Commemorated today
- Great Martyr Irene of ThessalonicaGreat Martyr
What is known
A great martyr is one whose sufferings were unusually prolonged or public, and whose veneration spread widely and early. The title marks the scale of what was endured and of the honour that followed, not a higher rank in heaven.
The title places them at Thessalonica.
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.
- Neophytos, Gaius, & Caianus the Monk-martyrsMartyr
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.
- The Righteous Martyr Ephraim the YoungerMartyr
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.
- Euthymios the Wonderworker, Bishop of MadytosHierarch
What is known
A hierarch is a bishop — including patriarchs, metropolitans and archbishops. The Church commemorates bishops in this rank whether they are remembered chiefly for teaching, for governing, or for holding a see through a difficult century.
The title places them at Madytos. 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.
- Ephraim the Neomartyr
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.
About this page. This is the Menaion date — the fixed calendar. Parishes on the New Calendar keep it on May 5 by the civil calendar. On the Julian calendar this same commemoration is kept on May 18 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.