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Orthodox icon of Saint Herman of Alaska.

Commemorated December 13.

Herman of Alaska was a Russian Orthodox monk from Valaam Monastery in Russia who traveled with eight other monks in 1793 to bring the Gospel to the native Aleuts and Eskimos in the Aleutian Islands. As part of the Russian colonization of the Americas, Russians had been exploring and trading there since at least 1740. Thus, he marks the first arrival of Orthodox Christian missionaries in North America. He built a school for the Aleutians, and he often defended them from the injustices and exploitation of the Russian traders. He was known to them as Apa which means "Grandfather." He lived most of his life as the sole resident of Spruce Island, a tiny wooded island near Kodiak Island.

Reference: O.C.A.

Orthodox icon of Saint Herman of Alaska (2).

Commemorated December 13.

Saint Herman (his name is a variant of Germanus) was born near Moscow in 1756. In his youth he became a monk, first at the Saint Sergius Hermitage near Saint Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland; while he dwelt there, the most holy Mother of God appeared to him, healing him of a grave malady. Afterwards he entered Valaam Monastery on Valiant Island in Lake Ladoga; he often withdrew into the wilderness to pray for days at a time. In 1794, answering a call for missionaries to preach the Gospel to the Aleuts, he came to the New World with the first Orthodox mission to Alaska.

He settled on Spruce Island, which he called New Valaam, and here he persevered, even in the face of many grievous afflictions mostly at the hands of his own countrymen in the loving service of God and of his neighbour. Besides his many toils for the sake of the Aleuts, he subdued his flesh with great asceticism, wearing chains, sleeping little, fasting and praying much. He brought many people to Christ by the example of his life, his teaching, and his kindness and sanctity, and was granted the grace of working miracles and of prophetic insight. Since he was not a priest, Angels descended at Theophany to bless the waters in the bay; Saint Herman used this holy water to heal the sick.

Because of his unwearying missionary labors, which were crowned by God with the salvation of countless souls, he is called the Enlightener of the Aleuts, and has likewise been renowned as a wonderworker since his repose in 1837. 

Orthodox icon of Saint Hermione (Ermione) the Virgin-Martyr.

Commemorated September 4th.

Orthodox icon of Saint Hierotheos, Bishop of Athens.

Commemorated October 4.

The Hiero-martyr Hierotheus, the first Bishop of Athens, was a member of the Athenian Areopagos and was converted to Christ by the Apostle Paul together with St Dionysius the Areopagite (October 3). The saint was consecrated by the Apostle Paul to the rank of bishop. According to Tradition, Bishop Hierotheus was present with St Dionysius at the funeral of the Most Holy Theotokos. St Hierotheus died a martyr's death in the first century.

Reference: G.O.A.A.

Orthodox icon of Saint Hierotheus, Hierotheos. Icon of 14th cent. Protato Karyes Mount Athos.

Commemorated October 4th.

Orthodox icon of Saint Hilarion of Gaza, the Great.

Commemorated October 21.

Saint Hilarion the Great was born in the year 291 in the Palestinian village of Tabatha. He was sent to Alexandria to study. There he became acquainted with Christianity and was baptized. After hearing an account of the angelic life of St Anthony the Great (January 17), Hilarion went to meet him, desiring to study with him and learn what is pleasing to God. Hilarion soon returned to his native land to find that his parents had died. After distributing his family’s inheritance to the poor, Hilarion set out into the desert surrounding the city of Maium.

In the desert the monk struggled intensely with impure thoughts, vexations of the mind and the burning passions of the flesh, but he defeated them with heavy labor, fasting and fervent prayer. The devil sought to frighten the saint with phantoms and apparitions. During prayer St Hilarion heard children crying, women wailing, the roaring of lions and other wild beasts. The monk perceived that it was the demons causing these terrors in order to drive him away from the wilderness. He overcame his fear with the help of fervent prayer. Once, robbers fell upon St Hilarion, and he persuaded them to forsake their life of crime through the power of his words.

