Category: Saints and Blesseds

St Andrew, the first called

As the First-Called, Andrew was the first of the Apostles to follow Christ, and he later brought his own brother, the holy Apostle Peter, to Christ (John 1:35-42).

“St. Andrew the Apostle was martyred by crucifixion on an X-shaped cross in Patras, near Corinth. The X-shaped cross caused excruciating pain, far greater than the traditional cross. Due to the fact that the condemned man was crucified with his legs spread, he could not support his body on them, and practically all the weight of his body hung on the nailed hands, thus enduring terrible torments.”

Today, the Cross of St. Andrew is kept next to the head of St. Andrew in the Cathedral of St. Andrew the Apostle in the Greek city of Patras.

We sing with the Church:

Andrew, first-called of the Apostles and brother of the foremost disciple, entreat the Master of all to grant peace to the world and to our souls great mercy. (Troparion, tone 4)

The Feast of Angels

We celebrate today the angels – the Greek word, “messengers.” They truly bring us a message of good news, announcing to the shepherds in the field, “The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord. (Luke 2:10-11).”

It is the archangel Gabriel who announces the conception of Jesus to Mary. And in even greater joy, the angels announce to the women at the tomb, ““Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised. (Luke 24:5-6)” The epistle today tells us, “You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor, subjecting all things under his feet. (Hebrews 2:7-8)” Materialists deny the existence of angels, but it is only reasonable to believe that there is more to reality than what we can see with our physical eyes and hear with our physical ears. Angels are our connection with God, so much so that sometimes in the Old Testament there seems to be a confusion between God and his angels. Jesus tells us, “At the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in heaven. (Matthew 22:30).” Jesus tells his arresters, “Do you think that I cannot call upon my Father and he will not provide me at this moment with more than twelve legions of angels? (Matthew 26:53)”

And angels comfort him in the agony in the garden. Today then is a day of faith, today we connect with God, today we hear the good news of the coming of God into the world, today we hear the good news of the resurrection to life.

Meditation by Archpriest David Petras

Holy Apostle James, son of Alphaeus

Today, the Byzantine Church liturgically recalls the memory of Saint James.

The Byzantine Church discerns three apostles named James: James the Greater, the son of Zebedee; James, the Brother of the Lord and first bishop of Jerusalem; and James, the son of Alphaeus. We celebrate the feast of the latter today. He is the James about which we know the least. The only mention of him was in the lists of the Twelve Apostles. Some speculate that he was the James mentioned by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:7, “After that he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.,” but commentators even doubt that was this James, also called “James the Lesser.” However, it does point to the mission of the apostles, which was to proclaim the risen Lord, a message which has resounded throughout the ages to this very day. For in today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks about his apostles, “Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me. (Luke 10:16″

The apostles, who ran when Jesus was led to crucifixion, nevertheless were courageous in preaching his gospel, and paid a great price, “God has exhibited us apostles as the last of all, like people sentenced to death, since we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and human beings alike. We are fools on Christ’s account, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are held in honor, but we in disrepute. (1 Corinthians 4:9-10)”

St. Paul said we must imitate the apostles, for we, too, must be willing to become “fools” for the sake of the resurrection, but the promise is great, as Jesus said, ““I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. (Luke 10:21)”

Meditation by Archpriest David Petras

St Mary Magdalene, Apostle

Today, the Church honors the Myrrh-bearer and Equal of the Apostles, Mary Magdalene, a woman of “firsts” and who conveyed hope in a dark world.

“O Mary Magdalene, you were the first to witness the divine Resurrection of the First Cause of all good things, who has compassionately deified our nature; and you were the first to be the herald of the good news to the Apostles, crying out to them: Lay aside your sadness! Receive great hope instead! Come and see the risen Christ who grants the world great mercy! (Doxasticheron, Tone 6, at Psalm 140)

From the Prologue from Ochrid, we read:

One of the myrrh-bearing women, and equal to the apostles, she was born in Magdala by the Lake of Gennesaret, of the tribe of Issachar. She was tormented by seven evil spirits, of which she was freed and healed by the Lord Jesus. She was a faithful follower and servant of the Lord during His earthly life, and also stood beneath the Cross on Golgotha and lamented bitterly with the most holy Mother of God.

After the Lord’s death, she visited His tomb three times; and when He rose again, she saw Him twice, once alone and the other time with the other myrrh-bearing women. She travelled to Rome, went before Tiberias Caesar and presented him with a red egg, greeting him with the words: ‘Christ is risen!’ At the same time, she denounced Pilate to Caesar for his unjust condemnation of the Lord Jesus. Caesar listened to her, and moved Pilate from Jerusalem to Gaul, where this unjust judge died under imperial displeasure after a terrible illness.

After that, she returned from Rome to Ephesus, to St John the Theologian, whom she helped in his task of preaching the Gospel. With great love for the risen Lord and with great zeal, she proclaimed the holy Gospel as a true apostle of Christ. She died peacefully in Ephesus and was buried, according to tradition, in the same cave in which the seven young men (see August 4th) had been in a charmed sleep for a hundred years. They came to life, and then died. St Magdalene’s relics were then taken to Constantinople. Near the Garden of Gethsemane, there is a beautiful church dedicated to St Mary Magdalene.

