Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles
Polyeleos. Kept with the Polyeleos at Matins.
Commemorated today
- Synaxis of the Holy, Glorious and All-praised Twelve ApostlesApostle · A synaxis — several kept together
What is known
An apostle was sent. The word covers the Twelve, the Seventy whom Christ sent ahead of him, and a few others the New Testament names in the same office.
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.
- Michael the New Martyr of AthensNew 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 Athens. 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 June 30 by the civil calendar. On the Julian calendar this same commemoration is kept on July 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.