Soon all of Palestine learned about the holy ascetic. The Lord granted to St Hilarion the power to cast out unclean spirits. With this gift of grace he loosed the bonds of many of the afflicted. The sick came for healing, and the monk cured them free of charge, saying that the grace of God is not for sale (MT 10:8).

Such was the grace that he received from God that he could tell by the smell of someone’s body or clothing which passion afflicted his soul. They came to St Hilarion wanting to save their soul under his guidance. With the blessing of St Hilarion, monasteries began to spring up throughout Palestine. Going from one monastery to another, he instituted a strict ascetic manner of life.

About seven years before his death (+ 371-372) St Hilarion moved back to Cyprus, where the ascetic lived in a solitary place until the Lord summoned him to Himself.

Orthodox icon of Saint Hilda of Whitby. Contemporary icon

Commemorated November 17.

Saint Hilda is the spiritual Mother of the Orthodox Church of England. She was the daughter of Heretic, who was nephew of King Edwin of Northumbria,one of the Kings of the seven Kingdoms that England had at that time, time that the country was coming out of idolatry. Hilda, like her great-uncle, King Edwin, became Christian and was baptized through the preaching of St. Paulinus of York, who was a missionary from Rome, about the year 627, when she was thirteen years old.

For thirty years she cultivated the virtues of the Holy Gospel, by staying among the people until the time she accepted her calling from God and decided to leave everything worldly behind, her family and her country.

She went to the kingdom of East England, where the King was her Brother in Law, having the will to go to France and become a nun to the Monastery of Chelles in Gaul near Paris, which was one of the Monasteries that were under the spiritual guidance of the Monastery of Luxeuil that was established by Saint Columbine. Saint Alban, Bishop of the island Lindisfarne, the center of the ecclesiastical life of British Islands at that time, asked Saint Hilda to go back to own country and gave her a small piece of land, in which she spend 1 year guiding a small group of virgins. After leading a monastic life for a year on the north bank of the Wear and her talents was tested, was assigned to her the spiritual guidance of the bigger sisterhood of the Monastery of Hartlepool where she ruled a double monastery of monks and nuns with great success, Hilda eventually undertook to set in order a monastery at Streaneshalch, a place to which the Danes a century or two later gave the name Monastery of Whitby.

Under the rule and the spiritual guidance of Saint Hilda, the Monastery at Whitby became very famous. Bishop Alban, Kings, Princess and many people from the surrounding area, visited very often the Monastery to receive spiritual advices and guidance form her. The Holy Scriptures were specially studied there, and no less than five of her monastics became bishops, among them St. John, Bishop of Hexham, and St. Wilfrid, Bishop of York.

In Whitby, in 664, was held the famous synod which confirmed, among other issues, the manner of calculating the date of Pascha. The fame of St. Hilda's wisdom was so great that from far and near monks and even royal personages came to consult her.

Seven years before her death Saint was stricken down with a grievous fever which never left her till she breathed her last, but, in spite of this, she neglected none of her duties to God or to her spiritual children. She passed away at November 17 of 680, at the age of 66, most peacefully after receiving the Holy Mysteries of Christ, and the tolling of the monastery bell was heard miraculously at Hackness thirteen miles away, where also a devout nun named Begu saw the soul of Saint Hilda taken to heaven by angels.

Saint Hilda, together with Saint Ebba of Coldingham, is one of the great figures of the Anglo-Saxon Christianity and offers a very rare example of the spiritual Mother- Abbess, who received the gift from God to lead and offer spiritual guidance not only to nuns, but monks and even Bishops “there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians: 3-28)

From: “The new Synaxaristes of the Orthodox Church" of Simonopetra. 

             3rd Volume-November, pages 197-199

Icon of Saint Hope, Elpis, Helpis, Elpida, Επλίδα.

Commemorated September 17th.

One of the three daughters of Saint Sophia the Martyr (died 137 AD). Saint Sophia had three daughters: Faith (age 12), Hope (age 10) and Love (age 9). Saint Sophia watched her daughters tortured to death from the eldest to the youngest under the reign of Hadrian (117-138).

Orthodox icon of Saint Iakovos Tsalikis, Tsalikes, the Elder of Evia in Saint David's Monastery.

