THURSDAY: The Last Supper Two events shape the liturgy of Great and Holy Thursday: the Last Supper of Christ with His disciples, and the betrayal of Judas. The meaning of both is in love. The Last Supper is the ultimate revelation of God’s redeeming love for man, of love as the very essence…
The Church continues to honor the passage of the Most Holy Theotokos from death to life. Just as Christ once dwelt in the virginal womb of His Mother, now He takes Her “to dwell in His courts.”
The Prophet Samuel was the fifteenth and last of the Judges of Israel, living more than 1146 years before the Birth of Christ. He was descended from the Tribe of Levi, and was the son of Elkanah from Ramathaim-Zophim of Mount Ephraim. He was born, having been besought from the Lord through the…
Saint Philip was Bishop of Heraclea, and suffered martyrdom with Saints Severus, Memnon, and thirty-seven others in Thrace during the third century. They all suffered in Philippopolis, Thrace under the emperor Diocletian (284-305). When the governor learned that the Saint Severus had converted…
The Martyrs Heliodorus and Dosa suffered for Christ in Persia under the emperor Sapor II, in the year 380.
The Martyr Lucius, a senator, was beheaded by the sword on the island of Crete in the year 310 for confessing his faith in Christ.
In the year 1740, during the reign of Sultan Ahmed and Ibrahim Pasha, general governor of Asia Minor, a decree was issued to kidnap Christian boys and place them in concentration camps. Among them was an orphan named Theokhares (Theokhárēs).1 One day, however, the judge of Neopolis (Nevşehir) in…