Doxology. Kept with the Great Doxology.
Fast day.
Commemorated today
- Prophet ZephaniahProphet
What is known
A prophet in the Orthodox calendar is almost always one of the Old Testament prophets, commemorated by the Church that reads them as speaking of Christ.
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.
- Our Venerable Father John the Silent, Bishop of Colonia (558)Hierarch · d. 558
What is known
A hierarch is a bishop — including patriarchs, metropolitans and archbishops. The Church commemorates bishops in this rank whether they are remembered chiefly for teaching, for governing, or for holding a see through a difficult century.
The title places them at Colonia. The year given is 558.
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.
- Venerable Savva of ZvenigorodMonastic
What is known
A monastic — the calendar usually says venerable — lived under vows: a monk, nun, hermit, abbot or abbess. This is the largest single group in the Menaion, and for most of them the monastery is the whole of what is recorded.
The title places them at Zvenigorod.
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.
- Holy Martyrs Agapius and SeleuciusMartyr
What is known
A martyr died rather than deny Christ. The word is Greek for witness, and the Church uses it in that sense: the death is testimony, not merely a fate. Most of these deaths fall in the Roman persecutions before 313, though the title is not restricted to them.
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.
- Theodore, Archbishop of AlexandriaHierarch
What is known
A hierarch is a bishop — including patriarchs, metropolitans and archbishops. The Church commemorates bishops in this rank whether they are remembered chiefly for teaching, for governing, or for holding a see through a difficult century.
The title places them at Alexandria.
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.
- Angelis the New MartyrNew Martyr — killed under Ottoman or modern persecution
What is known
A new martyr died in one of the later persecutions rather than the Roman ones — most often under Ottoman rule, or in the twentieth century under Soviet and other modern regimes. The word new distinguishes the era, not the manner.
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.
- Karpos the HieromartyrHieromartyr — a bishop or priest killed for the faith
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.
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 3 by the civil calendar. On the Julian calendar this same commemoration is kept on December 16 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.