Vigil. Kept with an All-Night Vigil.
Commemorated today
- Commemoration of the Apparition of the Sign of the Precious Cross over Jerusalem in 351 AD
What is known
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.
- St Alexis Toth of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania (1909) (April 24 OC)d. 1909 life on this site
The life we have written
Holy Alexis Toth, Confessor and Defender of Orthodoxy in America
Humiliated and deprived of support after arriving as an Eastern Catholic priest, Alexis led his parish into the Orthodox Church and spent the rest of his life helping Carpatho-Rusyn communities recover an inheritance they believed was their own.
- Era
- 1853–1909
- Region
- Carpathian Rus’, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and the northeastern United States
- Category
- Priest, missionary, and confessor
- Feast
- May 7
- Our Holy Fathers of Georgia (6th century)A synaxis — several kept together · 6th century
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 title places them at Georgia. The year given is the 6th century. Kept in the Slavic 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.
- Martyr Acacius the Centurion at Byzantium (303)Martyr · d. 303
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 Byzantium. The year given is 303.
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.
- St Lydia of Philippi (1st century)1st century
What is known
The title places them at Philippi. The year given is the 1st century. Kept in the Slavic 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.
- Cyril, Archbishop of JerusalemHierarch
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 Jerusalem. 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.
- Repose of St. Nilus, abbot of SoraMonastic · Repose
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 title places it at Sora.
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.
- Pachomios the New Martyr of PatmosNew 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 Patmos. 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
- Composite 2 – Proverbs 10, 3, 8
- Composite 4 – Proverbs 10; Wisdom of Solomon 6, 7, 8, 9
- Composite 5 – Wisdom of Solomon 4, 6, 7, 2
- John 10:9–16
- Galatians 1:11–19
- John 10:1–9
- Acts 26:1–5, 12–20
About this page. This is the Menaion date — the fixed calendar. Parishes on the New Calendar keep it on May 7 by the civil calendar. On the Julian calendar this same commemoration is kept on May 20 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.