Meals for the Soul — Orthodox Resources

Orthodox Saints

One hundred lives

Not spiritual celebrities and not distant moral heroes — real people, in particular centuries and particular trouble, in whom the grace of God became visible.

What is a saint?

The Church does not make anyone holy by awarding a title. She recognises holiness that God has already worked, and says so publicly, so that the rest of us can learn from it and ask for their prayers.

So a saint is not a person who managed to be good. Several of the hundred below were murderers, thieves, persecutors or frauds before they were anything else. What they have in common is not achievement but response: at some point each of them stopped resisting God, and the difference showed. Their holiness is His, not theirs, and it is on loan to them the way light is on loan to a window.

Orthodox Christians do not worship the saints. Worship belongs to God alone. We honour them, and we ask them to pray — the same thing you would ask of a friend, asked of people whom death has not removed from the Body of Christ.

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Featured life

Venerable Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia

A boy with almost no schooling became an Athonite monk and, after illness brought him back into the world, served for decades beside hospital beds, teaching people to turn toward Christ with freedom, love, and joy.

1906–1991 · December 2

Read the life →

New to the saints? Start here

Twelve lives, in an order that moves from the Gospel through martyrdom, repentance, mercy and mission to the present day.

  1. The Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary — Mother of God
  2. Holy Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John — prophet and martyr
  3. Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Mary Magdalene — myrrhbearer and witness of the Resurrection
  4. Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-Bearer of Antioch — apostolic father and martyr
  5. Anthony the Great — father of monasticism
  6. Mary of Egypt — penitent ascetic
  7. Nicholas the Wonderworker of Myra — hierarch and defender of the vulnerable
  8. Herman of Alaska — monk, missionary, and protector of the Aleut people
  9. Righteous Martyr Maria of Paris — nun, theologian, rescuer, and martyr
  10. Silouan the Athonite — monk and teacher of humility and prayer for the world
  11. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia — priest, spiritual father, and wonderworker
  12. Righteous Mother Olga of Kwethluk — Yup'ik wife, mother, matushka, and wonderworker

All one hundred

On dates and spellings. Feast dates follow common North American usage. Parishes on the Julian calendar keep the same fixed feasts on a different civil date, several saints have more than one commemoration, and spellings differ between jurisdictions. Where a difference matters, the profile says so rather than pretending one calendar is universal.

A note. These lives are written to introduce, not to direct. Ascetic feats described here belong to particular people under obedience, not to a method anyone should take up alone. Anything touching your own rule of prayer or fasting belongs with your priest or spiritual father.

Why this is here

Later tradition is labelled as later tradition, and the sources are at the foot of every life.

How that rule works →