February 26, 2025, Saint Porphyrius, Archbishop of Gaza, was born about the year 346 at Thessalonica. His parents were people of substance, and this allowed Saint Porphyrius to receive a fine education. Having the inclination for monastic life, he left his native region at twenty-five years of age and set off for Egypt, where he[…]
Author: Chris Purdef
34 Monastic Martyrs of Valaam Monastery
February 20, 2025, In the course of its centuries-old history, Valaam Monastery, located near the border of Great Novgorod with Sweden, was repeatedly ravaged by the Swedes. The latter were attracted both by a desire for profit and by a desire to plant the Latin faith in the surrounding lands. Under King Gustav Vasa[…]
Saint Tarasius, Archbishop of Constantinople
February 25, 2025, Saint Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople was of illustrious lineage. He was born and raised in Constantinople, where he received a fine education. He was rapidly promoted at the court of the emperor Constantine VI Porphyrogenitos (780-797) and Constantine’s mother, the holy Empress Irene (August 7), and the saint attained the rank[…]
Leo the Great, Pope of Rome
February 18, 2025, 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 Saint Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople, summoned Eutyches, an archimandrite in Constantinople, to give account for his teaching that there was only[…]
Reflections on Love: His Eminence Metropolitan Saba
February 21, 2025, On the Sunday of the Last Judgment, the third of the preparatory Sundays before Great Lent, the Church reads to us from the Gospel of Matthew, where God judges people on the Last Day based on the acts of love they have performed toward those in need—whom Christ identifies with Himself[…]