Nativity of St John the Baptist
Great Feast. A feast of the Lord or of the Theotokos.
Commemorated today
- Nativity of St John the Baptist
What is known
This is a feast of the Church rather than the commemoration of a person, so there is no life behind it to tell.
- Synaxis of Sts Zacharias and ElisabethA synaxis — several kept together
What is known
A synaxis is an assembly: a day on which a group is kept together rather than one by one. It often falls the day after a great feast, honouring those who stood closest to it.
A synaxis is an assembly: a day that gathers a group together, or that honours those who stood closest to a feast kept the day before. What survives of each of them varies, and for most it is very little.
- Holy Martyrs Orentius, Pharnacius, Eros, Firmus, Firminus, Cyriacus and Longinus (3rd century)Martyr · 3rd century
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 year given is the 3th 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.
- Athanasios Parios
What is known
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.
- Panagiotis 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.
Appointed readings
- Composite 10 – Genesis 17:15–17, 19; 18:11–14; 21:1–8
- Composite 11 – Judges 13:2–8, 13–14, 17–18, 21
- Composite 8 – Isaiah 40, 41, 45, 48, 54
- Luke 1:24–25, 57–68, 76, 80
- Romans 13:11–14:4 continues in 14
- Luke 1:1–25, 57–68, 76, 80
- Luke 1:1–15, 57–68, 76, 80
About this page. This is the Menaion date — the fixed calendar. Parishes on the New Calendar keep it on June 24 by the civil calendar. On the Julian calendar this same commemoration is kept on July 7 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.