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St Mary of Egypt The recorder of the life of this wonderful saint was St Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem. A hieromonk, the elder Zossima, had gone off at one time during the Great Fast a twenty-days' walk into the wilderness across the Jordan. He suddenly caught sight of a human being with a withered and naked body and with hair as white as snow, who fled in its nakedness from Zossima's sight. The elder ran a long way, until this figure stopped at a stream and called: 'Father Zossima, forgive me for the Lord's sake. I cannot turn round to you, for I am a naked woman.' Then Zossima threw her his outer cloak, and she wrapped herself in it and turned round to him. The elder was amazed at hearing his name from the lips of this unknown woman. After considerable pressure on his part, she told him her life-story. She had been born in Egypt, and had lived as a prostitute in Alexandria from the age of twelve, spending seventeen years in this way of life. Urged by the lustful fire of the flesh, she one day got into a ship that was sailing for Jerusalem. Arriving at the Holy City, she made to go into one of the churches to venerate the Precious Cross, but some unseen power prevented her from entering. In great fear, she turned to an icon of the Mother of God that was in the entrance, and begged her to let her go in and venerate the Cross, confessing her sin and impurity and promising that she would then go wherever the Most Pure led her. She was then allowed to enter the church. After venerating the Cross, she went out again to the entrance and, standing in front of the icon, thanked the Mother of God. Then she heard a voice: 'If you cross the Jordan, you will find true peace.' She immediately bought three loaves of bread and set off for the Jordan, arriving there the same evening. She received Communion the following morning in the monastery of St John, and then crossed the river. She spent forty-eight whole years in the wilderness in the greatest torments, in terror, in struggles with passionate thoughts like gigantic beasts. She fed only on plants. After that, when she was standing in prayer, Zossirna saw her lifted up in the air. She begged him to bring her Communion the next year on the bank of the Jordan, and she would come to receive it. The following year, Zossima came with the Holy Gifts to the bank of the Jordan in the evening, and stood in amazement as he saw her cross the river. He saw her coming in the moonlight and, arriving on the further bank, make the sign of the Cross over the river. She then walked across it as though it were dry land. When she had received Communion, she begged him to come again the following year to the same stream by which they had first met. Zossima went, and found her dead body there on that spot. Above her head in the sand was written: 'Abba Zossima, bury in this place the body of the humble Mary. Give dust to dust. I passed away on April 1st, on the very night of Christ's Passion, after communion of the divine Mysteries.' Zossirna learned her name for the first time, and also the aweinspiring marvel that she had arrived at that stream the previous year on the night of the same day on which she had received Communion - a place that he had taken twenty days to reach. And thus Zossima buried the body of the wonderful saint, Mary of Egypt. When he returned to the monastery, he recounted the whole story of her life and the wonders to which he had been an eyewitness. Thus the Lord glorifies repentant sinners. St Mary is also commemorated in the Fifth Week of the Great Fast. The Church holds her up before the faithful in these days of the Fast as a model of repentance. She entered into rest in about 530.St Melliton, Bishop of Sardis in Asia MinorA well-known pastor of the Church in the second century, he was a man of great learning and laboured to codify all the books of Holy Scripture. He laboured also in meekness and devotion to bring peace to the Church in Laodicea, involved in a quarrel about the celebration of Easter. Apart from this, he defended Christianity against the pagans. He travelled to Rome in about 170, bringing a written apologia on the Faith and the Christian Church to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. St Meliton, this learned, devout and zealous man, entered peacefully into rest in the Lord in about 177 Our Holy Father Procopius the CzechBorn in Hotish in Czechoslovakia, of eminent parents, he became a priest and went off into the mountains to live after the example of the Eastern hermits. Herzog Ulrich came across him by chance and helped him to found the monastery of St John the Forerunner by the river Sazava. This holy man entered into rest in 1053. Venerable Macarius, abbot of Pelecete (840)`The Monk Makarios, Hegumen of the Pelikiteia Monastery, was born at Tsar'grad (Constantinople). While still a lad he lost his parents. The saint fervently read the Word of God and became so absorbed with it, that he decided to devote his life entirely to God. He entered the Pelikiteia monastery in Bithynia, where at the time the hegumen was the reknown ascetic, the Monk Ilarion (+ c. 754, Comm. 28 March). After the death of this monastic head, the Monk Makarios was unanimously chosen by the brethren as hegumen. During the reign of the Byzantine emperors Leo V the Armenian (813-820) and Michael II the Stammerer (820-829), the Monk Makarios suffered as a confessor for the veneration of holy icons. He was dispatched to the island of Aphusia, where he died in about the year 830. Venerable Euthymius, monk, of Suzdal (1404) The Monk Evphymii of Suzdal' was born in the year 1316 at Nizhnii Novgorod. From early childhood he was taught his letters and received a spiritual upbringing. He accepted monastic tonsure at the Nizhegorod Pechersk monastery under its founder, Saint Dionysii (later the Archbishop of Suzdal', + 1385, Comm. 26 June and 15 October). The efforts of the Monk Evphymii were so great, that Saint Dionysii counselled him to lessen them. In 1352 the Suzdal' prince Boris Konstantinovich sought to establish in his city a men's monastery, and he turned to the Nizhegorod Pechersk monastery with a request to send a monk for the establishing of the monastery. The choice of the saintly hegumen fell upon the Monk Evphymii...Martyr Abraham of Bulgaria (1229 The Holy Martyr Avramii (Abraham) the Bulgar, Vladimir Wonderworker, lived during the XIII Century, and was descended from the Kamska Bulgars and brought up in Mahometanism. He was good and kindly towards the destitute, and when the Lord enlightened him with the Light of reason, he accepted Christianity. In the city of Bolgara, on the lower stretches of the Volga, Saint Avramii began to preach to his fellow countrymen about the True God...Righteous Achaz Martyrs Geroncius and Basilides (3rd c.) The Martyrs Gerontios and Basilides suffered a martyr's death for Christ in the III Century, – they were beheaded by the sword. |
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