Commemorated today
- Hieromartyr Mark, Bishop of ArethusaHieromartyr — a bishop or priest killed for the faith
What is known
A hieromartyr was a bishop, priest or deacon killed for the faith. The clergy were often taken first in a persecution, because removing them scattered the community that depended on them.
The title places them at Arethusa.
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.
- Our Holy Father John the Hermit (4th century)Monastic · 4th century
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 year given is the 4th 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 Holy Martyrs Jonas and BarachesiusMartyr
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.
- Eustathios the Confessor, Bishop of BithyniaConfessor — suffered for the faith but was not killed
What is known
A confessor suffered for the faith and lived: imprisoned, exiled, tortured, stripped of office. The Church honours the witness without requiring the death.
The title places them at Bithynia. 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.
About this page. This is the Menaion date — the fixed calendar. Parishes on the New Calendar keep it on March 29 by the civil calendar. On the Julian calendar this same commemoration is kept on April 11 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.