Commemorated today
- Blessed Nicholas of Pskov, fool for Christ (1576)Fool for Christ · d. 1576
What is known
A fool for Christ took on the appearance of madness on purpose, to refuse the honour the world pays to piety and to say things nobody else could say safely. It is a rare and deliberately unsettling vocation, and the Church has always treated it cautiously.
The title places them at Pskov. The year given is 1576.
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.
- Righteous John Cassian 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.
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 Basil 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.
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.
- Jonah the Righteous Martyr of LeriosMartyr
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.
The title places them at Lerios. 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.
- Kyranna the New Martyr of ThessalonikiNew 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.
The title places them at Thessaloniki. 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 February 28 by the civil calendar. On the Julian calendar this same commemoration is kept on March 13 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.