PIMEN the Great (27th August 340-450AD)
The word pimen is Greek for shepherd, and Pimen the Great was indeed a great shepherd to the Roman Christians of the 4th and 5th centuries.  He is one of the more famous of what are called the Desert Fathers – those ascetics who lived in the Egyptian desert around that period, and whose sayings were collected into a book originally published in Coptic, but later translated into Greek.

Less strict than other ascetics of the time, he is more noted for being a teacher and spiritual father.  He refused to meet with the Governor when his counsel was sought, out of his own humility, and was very concerned with forgiving the sins of others.  “If you see a brother sinning, do not believe your eyes. Know that your own sin is like a beam of wood, but the sin of your brother is like a splinter (Mt. 7:3-5), and then you will not enter into distress or temptation.”

A monk once said to the saint, “I have sinned grievously and I want to spend three years at repentance. Is that enough time?” The Elder replied, “That is a long time.” The monk continued to ask how long the saint wished him to repent. Perhaps only a year?  Pimen said, “That is a long time.” The other brethren asked, “Should he repent for forty days?” The Elder answered, “I think that if a man repents from the depths of his heart and has a firm intention not to return to the sin, then God will accept three days of repentance.”

He was strict in his fasting and sometimes would not partake of food for a week or more. He advised others to eat every day, but without eating their fill.  Pimen heard of a certain monk who went for a week without eating, but had lost his temper. The saint lamented that the monk was able to fast for an entire week, but was unable to abstain from anger for even a single day.

Pimen had copious amounts of wisdom to dispense, and is worth reading even in the 21st Century as the most quoted Saint in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers.  He reposed in peace in 450AD aged 110.

MOSES the Black (28th August, 330-405AD)
In the fourth century, there was nobody more gangsta than Moses.  Originally an Abyssinian slave in a pagan household, he broke free of his master and lived a life of murder, robbery and loose women, terrorising the Nile Valley with his gang of bandits.  He would egotistically challenge God to show his existence, since he felt that nobody could challenge or better him.

One day this bragging elicited a response – “The monks of Wadi El-Natroun know the real God. Go to them and they will tell you.”  Having thus been dared, and looking for sanctuary from a robbery that had gone awry, he took refuge in the monastery, and was eventually converted to faith in Christ and baptised by Saint Macarius.

Moses spent many years struggling against his old passions and temptations, but finally overcame them through ascesis.  He became one of the great Desert Fathers, leading a monastery of 500 men.  One story attributed to him relates to a monk who had greatly sinned, and Moses was invited to a meeting to discuss an appropriate penance, Moses refused to attend. When he was again called to the meeting, Moses took a leaking basket filled with sand. When he arrived at the meeting place, the others asked why he was carrying the basket. He replied, “My sins run out behind me and I do not see them, but today I am coming to judge the errors of another.” On hearing this, the assembled brothers forgave the erring monk.

Eventually he was ordained a Priest.  The story goes that when he was put forward, the Patriarch feigned racism, expressing shock at his black skin and ordering him to be cast out.  Moses simply obeyed with humility, at which the Patriarch called him back and declared him worthy of ordination!

Moses retained some of his prior fearlessness.  On one occasion, when bandits attacked the monastery, he overpowered them and dragged them all into the chapel, at which they converted!  But he also took to heart Christ’s admonition that those who live by the sword, die by it, and when the monastery was attacked again, he stood his ground, accepting martyrdom from the assailants as the completion of his salvation.

Moses is well beloved by many African American converts to Orthodoxy, as well as many others for his wisdom and transformation in Christ.

JOHN the Baptist (29th August, 1BC-30AD)
The Glorious Prophet and Forerunner John the Baptist was the last and greatest of the Old Testament prophets, a wild, desert-dwelling man who urged the Jews of his day to repent in preparation for the coming Messiah.  He preached repentance through baptism, ceremonial Jewish washing which cleansed the penitent of his sins.  When Christ was revealed to him, he baptised Him also, though Christ was sinless, showing baptism as an act that transforms the material world and the individuals in it through the finally-revealed Messiah.  This act was the culmination of all the work of the Patriarchs, Prophets and Moses the bringer of the Law, and John was revealed as the greatest of these, who passed the baton from the Jews to The Jew.

His eventual beheading at the hands of Herod, traditionally held to be on 29th August, is well known from the Gospels.  He is often depicted in iconography as holding his own head on a platter!  He is also traditionally depicted in the resurrection icon in Hades with Christ, acting as a forerunner there also.  In Orthodox churches, his icon is always placed to the right of Christ (that is, on His left hand side) on the front wall dividing the altar from the nave, and he is often given wings to reflect his exalted status in the Church.  He is also the only Saint of the Church whose “feast” day is actually a day of fasting!