Contemporary icon.

NOTE: the name of the store in the icon is just a watermark. Your icon will NOT have it.

Orthodox icon of Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer (Theophoros).

Commemorated December 20.

The Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-Bearer, was a disciple of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, as was also of St Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna (February 23). St Ignatius was the second bishop of Antioch, and successor to Bishop Euodius, Apostle of the Seventy. According to Tradition, when St Ignatius was a little boy, Jesus held him and said: "Unless you turn and become as little children, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven "(Mt. 18:3). The Saint was called God-Bearer (Theophoros), because he bore God in his heart and prayed unceasingly to Him and because he was held in the arms of Christ. 

THE TEXT ON THE SCROLL: "What I want is God’s bread, which is the flesh of Christ, who came from David’s line; and for drink I want his blood: an immortal love feast indeed!" (Epistle of St. Ignatius to the Romans)

Orthodox icon of Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer (Theophoros) (2).

Commemorated December 20.

The Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-Bearer, was a disciple of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, as was also of St Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna (February 23). St Ignatius was the second bishop of Antioch, and successor to Bishop Euodius, Apostle of the Seventy. According to Tradition, when St Ignatius was a little boy, Jesus held him and said: "Unless you turn and become as little children, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven "(Mt. 18:3). The Saint was called God-Bearer (Theophoros), because he bore God in his heart and prayed unceasingly to Him and because he was held in the arms of Christ. 

THE TEXT ON THE SCROLL: "What I want is God’s bread, which is the flesh of Christ, who came from David’s line; and for drink I want his blood: an immortal love feast indeed!" (Epistle of St. Ignatius to the Romans)

Orthodox icon of Saint Ioannikios the Great.

Commemorated November 4.

Saint Joannicius the Great was born in Bithynia in the year 752 in the village of Marikat. His parents were destitute and could not provide him even the basics of an education. From childhood he had to tend the family cattle, their sole wealth. Love for God and prayer completely dominated the soul of the child Joannicius. Often, having shielded the herd with the Sign of the Cross, he went to a secluded place and spent the whole day praying, and neither thieves nor wild beasts came near his herd.

By order of the emperor Leo IV (775-780), a multitude of officials went through the cities and towns to draft young men for military service. Young Joannicius was also drafted into the imperial army. He earned the respect of his fellow soldiers for his good disposition, but he was also a brave soldier who struck fear in the hearts of his enemies. St Joannicius served in the imperial army for six years. More than once he was rewarded by his commanders and the emperor. But military service weighed heavily on him, his soul thirsted for spiritual deeds and solitude.

St Joannicius, having renounced the world, longed to go at once into the wilderness. However, on the advice of an Elder experienced in monastic life, he spent a further two years at the monastery. Here the saint became accustomed to monastic obedience, to monastic rules and practices. He studied reading and writing, and he learned thirty Psalms of David by heart. After this, commanded by God to go to a certain mountain, the monk withdrew into the wilderness. For three years he remained in deep solitude in the wilderness, and only once a month a shepherd brought him some bread and water.

The ascetic spent day and night in prayer and psalmody. After each verse of singing the Psalms St Joannicius made a prayer, which the Orthodox Church keeps to this day in a somewhat altered form, The Father is my hope, the Son is my refuge, the Holy Spirit is my protection. By chance, he encountered some of his former companions from military service. The saint fled the wilderness and withdrew to Mount Kountourea to hide himself from everyone. Only after twelve years of ascetic life did the hermit accept monastic tonsure. The saint spent three years in seclusion after being tonsured. wrapped in chains, Then he went to a place called Chelidon to see the great ascetic St George (February 21).

The ascetics spent three years together. During this time St Joannicius learned the entire Psalter by heart. As he grew older, St Joannicius settled in the Antidiev monastery and dwelt there in seclusion until his death. St Joannicius spent seventy years in ascetic deeds and attained to a high degree of spiritual perfection. Through the mercy of God the saint acquired the gift of prophecy, as his disciple Pachomius has related. The Elder also levitated above the ground when he prayed. Once, he crossed a river flooded to overflowing.

