Terminology - saint

SAINT -Literally, “a holy person.” With God as the source of true holiness, all Christians are called to be saints (Rom. 16:2; 1 Cor. 1:1, 2). But from the earliest times, the Church has designated certain outstanding men and women who have departed this life and reached deification as worthy of veneration and canonization as… Read More

CANONIZATION – The ceremony by which a deceased Christian is declared by the Church to be regarded as a saint. The word canonization means that a Christian has been found worthy to have his name placed in the canon (list) of saints of the Church. This canon is read during the services of the Church…. Read More

Gospel Reading: Luke 3:19-22 (Saint) At that time, Herod the tetrarch, who had been reproved by John for Herodias, his brother’s wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, added this to them all, that he shut up John in prison. Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also… Read More

Epistle Reading: Hebrews 13:7-16 (Saint) Brethren, remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God; consider the outcome of their lives, and imitate their faith.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever.  Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings; for it is well that the… Read More

Epistle Reading: Hebrews 7:26-28;8:1-2 (Saint) Brethren, it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, unstained, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens.  He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people; he did this once… Read More

John 10:9-16 (Saint) The Lord said,  I am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.   The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.  I am the good shepherd…. Read More

Ephesians 5:9-19 (26 Sunday after Pentecost)) (Also read for St. John Climacus on 4th Sunday of Great Lent, and on the Day of the Holy Spirit) BRETHREN, the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.  Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in… Read More

Matthew 4:25-5:12 (Saint) At that time, great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decap’olis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.  Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him.  And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:  “Blessed are the… Read More

Gospel Reading: Luke 7:36-50 (Saint) (Also read 4th Monday of Luke) At that time, one of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house, and took his place at table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was at… Read More

The Reading is from Luke 6:17-23 (Saint) At that time, Jesus stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those… Read More

Gospel Reading: Luke 6:46-49, 7:1 (Saint) The Lord said, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Every one who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep,… Read More

Matthew 11:27-30 (Saint) (Also read on the 4th Thursday after Pentecost) The Lord said, “All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.  Come to… Read More

Hebrews 13:17-21 (Saint) BRETHREN, obey your leaders and submit to them; for they are keeping watch over your souls, as men who will have to give account. Let them do this joyfully, and not sadly, for that would be of no advantage to you.  Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a… Read More

Wisdom of Solomon 5:15-6:3 (Vespers, 1st Reading – saint) The righteous live for ever, and their reward is with the Lord; the Most High takes care of them.  Therefore they will receive a glorious crown and a beautiful diadem from the hand of the Lord, because with his right hand he will cover them, and… Read More

Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9 (Vespers, 2nd Reading – saint) The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them.  In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be an affliction,  and their going from us to be their… Read More

I Corinthians 12:7-11 (Saint) Brethren, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.  To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,  to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the… Read More

I John 4:1-6  (Vespers, Saint) Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every… Read More

AKOLOUTHIA AKOLOUTHIA – Greek term for (a) the order of a service (Slavonic: chinoposledovanie), or (b) the service itself (Slavonic: sluzhba). When a new saint is canonized a complete akolouthia for that saint is written, including all necessary texts for hesperinos, orthros and the Divine Liturgy, and normally an akathist and paraklesis of the saint…. Read More

Introduction to the Lives of the Saints

^{by Ven. Justin Popovich}

Until the coming of the Lord Christ into our terrestrial world, we men really knew only about death and death knew about us. Everything human was penetrated, captured, and conquered by death. Death was closer to us than we ourselves and more real than we ourselves, and more powerful, incomparably more powerful than every man individually and all men together. Earth was a dreadful prison of death, and we people were the helpless slaves of death. ^[1] Only with the God-man Christ “life was manifested”; “eternal life” appeared to us hopeless mortals, the wretched slaves of death. ^[2] And that “eternal life” we men have “seen with our eyes and handled with our hands,” ^[3] and we Christians “make manifest eternal life” to all. ^[4] For living in union with the Lord Christ, we live eternal life even here on earth. ^[5] We know from personal experience that Jesus Christ is the true God and eternal life. ^[6] And for this did He come into the world: to show us the true God and eternal life in Him. ^[7] Genuine and true love for man consists of this, only of this: that God sent His Only-Begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him ^{(1 John 4: 9)} and through Him live eternal life. Therefore, he who has the Son of God has life; he who has not the Son of God has not life ^{(1 John 5: 12)} – he is completely in death. Life in the one true God and Lord Jesus Christ is really our only true life because it is wholly eternal and completely stronger than death. Can a life which is infected by death and which ends in death really be called life? just as honey is not honey when it is mixed with a poison which gradually turns all the honey into poison, so a life which ends in death is not life.