IRENAEUS of Lyons (130-202AD, 23rd August)

Irenaeus is the most pre-eminent scholar of the 2nd Century Christian Church.  Born in Smyrna as a disciple of the famous Polycarp (and therefore a spiritual grandson of the Apostle John), he travelled west to become Bishop of Lyons in what is now France.

His definitive text, Against Heresies, does exactly what it says on the tin – it is a voluminous work that rebukes, rebuts and corrects the various heresies of his time, including Gnosticism and Marcionism.  He does this by several means, including quoting from the Old Testament, confirming the validity of only four Gospels, quoting Paul’s epistles, as well as works like the Didache, 1 Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas.  But most crucially, Irenaeus cites Apostolic succession – that his teachings are the same as those handed down to him by the Bishops from the Apostles, and especially from Rome – the See of Peter and Paul.  He places great stock in his claim that what he advocates is unchanged from the Apostles, whereas the heretics have altered teachings.

It is in Irenaeus that we also see a developed Mariology, where she is cited as the New Eve, who restores with her obedience what the old Eve corrupted by her disobedience.  His writings show that, even a mere century after the repose of the Apostles, Church dogma was clearly defined and guarded, and that there was an established Orthodox Church.  It is also as revealing to note what is not discussed as well as what is disputed between Christian sects.

Irenaeus is thought to have been martyred, though details of his death are unknown, in 202AD.

MARY the Most Holy Theotokos (15th August, 16BC-48AD)

Mary is the greatest mortal being who has ever lived, a model of human perfection that will remain unsurpassed.  To quote the prayer of Saint John Chrysostom, “It is truly meet to bless thee, O Theotokos, who art ever blessed and all blameless, and the mother of our God.  More honourable than the Cherubim, and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, thou who without corruption barest God the Word and art truly Theotokos, we magnify thee!”

Why is Mary worthy of such accolades?  Because she was found worthy to bear the Son of God, and freely agreed to the task.  Because her virtue never faltered.  Because she carried God inside her body, and was united with Him in communion her whole life without failing.  Because she is the bridge by which God travels to us to save us, the Ark of the New Covenant, the new Mercy Seat, and the new Eve, who restores the communion broken by the old Eve.  She is the greatest of all the Saints, the first of the Christians, the mystical embodiment of Christ’s Church, and through becoming the Mother of God, she becomes our Mother in Christ also.  Giving props to Mary is essential to our Christian walk, and our proclamation and worship of who Christ is, since her role in His incarnation is indispensable.  And with that, as she leads us to her Son, she intercedes for us as a protectress to us all.

For more Mariological reading, here’s a good article on the subject by Fr Peter Gilquist, and here is my own garbled effort.

While there is some detail of Mary in the Gospels (as well as prophecies in the Old Testament, and references in Revelation if you are prepared to look), much of what we know of her life is based on oral Tradition, some of which is detailed in the Apocryphal book The Protoevangelion of James, which, while it is falsely attributed to the first Bishop of Jerusalem, still dates to around 140AD, and is regarded as fairly accurately reflecting the traditional narratives around her.  This narrative tells us that Mary was born in Bethlehem as the only child of two righteous Jews, the elderly Joachim and Anna (though this conception and birth, while miraculous because of their age, was not “immaculate” in the sense promoted by the Latin church).  At the age of three, she was dedicated to serve God in the Temple in Jerusalem, where, to the horror of Zachariah, the High Priest and her uncle, she is supposed to have run into the Most Holy Place and sat on the Mercy Seat!

Having served in the Temple beyond the death of her parents, she reached puberty and thereby became unable to remain in the Temple.  Therefore, someone was required to look after her, and the widower Joseph was chosen by lot to keep her in troth.

The story of the Nativity should be familiar to most readers.  Despite her marriage, she remained a virgin (as Saint Jerome compellingly argues), and continued to support Christ even in His ministry.  When Christ charged the Apostle John with her care on the Cross, she remained with John as he traveled, living with him in Ephesus for a time.  However, Tradition holds that she later returned to Jerusalem, where the Archangel Gabriel forewarned her of her repose, and the Apostles were all miraculously translated (in the same manner as Phillip the Deacon was in the book of Acts) to her side.  She fell asleep on 15th August, around 48AD, and was entombed next to her parents at Gethsemane.  To this day, the Dormition of the Theotokos is the third most important feast day of the Church, after Pascha (Easter) and the Nativity.

