On the day before Meatfare Sunday, on which we remember the Last Judgment, the Orthodox Church prays for those of its members who may have died unexpectedly because of wars, plagues, starvation, or any other sort of death while they were in a foreign country, or while they were traveling by sea, by…

During a war between the Byzantine Emperor Theophilus (829-842) and the Saracens, the Saracens managed to besiege the city of Ammoria (in Galicia in Asia Minor). As a result of treason on the part of the military commander Baditses, Ammoria fell, and forty-two of its generals were taken captive and…

The Holy Empress Helen uncovered the Precious Cross and Nails of the Lord at Jerusalem in 326. At the beginning of the reign of Saint Constantine the Great (306-337), the first Roman emperor to recognize Christianity, he and his pious mother Saint Helen decided to rebuild the city of Jerusalem.…

The Holy Hieromartyr Conon lived in Iconium (Asia Minor). After he became a widower, he went to a monastery with his son. Because of his devout life the saint was granted help from above. He cast out devils, he healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, and preached Christ among the pagans,…

Saint Arcadius from his youth devoted himself to monastic efforts. The saint struggled on the island of Cyprus during the time of the emperor Constantine the Great (306-337). He was the teacher of the holy Martyrs Julian the Physician and Eubolos, executed under Julian the Apostate (361-363).…

The “Blessed Heaven” Icon of the Mother of God is on the iconostasis of the Moscow Archangel cathedral in the Kremlin. Previously, this icon was at Smolensk and brought to Moscow by Sophia, daughter of the Lithuanian prince Vitovt, when she became the wife of Prince Basil of Moscow…

The wonderworking Czestochowa Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos is to be found in a Roman Catholic monastery at Yasna Gora near the city of Czestochowa, Petrov Province. It is believed to be one of the seventy icons painted by the holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke (October 18). Tradition says that the…