firm in the Orthodox Faith.

Saint Sophronius was so effective in his preaching that the Crai of Ardeal ordered him thrown into prison, where he was beaten. After his release from prison, he went to preach in the villages of the Apuseni Mountains, and once again he was incarcerated and tortured for Christ.

After being freed on February 14, 1761, Saint Sophronius assembled a great crowd of people in the city of Alba Iulia, and demanded equal rights under the law for Romanians. He also demanded an Orthodox bishop for Ardeal. That very year his demands were granted, and he retired to the Curtea de Argesh Monastery. He departed to the Lord not long afterward.

The Orthodox Church of Romania numbered Saint Sophronius among the saints in 1955, appointing October 21 as the date of his annual commemoration.

Saint Oprea Nicholas of Salistie suffered martyrdom in Romania at the hands of Roman Catholics in 1776.

Saint Hilarion, Metropolitan of Kiev, lived during the era of the Great Prince Yaroslav the Wise (+ 1054), son of Saint Vladimir. In the history of the Russian Church he is remembered as the first Russian installed as Metropolitan by a Council of Russian bishops. The Russian Church up to that time had been a Metropolitan See, under the patriarchate of Constantinople. Russia’s first metropolitans were Greeks, and they were appointed by Constantinople.

Saint Hilarion, priest of the prince’s village of Berestovo near Kiev, was the spiritual Father and companion of Prince Yaroslav. Saint Nestor the Chronicler relates:

“God-loving prince Yaroslav loved Berestovo, and built the church of the Holy Apostles there, and he honored many priests. Among them was the presbyter Hilarion, a man of virtue, knowledge, and given to fasting. He made his way from Berestovo to the Dniepr, where the old Kiev Caves monastery is now, and he made his prayer in the deep forest there. Having dug out a shallow 14 foot cave, he chanted the Hours and prayed in solitude to God....”

Saint Hilarion, as his works attest, was not simply a “man of books”, but was endowed with great spiritual gifts and profound theological knowledge. He devoted all his efforts to the service of the Russian Church. When Metropolitan Theopemptus died, Rus was in a state of war against Byzantium. By decision of a Council of the Russian hierarchs, a resolution was made to establish a Metropolitanate at Kiev, not subject to Constantinople.

Saint Hilarion was famed among the Russian clergy for his heightened spiritual life and gift for preaching. Prior to this, he gave a eulogy in the “Tithe” church of Kiev to the holy Prince Vladimir with his acclaimed “Discourse Concerning Law and Grace,” in which he provided a theological explanation of the place of the Russian Church in the history of the divine economy of Salvation.

The choice of the Council hierarchs was dear to the heart of Yaroslav the Wise. Saint Hilarion was installed as Metropolitan at the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) cathedral in the year 1051 and was later confirmed by the Patriarch of Constantinople. He was not the primate of the Russian Church for long. The chronicle does not mention the year of his death, but the saint was not at the death of Prince Yaroslav the Wise (February 20, 1054), and in the year 1055 a new metropolitan had arrived at Kiev. Evidently, Saint Hilarion had died in 1053.

His spiritual legacy lives on in the Russian Church especially in a fine example of Russian church literature, the “Discourse Concerning Law and Grace.” Its content is profound and multi-faceted. At the heart of the “Discourse” is the teaching concerning salvation and grace. Secondly, great attention is devoted to the question of the superiority of Christianity over Judaism. This theme was essential during those times in Kievan Rus. The Jews had approached Saint Vladimir, hoping to convert him to their faith, and Saint Theodosius of the Kiev Caves (May 3) had gone to the “Jewish Quarter” in Kiev to preach Christ Crucified. It is also known that the Jews had attempted to convert the holy hierarch Nikḗtas the Hermit to Judaism when he was still a monk of the Kiev Caves monastery (1088). Saint Simon relates this in the Kiev Caves Paterikon. This explains the attention which Saint Hilarion devotes to the question “about the Law given to Moses, and about grace and truth, through the coming of Jesus Christ.”

And finally, the third theme, the occasion of the uttering of the “Discourse” was the glorification of the apostolic work of holy Prince Vladimir. The kingdom of nature, the kingdom of grace and the future Kingdom of Glory are perceived in the spiritual experience of the Church as inseparably connected. The Law is only the forerunner and servant of grace and truth. Truth and grace are but servants of the future age and true life. Saint Hilarion teaches thus about the superiority of the Church: “Moses and the prophets foretold the Coming of Christ, whereas Christ and His Apostles bore witness to the Resurrection and the future age.”

