Polyeleos. Kept with the Polyeleos at Matins.
Commemorated today
- Venerable Xenia of RomeMonastic
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 Rome.
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.
- Blessed Xenia of St PetersburgBlessed life on this site
The life we have written
Blessed Xenia of Saint Petersburg
Widowed suddenly while still young, Xenia surrendered status, possessions, and ordinary security, carrying grief through the streets until it became hidden prayer for an entire city.
- Era
- Eighteenth century; exact dates uncertain
- Region
- Saint Petersburg, Russia
- Category
- Fool-for-Christ, widow, ascetic, and intercessor
- Feast
- January 24; February 6 on the civil calendar for churches using the Old Calendar
- Our Holy Father Macedonian (c. 430)d. c. 430
What is known
The year given is about 430.
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.
- Vavylas the Holy MartyrMartyr
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.
- Philo the Wonderworker, Bishop of Karpasia in CyprusHierarch
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 Karpasia. 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 January 24 by the civil calendar. On the Julian calendar this same commemoration is kept on February 6 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.