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Holy Hieromartyr Gregory the Illuminator, Equal-of-the-Apostles, of Greater Armenia
Saint Gregory the Illuminator, Enlightener of Armenia and Equal of the Apostles, was descended from the royal Parthian Arsacid line. His father Anak, sent into Armenia, treacherously slew King Khosrov; for this crime the whole family was put to death save the infant Gregory, who was carried away by his nurse to Caesarea in Cappadocia, where he was raised in the Christian faith and instructed in the Holy Scriptures. As a young man he entered the service of Tiridates, son of Khosrov, the new king of Armenia, hoping to atone for his father's deed by faithful service. When Tiridates discovered that Gregory was a Christian, he subjected him to twelve cruel tortures and at last cast him into a deep pit at Artashat full of serpents and reptiles, where the saint, fed in secret by a pious widow, lived for fourteen years preserved by the Lord. Meanwhile the king fell into madness after slaying the holy virgin Hripsime and her companions, and his sister received in a vision the command to release Gregory from the pit. The saint, brought forth, healed the king by his prayers and converted him to Christ. Gregory was consecrated bishop by Saint Leontius of Caesarea and laboured for the conversion of the whole Armenian people, who were the first nation to embrace Christianity as their official faith about the year 301. After establishing the Armenian Church and consecrating his son Aristakes to succeed him, he passed his last days in solitude on Mount Sebuh, where he reposed in peace about 332. He is honoured as the apostle and father of the Armenian Church.
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St Gregory the Enlightener, Bishop of Armenia
c. 335
He was a nobleman, related to the imperial houses of Persia and Armenia. When these two houses went to war with one another, Gregory withdrew to Caesarea in Cappadocia, where he heard the Gospel proclaimed and came to faith in Christ. There he also married and had two sons. After his wife’s death he returned to his homeland and served in the court of Tiridates, king of Armenia. When the king discovered that Gregory was a Christian, he subjected the Saint to many tortures, finally having him cast into a pit full of mire and poisonous reptiles. But Gregory was miraculously kept alive in the pit for fourteen years, during which a widow secretly provided for his needs. King Tiridates, still cruelly persecuting the Christians in his land, eventually went mad and became like a wild animal. In a dream, the king’s sister was told that her brother would only be restored to sanity when Gregory was freed from the pit. This was done, and Gregory healed and baptised his persecutor. At the king’s request, Gregory was made bishop of Armenia. As bishop he brought countless thousands to faith in Christ and is counted as the Enlightener of Armenia. In old age he retired into ascetical life, and reposed in peace.
Holy Hieromartyr Mardonius
The Holy Martyr Mardonius suffered for Christ in the early fourth century during one of the great persecutions against the Church. According to the synaxaria of the Eastern Orthodox Church, he was numbered among the witnesses of Christ commemorated on this day; the manner of his suffering is recorded as the burning out of his eyes by his persecutors, after which he was given over to a martyr's death for his constancy in confessing the Lord. Some sources reckon him among the martyrs of the great burning at Nicomedia under the emperor Diocletian about the year 302, when many thousands of Christians, gathered for the Feast of the Lord's Nativity, perished in flames within their own church. He is also kept in memory together with the Martyr Stratonicus on this day, and his feast is appointed to be observed on 30 September in the menaia of the Orthodox Church.
Holy Martyr Stratonicus
The Holy Martyr Stratonicus is commemorated by the Orthodox Church on this day together with the Martyr Mardonius and the great Hieromartyr Gregory of Armenia. According to the early synaxaria, he suffered for the confession of Christ in the days of the persecutions and ended his life by martyrdom, his memory being preserved among the witnesses of the Faith of the early centuries. He is to be distinguished from the better-known Saint Stratonicus of Belgrade, the Slavic prison guard who suffered with Saint Hermylus on 13 January under the emperor Licinius. The synaxaria of the Greek and Slavonic Churches keep the holy Martyr Stratonicus together with Mardonius among the saints of 30 September, completing the company of those whose blood and labours adorn this last day of the month dedicated in the Church's calendar to the new ecclesiastical year.
