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Our Holy Father Joseph The Hymnographer He was born in Sicily of devout and virtuous parents, Plotinus and Agatha. After the death of his parents, he moved to Salonica, where he became a monk. As a monk, he was an example to all in fasting, restraint, ceaseless supplication, psalmody, vigils and toil. The Bishop of Salonica ordained him hieromonk. The famous Gregory of Decapolis, visiting Salonica, loved Joseph with heart and soul for his rare character, and took him back with him to his monastery in Constantinople. When the flame of iconoclasm sprang up again under Leo the Armenian, Joseph was sent to Rome to call the Pope and the Roman Church to battle for the true Faith. But pirates captured him on the way and took him to Crete, where he was kept in prison for six years by the heretics. Joseph rejoiced that he was made worthy to suffer for Christ, and thanked God constantly, regarding the iron chains with which he was bound as golden ornaments. In the sixth year, around Christmas, the wicked Emperor was murdered at the morning service in church. At the same moment, St Nicolas appeared to Joseph in the prison and said to
him: 'Get up and follow me. 'Joseph felt himself lifted up in the air, and found himself all at once in Constantinople. His arrival was a source of rejoicing to all the Orthodox faithful. He composed Canons and hymns for many of the saints. He had the gift of insight, because of which Patriarch Photius made him spiritual father and confessor to his priests, recommending him as 'a man of God, an angel in the flesh, a father of fathers'. In great old age, he gave his soul into the hands of the God he had served so faithfully in work and song. He died peacefully on the eve of Holy Thursday in 883.The Holy Martyr Pherbutha, her widowed sister and their slaveIn the reign of the Persian King Saborius, a bishop, St Simeon, was executed. His sister, Pherbutha, was taken to court for the Queen's pleasure. Pherbutha was unusually beautiful, and she therefore had many suitors, including pagan priests and soothsayers. Pherbutha refused them all, thus bringing down great wrath upon her head. When, just at that time, the Queen fell ill, all the priests informed the King that the Queen had been poisoned by Pherbutha, and, as a means of healing, proposed that Pherbutha, her sister and their slave, as Christians, be sawn to pieces, that three parts of their bodies be placed on one side and three on the other, and that the Queen be taken through between them. The King agreed to this bloody suggestion of the soothsayers', and Pherbutha, her sister and their slave-girl suffered in this way for Christ in 343, thereby meriting an unfading wreath in the deathless Kingdom of their Lord. Our Holy Father Zossima A monk of the Jordan community in the reign of the Emperor Theodosius the Younger, he found St Mary of Egypt, gave her Communion and buried her. He entered into rest in the Lord, at the age of 100, in the 6th century.New Martyr Nicetas of Pojani and SerresHe was a Slav from Albania. As a monk of the Holy Mountain, he went to Serres, where be disputed with the mullahs about the Faith. Being unable to overcome him by reason, the Turks put him to torture, under which St Nicetas died and gave his soul to God in 1808. Venerable Theonas, metropolitan of Thessalonica (1541) Sainted Theon asceticised during the XVI Century on Athos, at first in the monastery of the Pantokrator, and then in the Shersk (Hair) skete-monastery of Saint John, the Venerable ForeRunner and Baptist of the Lord. Here his guide was the Monk Jakov (James) of Iveria. After the martyr's death of his spiritual-guide, Saint Theon became head of the monastery of the holy GreatMartyress Anastasia on the outskirts of the village of Galatista. He was ordained bishop and was elevated at Soluneia (Thessalonika) to the metropolitan cathedra-seat. The final years of his life were spent in deeds of solitude near the monastery of the holy GreatMartyress Anastasia Alleviatrix-of-Captives (Comm. 22 December), wherein also his holy relics now rest, together with the head and right hand of the GreatMartyress Anastasia, and the heads of three monk-martyrs that suffered under the Turks – James, another James, and Arsenios.Venerable George, monk, of Mt. Maleon in the Peloponnesus (9th c.) The Monk George lived during the IX Century. He pursued asceticism at a monastery on Mount Malea in the Peloponessus, and here also he died. In the service to him, the Monk George is supplicated as an earthly Angel and wonderworker.Venerable Zosimas, abbot of Vorbozomsk (1550) The Monk Zosima of Vorbozomsk was the founder of a monastery in honour of the Annuniciation of the MostHoly Mother of God on an island in Lake Vorbozoma, situated 23 versts to the south of Belozersk. The monastery was founded way back in the XV Century, since it is known, that in the year 1501 the head of the monastery was Hegumen Jona, a disciple of the Monk Zosima. The monastery was among the number of those numerous wilderness-monasteries (small monasteries) which, being of the form of the so-called "Trans-Volga" monasteries, were dispersed around the Kirillo-Belozersk monastery. The Monk Zosima died in the first half of the XVI Century. It is known, that the monk wrote guidances and letters to his spiritual daughter Anastasia. |
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