Commemorated today
- Venerable John ClimacusMonastic life on this site
The life we have written
Venerable John Climacus of Sinai
The author of The Ladder of Divine Ascent mapped the hidden struggle from restless self-will toward humility, prayer, discernment, and the love that stands at the summit.
- Era
- c. 579–649
- Region
- Mount Sinai
- Category
- Monk, hermit, abbot, and ascetic writer
- Feast
- March 30 and the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent
- Commemoration of an Uncondemning MonkMonastic
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.
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.
- Zacharias 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.
About this page. This is the Menaion date — the fixed calendar. Parishes on the New Calendar keep it on March 30 by the civil calendar. On the Julian calendar this same commemoration is kept on April 12 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.