Commemoration. A commemoration with its own hymns at Vespers.
Commemorated today
- Venerable Ephrem the SyrianMonastic life on this site
The life we have written
Venerable Ephrem the Syrian
A deacon who turned theology into poetry, Ephrem taught the faith through images, hymns, tears, and wonder, earning the beloved title “Harp of the Holy Spirit.”
- Era
- c. 306–373
- Region
- Nisibis and Edessa in Roman Mesopotamia
- Category
- Deacon, monastic, poet, hymnographer, and Church Father
- Feast
- January 28
- Our Holy Father Isaac the Syrian, bishop of Nineveh (7th century)Hierarch · 7th century life on this site
The life we have written
Saint Isaac the Syrian, Bishop of Nineveh
After briefly occupying a bishop’s throne, Isaac returned to solitude and became one of the Church’s most searching teachers of repentance, stillness, humility, and mercy toward all creation.
- Era
- Seventh century
- Region
- Beth Qatraye, Mesopotamia, Nineveh, and the monastery of Rabban Shabur
- Category
- Bishop, monastic, ascetic, and spiritual writer
- Feast
- January 28
- James the RighteousRighteous
What is known
The righteous are lay men and women commemorated for holiness in ordinary life rather than for martyrdom or monastic vows.
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.
- Palladios the Hermit of AntiochMonastic
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 Antioch. 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.
- Theodosius of Totma
What is known
The title places them at Totma.
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.
- Grace the 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.
Appointed readings
About this page. This is the Menaion date — the fixed calendar. Parishes on the New Calendar keep it on January 28 by the civil calendar. On the Julian calendar this same commemoration is kept on February 10 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.