The saint could make himself invisible for people and make others also hidden from sight. Once, St Joannicius led Greek captives out of prison under the very eyes of the guards. Poison and fire, with which the envious wanted to destroy the saint, did him no harm, and predatory beasts did not touch him. He freed the island of Thasos from a multitude of snakes. St Joannicius also saved a young nun who was preparing to leave the monastery to marry; he took upon himself the agonized maiden's suffering of passion, and by fasting and prayer, he overcame the seductive assault of the devil. Foreseeing his death, St Joannicius fell asleep in the Lord on November 4, 846, at the age of 94.

Reference: O.C.A.

Orthodox icon of Saint Ioannikios the Great (2)

Commemorated November 4.

Saint Joannicius the Great was born in Bithynia in the year 752 in the village of Marikat. His parents were destitute and could not provide him even the basics of an education. From childhood he had to tend the family cattle, their sole wealth. Love for God and prayer completely dominated the soul of the child Joannicius. Often, having shielded the herd with the Sign of the Cross, he went to a secluded place and spent the whole day praying, and neither thieves nor wild beasts came near his herd.

By order of the emperor Leo IV (775-780), a multitude of officials went through the cities and towns to draft young men for military service. Young Joannicius was also drafted into the imperial army. He earned the respect of his fellow soldiers for his good disposition, but he was also a brave soldier who struck fear in the hearts of his enemies. St Joannicius served in the imperial army for six years. More than once he was rewarded by his commanders and the emperor. But military service weighed heavily on him, his soul thirsted for spiritual deeds and solitude.

St Joannicius, having renounced the world, longed to go at once into the wilderness. However, on the advice of an Elder experienced in monastic life, he spent a further two years at the monastery. Here the saint became accustomed to monastic obedience, to monastic rules and practices. He studied reading and writing, and he learned thirty Psalms of David by heart. After this, commanded by God to go to a certain mountain, the monk withdrew into the wilderness. For three years he remained in deep solitude in the wilderness, and only once a month a shepherd brought him some bread and water.

The ascetic spent day and night in prayer and psalmody. After each verse of singing the Psalms St Joannicius made a prayer, which the Orthodox Church keeps to this day in a somewhat altered form, The Father is my hope, the Son is my refuge, the Holy Spirit is my protection. By chance, he encountered some of his former companions from military service. The saint fled the wilderness and withdrew to Mount Kountourea to hide himself from everyone. Only after twelve years of ascetic life did the hermit accept monastic tonsure. The saint spent three years in seclusion after being tonsured. wrapped in chains, Then he went to a place called Chelidon to see the great ascetic St George (February 21).

The ascetics spent three years together. During this time St Joannicius learned the entire Psalter by heart. As he grew older, St Joannicius settled in the Antidiev monastery and dwelt there in seclusion until his death. St Joannicius spent seventy years in ascetic deeds and attained to a high degree of spiritual perfection. Through the mercy of God the saint acquired the gift of prophecy, as his disciple Pachomius has related. The Elder also levitated above the ground when he prayed. Once, he crossed a river flooded to overflowing.

The saint could make himself invisible for people and make others also hidden from sight. Once, St Joannicius led Greek captives out of prison under the very eyes of the guards. Poison and fire, with which the envious wanted to destroy the saint, did him no harm, and predatory beasts did not touch him. He freed the island of Thasos from a multitude of snakes. St Joannicius also saved a young nun who was preparing to leave the monastery to marry; he took upon himself the agonized maiden's suffering of passion, and by fasting and prayer, he overcame the seductive assault of the devil. Foreseeing his death, St Joannicius fell asleep in the Lord on November 4, 846, at the age of 94.

Reference: O.C.A.

Orthodox icon of Saint Irenaeus, Irineos, Ireneus of Lyon (France).

Commemorated August 23.

The Hieromartyr Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, was born in the year 130 in the city of Smyrna (Asia Minor). He received there the finest education, studying poetics, philosophy, rhetoric, and the rest of the classical sciences considered necessary for a young man of the world. His guide in the truths of the Christian Faith was a disciple of the Apostle John the Theologian, St Polycarp of Smyrna (February 23).