As the story goes, the Apostle Thomas is supposed to have been translated to Jerusalem three days later than the others, and requested to be able to venerate the body.  However, when the tomb was opened, Mary’s body was not there.  The Church believes that her body was assumed to Heaven to be with Christ, as the firstfruits of our own bodily resurrection in Christ.

Most Holy Theotokos, save us!

Yeah, I missed a few weeks.  I’ve had my kids with me for the summer.  But there was a bunch of VIPs we missed:

VLADIMIR of Kiev (15th July, 958-1015AD)
A devout pagan King of the Russians, with multiple wives, his curiosity about other belief systems (including the Christianity of his grandmother Olga) got the better of him.  He sent envoys to various parts of the globe to explore the faiths, including to Muslims, Jews and Latin Christians.  None proved satisfactory, until the emissaries to Constantinople attended a service of the Divine Liturgy in Hagia Sophia, and reported “We no longer knew whether we were in Heaven or on Earth”.  This, along with the political convenience that an alliance with the Romans provided, convinced Vladimir, and he ordered that the pagan idols be smashed and “strongly encouraged” his citizens to be baptized.  This “Baptism of Holy Rus” occurred in 988AD, and is to this day the largest mass conversion to Christianity in its two thousand year history.  The change in both Vladimir, and Kievan Rus, was dramatic – a hitherto rapacious and warlike King became a man of peace who kept only one wife.

Vladimir is given the title Equal to the Apostles in the Church, and is rightly venerated as the father of the Russian nation, as well as a holy Saint.

ELIZABETH of Russia (18th July, 1864-1918AD)
A granddaughter of Queen Victoria, who was raised at Buckingham Palace following the death of her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Hesse am Rhein, Elizabeth was chrismated Orthodox of her own free will, adopting the faith of her husband, Grand Duke Sergei of Russia.  She devoted herself to her new faith with great gusto.

In 1905 Sergei was murdered by a communist terrorist who had planted a bomb in his car.  Elizabeth famously visited the perpetrator in prison, forgiving him for what he did, but warning him that he needed to repent and giving him a copy of the gospels to read.  A short time afterwards, she decided to accept tonsure and become a nun, liquidating her many assets and jewels to build the convent of Saints Mary and Martha in Moscow, of which she became the first Abbess.

Following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Elizabeth was taken from her monastery and imprisoned.  She, with several other members of the nobility and their employees, were thrown down a mine shaft and blasted with grenades.  These, however, failed to kill her, and she was eventually martyred by asphyxiation from a fire that had been set in the shaft.

Saint Elizabeth is my daughter Bella’s name Saint, and has become very popular among modern Orthodox Christians, especially converts to the faith, for her piety, her willingness to forgive, and her devotion to the poor of Moscow as an Abbess.

MACRINA (19th July, 330-379AD)
Macrina was from the famous Cappadocian family of Saints that also gave us Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa.  Though she herself wrote no texts, her younger brother Gregory wrote extensively about her, her virginity and asceticism for Christ, and liberally quoted her, referring to her as “the Teacher”.  She is therefore, through Gregory’s writings, regarded as a Church Mother along with the many Church Father.

She is famous for having refused any further suitors following the tragic death of her betrothed fiancee, instead opting to live the life of a monastic, and convincing her mother, Saint Emilia, to free their slaves and give away their possessions.

Macrina was renowned for her skills as a philosopher, as can be seen through Gregory’s work On the Soul and Resurrection, and other texts.  She reposed in peace in 379 or 380AD.

MARY Magdalene (22nd July)
Other than Christ’s mother, Mary Magdalene is regarded as the woman who was closest to Him in His earthly ministry.  Because of this, there is much speculation about her from some who would like to discredit Christ’s sexual purity, or to claim he was married to her, or had children by her (a view that Dan Brown based a notorious novel on).  There has also been through the centuries, attempts to paint her as a reformed prostitute or scarlet woman, but there is certainly no evidence of any of this from either the Gospels, or the Holy Tradition, which states that she was merely beset by seven demons, whom Christ cast out.

While not an Apostle (an office given only to men), she is given the title Apostle to the Apostles, as she was blessed to be the first person to see the resurrected Christ, and report this fact to the Apostles, thus she holds a special place in the Church.  Following Pentecost, she joined in the ministry of the Apostles, preaching the Gospel around the Roman Empire.

It is to Mary Magdalene that the tradition of Easter Eggs is ascribed.  She is reputed to have met with, and directly confronted, the Emperor Tiberius, discussing Christ’s resurrection with him over dinner.  The Emperor bragged to her that a man could no more be resurrected than the boiled eggs before him could change colour, at which point the eggs turned bright red.  She then began to use coloured eggs as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection in her preaching.

