Commemorated today
- St Bucolus, Bishop of SmyrnaHierarch
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 Smyrna.
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 Photios, patriarch of Constantinople (891)Hierarch · d. 891 life on this site
The life we have written
Saint Photios the Great of Constantinople
One of the most learned Christians of his age, Photios used scholarship, pastoral leadership, and missionary vision to defend the Church’s faith during a deeply contested patriarchate.
- Era
- c. 810–c. 893
- Region
- Constantinople and the Byzantine Christian world
- Category
- Patriarch, theologian, scholar, confessor, and missionary supporter
- Feast
- February 6
- Sts Barsanuphius and John the Prophet, monks of Palestine (6th century)Prophet · 6th century
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.
The title places them at Palestine. The year given is the 6th century.
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.
- The Martyr and Healer Julian (Ilyan) of HomsMartyr
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 Homs. 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.
Appointed readings
About this page. This is the Menaion date — the fixed calendar. Parishes on the New Calendar keep it on February 6 by the civil calendar. On the Julian calendar this same commemoration is kept on February 19 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.