Ss. Cosmas and Damian

On July 1, we celebrate the memory of two holy men that are included in a special category of sanctity in the Byzantine Church: Unmercenary Healers, Ss. Cosmas and Damian. There were man who did a special service for the Christian faithful: they served the physical needs of those afflicted by illnesses, and cared for them without recompense. They were images of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Physician of Souls and Bodies. Indeed, they were more than simply doctors who healed bodies, but they were wonder-workers who brought spiritual healing through the grace of God, fulfilling the Lord’s command, “Freely you have received; freely you are to give. (Matthew 10:8)” They were holistic healers of the whole human person.

We sing today: “You first showed yourselves to be good doctors by cleansing all our sicknesses by faith, then you took up the spiritual battle, and divinely drove away the spiritual illnesses of corruption.” (Sticheron at Psalm 140, Tone 1).

Unmercenary healers always come in pairs. This is a sign of both our oneness in Christ and our need for mutual support. For one to live as a true hermit in solitude was rare, and it still needed the permission and support of a spiritual father. Two men struggling the ascetical life together for mutual support was very common in monastic life. Of course, there was then also the community life of men and women living in community in the search for the presence of God. Cosmas and Damian lived in Rome in the third century.

Other unmercenary healers were: “Antipas, Charalampius and Blaise, the most honored bishop martyrs; Spyridon and Modestus, the all-splendid luminaries of the Church; the three pairs of divinely wise saints Cosmas and Damian, who shared the same names and the same ways; Cyrus and the glorious John; the divine Panteleimon and Hermolaus; Diomedes and Sampson; together with Mocius, Photius and Anicetas, Artemius, Thalalaeus and Tryphon.

Meditation by Archpriest David Petras

The Holy and Pre-eminent Apostles Peter and Paul

This day has been consecrated for us by the martyrdom of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. It is not some obscure martyrs we are talking about. Their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. These martyrs had seen what they proclaimed, they pursued justice by confessing the truth, by dying for the truth.

The blessed Peter, the first of the Apostles, the ardent lover of Christ, who was found worthy to hear, And I say to you, that you are Peter. He himself, you see, had just said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Christ said to him, And I say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church. Upon this rock I will build the faith you have just confessed. Upon your words, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, I will build my Church; because you are Peter. Peter comes from petra, meaning a rock. Peter, “Rocky,” from “rock”; not “rock” from “Rocky.” Peter comes from the word for a rock in exactly the same way as the name Christian comes from Christ.

Before his passion the Lord Jesus, as you know, chose those disciples of his whom he called apostles. Among these it was only Peter who almost everywhere was given the privilege of representing the whole Church. It was in the person of the whole Church, which he alone represented, that he was privileged to hear, To you will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. After all, it is not just one man that received these keys, but the Church in its unity. So this is the reason for Peter’s acknowledged pre-eminence, that he stood for the Church’s universality and unity, when he was told, To you I am entrusting, what has in fact been entrusted to all. To show you that it is the Church which has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, listen to what the Lord says in another place to all his apostles: Receive the Holy Spirit; and immediately afterwards, Whose sins you forgive, they will be forgiven them; whose sins you retain, they will be retained.

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Commemoration of Bishop Nykolai Charnecky and Twenty-Seven New Blesseds

Today, June 27 we have the common commemoration of Bishop Nykolai (Nicholas) Charnecky and the Twenty-Seven Other New Blesseds of the Church of Rus`-Ukraine Beatified in 2001 by St. John Paul II, pope.

Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church:

Bishop Mykola Charnetskyi
Bishop Semeon Lukach
Bishop Ivan Sleziuk
Bishop Vasyl Velychkovsky
Bishop Hryhorii Khomyshyn
Bishop Josaphat Kotsylovsky
Bishop Mykyta Budka
Bishop Hryhorii Lakota
Father Mykola Konrad
Father Andrii Ischak
Father Severian Baranyk
Father Yakym Senkivskyi
Father Zenovii Kovalyk
Father Emilian Kovch
Father Vitalii Bairak
Father Roman Lysko
Archimandrite Klymentii Sheptytsky
Father Mykola Tsehelskyi
Father Ivan Ziatyk
Fahter Petro Verhun
Father Oleksii Zarytskyi
Sister Josaphata (Michaelina) Hordashevska
Sister Olympia Olha Bida
Sister Lavrentia Herasymiv
Sister Tarsykia Matskiv
Volodymyr Pryima

Ruthenian Greek-Catholic Church:
Bishop Theodore Romzha

Russian Greek-Catholic Church:
Exarch Leonid Feodorov

St Josaphat

Exactly 400 years ago, November 12, 1623, in Vitebs свяku martyr death accepted Saint Josaphat, Archbishop of Polots бkij – Apostle of Unity.

The relics of our Ukrainian saint, honored by the entire Catholic Church, rest today in the side throne of Saint Basil in Saint Peter’s Basilica.

Saint Josaphat, pray to God for us!