The date of Mary’s repose is unknown, but Tradition suggests that it was peaceful, in Ephesus, at some time in the late 1st Century.

SISOëS the Great (6th July, d. 429AD)
Many Saints of the Church are very difficult to write about in an entertaining way – especially those who live their lives in solitude as tonsured monastics.  It is truly and literally a case of “no news is good news” – they stay in solitude and pray, and achieve a holiness that radiates Christ’s Light.  So it is with Sisoës, whose asceticism and temperance stands as an example of what is possible with humility and love of God.

Sisoës, originally from Alexandria in Egypt, lived for many years in a desert cave with the relics of Saint Anthony, the father of the monastic movement.  The most famous story told about him attests to his humility.  When St Sisoës lay upon his deathbed, his disciples saw that his face shone like the sun. They asked the dying man what he saw. Abba Sisoës replied that he saw Saint Anthony, the Prophets and the Apostles. His face increased in brightness, and he spoke with someone. The monks asked, “With whom are you speaking, Father?” He said that angels had come for his soul, and he was entreating them to give him a little more time for repentance. The monks said, “You have no need for repentance, Father” Saint Sisoës said with great humility, “I do not think that I have even begun to repent.”

There are many wonderful quotes and aphorisms attributed to Sisoës, but my favourite is probably the following:  A brother asked Abba Sisoës, “What shall I do, abba, for I have fallen?”  The old man said to him “Get up again.”  The brother said, “I have got up again, but I have fallen again.”  The old man said, “Get up again and again.”  So the brother said, “How many times?”  The old man said, “Until you are taken up either in virtue or in sin.  For a man presents himself to judgement in the state in which he is found.”

He is often depicted in icons standing above the bones of Alexander the Great, a reminder to Christians that death humbles the proud.

OLGA of Kiev (11th July, 890-969AD)
Olga is regarded as the first Russian Christian, and is given the title of Equal to the Apostles by the Church.  The wife of Igor, the ruler of Kievan Rus, she became a Christian and was baptised on a state visit to the Roman capital of Constantinople in 957AD.

While her conversion did not have an immediate effect on the Russians, and her son, who ruled at the time, did not embrace the faith, she is still venerated as the first Russian Saint, and it is almost certain that if it were not for her influence and prayers, her grandson Vladimir would not himself have dramatically converted and dramatically turned Kievan Rus into a Christian nation nearly twenty years after her death.

PETER and PAUL (29th June, d.67AD)
Most Christian readers ought to be familiar with these two “Princes of the Apostles”, whose joint feast day was celebrated this last Monday, and is regarded as the fourth most important feast of the Church after Pascha, Nativity, and the Dormition of the Theotokos.  Peter, one of the original twelve Apostles of Christ, is regarded as the leader of the twelve, a passionate firebrand of a man who, like his fellow Apostles, preached in numerous places, but especially in Antioch, where he is regarded as the first Bishop of the Antiochian Orthodox Church, which survives to this day.  There is, however, actually no record of him being Bishop of Rome, a position which Irenaus says was first occupied by Linus on Peter’s appointment and consecration.  Nevertheless, he, with Paul, is regarded as the founder of the Roman Church, and both the Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Antioch are said to sit in “the See (or seat) of Peter”.

Paul, made an Apostle by revelation of Christ on the road to Damascus from Jerusalem, similarly needs no introduction.  The boldest and most widely travelled of all the Apostles, and “the Apostle to the Gentiles”, Paul wrote the bulk of the New Testament epistles.  He and Peter were both martyred under Nero around the same time – Peter by being crucified upside down on Vatican hill, and Paul by beheading (denoting his privilege as a Roman citizen).

COSMAS and DAMIAN of Rome, Holy Unmercenaries (1st July, d.284AD)
Cosmas and Damian were brother physicians, whom God granted supernatural powers of healing, and through this they won many people over in favour of Christ.  They are called “unmercenary”, because they accepted no payment for their treatment, and told the sick that it was not their own power that healed, but Christ’s.

The authorities arrested several Christians for refusing to give up the location of the brothers.  Hearing this, they offered to turn themselves in in exchange for their release.  Brought before the Emperor Carinus and put on trial, the Emperor was suddenly struck blind, however, the brothers healed him and restored his sight.  Having been subject to this miracle, the Emperor had no choice but to release them.

The brothers were martyred, not by the Roman authorities, but by their own teacher of medicine, who was driven by envy of their gifts, and lured them into the mountains on the pretense of finding medicinal herbs before killing them both.