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April 18
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Saturday |
New Style
May 1
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Passion Week.
Great Lent. |
St. John, disciple of St. Gregory of Decapolis (ca. 820-850).
Martyrs Victor, Zoticus, Zeno, Acindynus, and Severian, of Nicomedia (303). St. Cosmas, bishop of Chalcedon, and his fellow-ascetic St. Auxentius (815-820). New Martyr John the Tailor, of Ioannina, at Constantinople (1526). St. Euthymius the Enlightener of Karelia (1435), and righteous laymen Anthony and Felix of Karelia.
New Martyr Tamara (Satsi), abbess, of Cheboksara (Chuvashia) (1942). New Hieromartyr Alexis Krontenkov, priest, of Ekaterinburg (1930). New Hieromartyrs Nicholas (1937) and Basil Derzhavin (1930), priests, and martyred lay people of the city of Gorodets (Nizhni-Novgorod).
Icons of the Most Holy Theotokos “Glykophylousa” (“Sweet-kissing”) and “Maximov” (1299).
St. Naucratius, abbot, of the Studion (848). Hieromartyr Perfectus, priest, at Cordoba (850). St. Basil (Ratishvili) the Georgian, of Iveron Monastery, Mt. Athos (13th c.). Martyr Tunom, Arab emir who confessed Christ on seeing the Holy Fire in Jerusalem (1579). Martyr Sabbas the Goth, at Buzau in Wallachia (372). St. Athanasia the Wonderworker, abbess, of Aegina (850).
Thoughts for Each Day of the Year
According to the Daily Church Readings from the Word of God
By St. Theophan the Recluse
Saturday. [Rom 6:3–11; Matt. 28:1–20]
The Lord sleeps bodily in the tomb; in soul He descended into hades and preached salvation to the souls there. The Old Testament saints were not in heaven, although they abode in the consoling faith that they would be brought there as soon as the Promised One came to earth, having lived by faith in Him. There also the Forerunner foretold of His coming. When the Lord descended, all who believed cleaved to Him and were lifted up by Him into heaven. But even that heaven is only the threshold of the true paradise which will be revealed after the general resurrection and judgement., Although all of the new-testament saints also are blessed in heaven, they await an even more perfect bliss in the age to come, with a new heaven and new earth (cf. Rev. 21:1), when God will be all in all (cf. I Cor. 15:28).
Articles
 St. Cosmas the Bishop of ChalcedonSaint Cosmas, Bishop of Chalcedon, and his companion Saint Auxentius, lived during the ninth century, at a time when the Iconoclasts oppressed the Orthodox. |
 Venerable Euthymius the Enlightener of Karelia and FinlandSaint Euthymius founded the Karelian Nikolaev monastery. |
 St. Basil Ratishvili of GeorgiaSaint Basil Ratishvili, one of the most prominent figures of the 13th-century Church, was the uncle of Catholicos Ekvtime III. |