Church New Year
Polyeleos. Kept with the Polyeleos at Matins.
Commemorated today
- The Beginning of the Church's Year
What is known
The Church's year begins on the first of September rather than in January. The day is also called the Indiction, after the Roman administrative cycle that once began then — the Church kept the date and gave it another meaning.
This is a feast of the Church rather than the commemoration of a person, so there is no life behind it to tell.
- Our Holy Father Symeon Stylites (459)Monastic · d. 459
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 459.
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.
- Righteous Joshua, Son of NunRighteous
What is known
The righteous are lay men and women commemorated for holiness in ordinary life rather than for martyrdom or monastic vows.
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.
- Saint Meletios the Younger (1095-1124)
What is known
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.
- Holy New Martyr Angelis (1680)New Martyr — killed under Ottoman or modern persecution · d. 1680
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 year given is 1680.
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.
- Synaxis of the Recovery of the Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos of MiasenaeCommemoration of an icon
What is known
A day kept for a particular icon rather than a person — usually one associated with a deliverance, a healing, or the founding of a monastery.
Kept in the Greek tradition.
What is kept is the icon and what the Church remembers of it. There is no life here to tell, and the history of an icon is usually harder to trace than the history of a person.
- The 40 Holy Ascetic Virgin Martyrs of Thrace and their Teacher Ammon the DeaconMartyr
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 Thrace. 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.
- Holy Martyrs Calliste and Siblings: Euodus and HermogenesMartyr
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.
- Nicholas of Kourtaliotis
What is known
The title places them at Kourtaliotis. 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
- Isaiah 61:1–9
- Composite 24 – Leviticus 26
- Wisdom of Solomon 4:7–15
- 1 Timothy 2:1–7
- Luke 4:16–22
- Colossians 3:12–16
- Matthew 11:27–30
About this page. This is the Menaion date — the fixed calendar. Parishes on the New Calendar keep it on September 1 by the civil calendar. On the Julian calendar this same commemoration is kept on September 14 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.