Commemoration. A commemoration with its own hymns at Vespers.
Commemorated today
- Virgin Martyr Theodosia of TyreMartyr
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 title places them at Tyre.
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.
- Commemoration of the First Ecumenical Council (325)A synaxis — several kept together · 325
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.
The year given is 325.
What is kept is the council and what it settled, rather than the life of any one of the fathers who sat at it.
- Repose of Blessed John of UstiugBlessed · Repose
What is known
Blessed is used in the Slavic tradition both for the fools for Christ and, more loosely, as an honorific for saints whose veneration is local or recent.
The title places it at Ustiug.
What is kept today is this event in particular rather than the whole life behind it, and of that life no account survives here that could be checked.
- The Fall of Constantinople (1453); "Blessed Constantine XII, last of the Byzantine emperors, martyred by the Turks (1453)"Blessed · d. 1453
What is known
Blessed is used in the Slavic tradition both for the fools for Christ and, more loosely, as an honorific for saints whose veneration is local or recent.
The title places them at Constantinople. The year given is 1453.
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.
- Seven New Martyrs of KastoriaNew 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 Kastoria. Kept in the Greek tradition.
They are kept together rather than separately, and for most of them the number, the place and the manner of death are the whole of what is recorded.
- Andrew the New Martyr of ArgentesNew 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 Argentes. 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 May 29 by the civil calendar. On the Julian calendar this same commemoration is kept on June 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.