The saint explains that from the moment the Savior came into he world, the Old Covenant of man with God ceased to be in effect. With the theological symbols of the Old and New Covenants the saint employs images borrowed from the holy Apostle Paul (Gal. 4:22-31) relating to the two wives of Abraham: the freeborn Sarah and the maidservant Hagar. “Hagar was cast out, a slave, together with her son Ishmael; and Isaac, the free son, was heir to Abraham. Thus also were the Jews cast out and dispersed through the lands, whereas the sons of grace, the Christians, have become heirs to God the Father. As the light of the moon fades at the shining of the sun, so also the Law fades at the shining forth of grace. The cold of night vanishes when the warmth of the sun heats the earth, and mankind is no longer bent over under the burden of the Law, but instead walks freely in grace.”

The joy of Christ fills the holy preacher when he speaks about the entry of his native Rus into the host of Christian peoples. “The grace of Christ has filled all the earth,” and especially, the youthfully alive peoples, to which the Russian people also belong. “It becomes grace and truth to shine forth in new peoples. They do not, in the words of the Lord, pour new wine (this being the teaching of grace) into old wineskins (referring to the Jews) but the rather put the new teaching, into new wineskins, into new peoples,” Thus the faith “throughout all the earth has spread and reached our Russian tongue. Here now we too, glorify the Holy Trinity with all Christians, and the Jews be silent. Pagans are accepted, but the Jews are spurned.”

Now the Orthodox Russians “are not termed idolaters, but rather Christians. No longer do we build heathen temples, but rather the churches of Christ. No longer do we sacrifice others to the demons (Varangian Martyrs, July 12), but instead, Christ has been slain for us in sacrifice to God the Father. The Blessed God has had mercy on all lands, and has not despised us, for He also desired to save us and bring us to our senses in truth.”

The great apostolic exploit of the enlightening of the Russian Land was made by holy Prince Vladimir (15 July 15), “like Saint Constantine,” who “commanded throughout all his land that they be baptized in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In a clear and loud voice, he ordered all in the cities to glorify the Holy Trinity and to be Christians, the small and great, slave and free, young and old, rich and poor.” Saint Hilarion speaks with pride about his native land, “Saint Vladimir did not exercise sovereignty in a bad or ignorant land, but the rather in Russia, which is known and heard of by all the ends of the earth.”

The “Discourse Concerning Law and Grace” was the first work of its time in the Russian Church in which the holy Baptizer of Rus is acclaimed blessed among the ranks of the equals-to-the-Apostles. “Rejoice in the midst of sovereigns, O apostle, not in having dead bodies resurrected, but our deadened souls resurrecting: for by you have we been made alive in God and given to know life in Christ.” Such is the content of this remarkable memorial of ancient Russian theology. Among the other works of Saint Hilarion is his episcopal “Confession,” having become the model for a bishop’s vow in the Russian Church. Usually appended to the manuscripts of the “Discourse Concerning Law and Grace” is the “Prayer of Saint Hilarion.” This work of the saint also possesses a long history within the tradition of his native church. In the year 1555, upon his journey to the newly-formed Kazan diocese, Saint Gurias ordered that there be read to him the prayer, “The Work of Metropolitan Hilarion the Russian”, at Moscow and in the other cities, through which he was to travel.

Saint Hilarion was buried in the Kiev caves. In the inscribed titles to his works, in the manuscripts of saintly literature and lists of holy hierarchs, Saint Hilarion is invariably termed a saint and described as a wonderworker. His assured literary veneration as a saint is evidenced in the services to the Fathers of the Kiev Caves. Both in the service of the Synaxis of Fathers of the Near Caves (September 28), and also in the service to all the Kiev Caves Saints (second Sunday of Great Lent), Saint Hilarion is numbered among the saintly hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Saint Moses Macinic was ordained to the holy priesthood in Bucharest around 1746, and worked to oppose the Unia. Because of his activities he was arrested and jailed in Sibiu for seventeen months. Ultimately, he was released with the understanding that he would cease to function as a priest, and live as an ordinary peasant.