St Polycarp baptized the youth, and afterwards ordained him presbyter and sent him to a city in Gaul then named Lugdunum [the present day Lyons in France] to the dying bishop Pothinus. A commission was soon entrusted to St Irenaeus. He was to deliver a letter from the confessors of Lugdunum to the holy Bishop Eleutherius of Rome (177-190). While he was away, all the known Christians were thrown into prison. After the martyric death of Bishop Pothinus, St Irenaeus was chosen a year later (in 178) as Bishop of Lugdunum.

During this time, St Gregory of Tours (November 17) writes concerning him, by his preaching he transformed all Lugdunum into a Christian city! When the persecution against Christians quieted down, the saint expounded upon the Orthodox teachings of faith in one of his fundamental works under the title: Detection and Refutation of the Pretended but False Gnosis. It is usually called Five Books against Heresy (Adversus Haereses).

At that time there appeared a series of religious-philosophical gnostic teachings. The Gnostics [from the Greek word gnosis meaning knowledge taught that God cannot be incarnate [i.e. born in human flesh], since matter is imperfect and manifests itself as the bearer of evil. They taught also that the Son of God is only an outflowing (emanation) of Divinity. Together with Him from the Divinity issues forth a hierarchical series of powers ( aeons, the unity of which comprise the Pleroma, i.e. Fullness.

The world is not made by God Himself, but by the aeons or the Demiourgos,  which is below the Pleroma. In refuting the heresy of Valentinus, St Irenaeus presents the Orthodox teaching of salvation. The Word of God, Jesus Christ, through His inexplicable blessedness caused it to be, that we also, should be made that which He is ... , taught St Irenaeus.

Jesus Christ the Son of God, through exceedingly great love for His creation, condescended to be born of a Virgin, having united mankind with God in His own Self. Through the Incarnation of God, creation becomes co-imaged and co-bodied to the Son of God. Salvation consists in the Sonship and Theosis  (Divinization) of mankind. In the refutation of another heretic, Marcian, who denied the divine origin of the Old Testament, the saint affirms the same divine inspiration of the Old and the New Testaments: It is one and the same Spirit of God Who proclaimed through the prophets the precise manner of the Lord's coming, wrote the saint.

Through the apostles, He preached that the fulness of time of the filiation had arrived, and that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. The successors of the Apostles have received from God the certain gift of truth, which St Irenaeus links to the succession of the episcopate (Adv. Haer. 4, 26, 2). Anyone who desires to know the truth ought to turn to the Church, since through Her alone did the apostles expound the Divine Truth. She is the door to life.

St Irenaeus also exerted a beneficial influence in a dispute about the celebration of Pascha. In the Church of Asia Minor, there was an old tradition of celebrating Holy Pascha on the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan, regardless of what day of the week it happened to be. The Roman bishop Victor (190-202) forcefully demanded uniformity, and his harsh demands fomented a schism. In the name of the Christians of Gaul, St Irenaeus wrote to Bishop Victor and others, urging them to make peace. After this incident, St Irenaeus drops out of sight, and we do not even know the exact year of his death.

St Gregory of Tours, in his Historia Francorum, suggests that St Irenaeus was beheaded by the sword for his confession of faith in the year 202, during the reign of Severus. The Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, St Polycarp of Smyrna, and St Irenaeus of Lyons are three links in an unbroken chain of the grace of succession, which goes back to the Original Pastor, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. In his old age, St Irenaeus wrote to his old friend the priest Florinus: When I was still a boy, I knew you... in Polycarp's house....

I remember what happened in those days more clearly than what happens now.... I can describe for you the place where blessed Polycarp usually sat and conversed, the character of his life, the appearance of his body, and the discourses which he spoke to the people, how he spoke of the conversations which he had with John and others who had seen the Lord, how he remembered their words, and what he heard from them about the Lord ... I listened eagerly to these things, by the mercy of God, and wrote them, not on paper, but in my heart (Eusebius, Hist. Eccles.).

Reference: O.C.A.