Fast day.
Commemorated today
- Martyr Sebastian and Companions at RomeMartyr life on this site
The life we have written
Holy Martyr Sebastian of Rome
Remembered as a soldier who quietly strengthened imprisoned Christians, Sebastian used access to power not for self-protection but for service and confession.
- Era
- Late third century; traditionally martyred around 288
- Region
- Milan and Rome
- Category
- Martyr and soldier
- Feast
- December 18
- Holy Hieromartyr Modestus I, Archbishop of Jerusalem (634)Hieromartyr — a bishop or priest killed for the faith · d. 634
What is known
A hieromartyr was a bishop, priest or deacon killed for the faith. The clergy were often taken first in a persecution, because removing them scattered the community that depended on them.
The title places them at Jerusalem. The year given is 634.
Beyond this, no life of them survives that could be checked — which is true of most of the saints kept on any given day. The commemoration is the record.
- St Michael Syngellos the ConfessorConfessor — suffered for the faith but was not killed
What is known
A confessor suffered for the faith and lived: imprisoned, exiled, tortured, stripped of office. The Church honours the witness without requiring the death.
Kept in the Greek tradition.
Beyond this, no life of them survives that could be checked — which is true of most of the saints kept on any given day. The commemoration is the record.
About this page. This is the Menaion date — the fixed calendar. Parishes on the New Calendar keep it on December 18 by the civil calendar. On the Julian calendar this same commemoration is kept on December 31 by the civil calendar. The movable cycle, which turns on the date of Pascha and changes every year, is on the calendar page. Where a life has been written on this site the name links to it; where it has not, only what the commemoration itself attests is shown, and nothing is added to it.