In 1752 he was chosen to go to Vienna with Saint Oprea Nicholas of Salistie to deliver a petition to Empress Maria Theresa. The petition asked her to recognize the rights of the Orthodox Church in Transylvania. She received them, but she had them thrown into the Kufstein Prison in the Tyrolean Mountains.

Although representatives from Transylvania repeatedly asked the Hapsburg rulers to free the two saints, they denied all knowledge of them.

Saint Moses Macinic was glorified as a martyr by the Orthodox Church of Romania in 1992.

Saint John of Galesh was a priest who was consecrated bishop at Bucharest, since there was no bishop for Transylvania. He resisted the plans of the Hapsburg authorities to persuade Orthodox Christians to convert to Catholicism. He was arrested and thrown into prison at Sibiu in 1756, then Empress Maria Theresa ordered him confined in the prison of Deva Castle until he died.

Saint John was transferred to a prison in Graz, Austria at the end of 1757. Later, he was brought to the notorious Kufstein Prison, where many Orthodox from Transylvania ended their lives.

In 1780, Gennady Vassie, a Serb who was incarcerated there, was able to send a letter to Empress Catherine II of Russia asking her to intervene on behalf of the Orthodox prisoners. In his letter he mentioned a Romanian priest named John, who had been kept there for twenty-four years because of his Orthodox faith.

Saint John of Galesh died in prison, and was glorified as a martyr by the Orthodox Church of Romania in 1992.

Saint John was born in 1758 near the city of Monemvasia. His father was a priest from Geraki, and his mother was from the neighboring village of Gouves. It was in Gouves that John's father was assigned as a priest, and there John was born. From a young age John tried to emulate his father by helping him work in the church. He was known for his exemplary behavior, and referred to by other children as the "priest's son."

In the year 1770 the army of the Albanian Hatzi Osman defeated the Greek resistance, and arriving in Monemvasia they killed John's father and enslaved both him and his mother. They were taken to Larisa, where they were sold separately two or three times.

After two years they were bought by the same man, a Turkish landowner. This Turk had no children, and recognizing John's good qualities (he was exceptionally intelligent for his age, obedient, and a hard worker), the man wanted to adopt John after converting him to Islam. Every day they tried to persuade him to abandon the Christian Faith and become a Turk. Initially, they used flattery and promises, but later they used terrible tortures to overcome John's steadfastness (he was only 15 years old), but he remained unwavering in his Christian faith.

One day his master, tired of trying to convince him to convert, and in anger led him to the courtyard of the mosque. Many Muslims were gathered there, and with blows and terrible threats they urged him to convert and become a Turk. John's response was clear: "I am not a Turk, I am a Christian and I shall die as a Christian."

In addition, the Turk and his wife tried every day with magic and evil spells to make the Saint lose his mind and give in to carnal desires, and then to become a Turk. But John remained pure, for the grace of Christ protected him from all of the diabolical devices of the Turk's wife.

Soon came the fifteen days of fasting before the Dormition of the Theotokos. The Turk realized that John did not wish to break the fast, so he locked him up in a barn. He kept him there for the entire fifteen days and hung him up, lighting a fire in the straw beneath him to cause smoke, and struck him with the flat of his sword, all the while trying to make him eat their abominable foods and break the fast. But Saint John did not even taste the food, but prayed to the Mother of God, in whose honor the Fast is observed, asking her to help him keep the fast, for he preferred to die rather than break his fast.

The master, seeing that he remained unconvinced, left him without food for two and three days at a time. His mother, seeing him weakened by the tortures and the fasting, tried to convince him to give in, saying: "Eat these foods, my son, so that you do not perish. God and the Panagia will forgive you, because you would not be doing this voluntarily, but out of necessity. Pity me, your poor mother. Do not die and leave me alone in this foreign land, for by having you here, I feel as if I am not a slave."

John replied: "Why are you doing this, Mother, and why are you crying? Why don't you emulate the Patriarch Abraham, who for the love of God wanted to sacrifice his only son, yet you only cry and weep. I am a priest's son and I should be keeping the laws and customs of our Church more than the sons of laymen, for if we don't keep the small things [of the faith], how can we keep the larger things?"

Soon after this response the furious Turk stabbed him in the heart on October 19, 1773. After two days Saint John died and received the crown of martyrdom.

Saint John's skull and portions of his hand and feet are located at the Zermbitsa Monastery in Sparta, and other portions of his relics are in the churches of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste in Larisa and Voulkanou Monastery in Messenia.