Saint Honorius, Archbishop of Canterbury
627
Saint Honorius was a Roman monk, a disciple of Pope Saint Gregory the Great, and probably a Benedictine, who came among the missionaries sent into Britain to evangelise the Anglo-Saxons. Whether he came with Saint Augustine in the first company of 596 or with the second band that followed in 601, he laboured for many years in Kent. On the death of Saint Justus he was chosen as the fifth Archbishop of Canterbury, and was consecrated by Saint Paulinus of York at Lincoln in the year 627. As archbishop he confirmed the spread of the Gospel throughout the southern English kingdoms; he received with joy the Burgundian missionary Saint Felix and sent him into East Anglia, ordained Saint Ithamar as the first English-born bishop to the see of Rochester, and divided the kingdom of Kent into parishes for the better care of souls. He governed the church at Canterbury with wisdom and gentleness for some twenty-six years and reposed in peace on 30 September 653, the last surviving member of the Gregorian mission. He was buried in the church of Saints Peter and Paul, afterward Saint Augustine's Abbey, at Canterbury, and his name is honoured among the saints of the pre-schism west.
Venerable Gregory of Pelshma
He was born into a powerful boyar family in the city of Galich. Early in life he was drawn to the ascetical life, and was distressed when his parents arranged for him to be married at the age of only fifteen. By a mysterious providence, both his parents died before the wedding could be held, and St Gregory very soon distributed his considerable wealth to the poor, freed all his serfs, and went to the nearest monastery. Such was his holiness of life that he rose to be abbot of the monastery, but as in his youth he felt burdened by the admiration and attention of men, so he left for the monastery of St Dionysius of Glushitsa, where he strove to live a hidden life. His starets, St Dionysius, discerned Gregory’s spiritual gifts and wanted him to found his own monastery, but the Saint resisted, desiring only to live in humility and obedience, unknown to the world. At the age of 104 Gregory, with his elder’s blessing, went to live as a hermit in a small cell on the banks of the River Pelshma. After a few years other monks came to live the hesychastic life with him and, as his elder had desired, Gregory against his will became the abbot of a new monastery.
Abbot Gregory excelled not only in prayer but in his works of love for the poor, many of whom came to him in times of famine, when he would give them the small reserves of the monastery. More than once he traveled to Moscow to rebuke the Princes for their evil deeds. One of these, Prince Basil II, was so angered by the ‘presumption’ of the Saint that he had him thrown from a bridge into a deep gorge, but he emerged miraculously unharmed.
At the age of 127, St Gregory felt his end approaching and prepared himself. He told his disciples to throw his body into a swamp when he died, but after his repose they disobeyed and gave him honorable burial. A beautiful fragrance filled the church and, for the first time, a miracle of healing was performed through the Saint’s relics, which from that time forward were the source of countless wonders.
Our Father among the Saints Michael, Metropolitan of Kiev
992
When Prince Vladimir, Equal to the Apostles (July 15), received holy Baptism, he sent an embassy to Constantinople asking that clergy be sent to enlighten the Russian land and to establish Christ’s Church there. Patriarch Nicolas II Chrysoberges (December 16) appointed Michael, a wise and blameless bishop, to be Metropolitan of Russia. Saint Michael traveled to Kiev with six bishops and a large number of clergy to aid him in his daunting work. He began by baptising the Prince’s family and the nobles of Kiev. Prince Vladimir used his authority to have the pagan idols pulled down, and enjoined all the people to accept Baptism. Thus the people of Kiev gathered en masse on the banks of the Dnieper and were baptized by the Metropolitan and his clergy, establishing Kiev as the first Christian city in Russia. Paganism was deeply entrenched everywhere in this wild land, and the proclamation of the Gospel was difficult and dangerous. Nonetheless, the holy Metropolitan in his own lifetime was able to cast down the idols in Novgorod and Rostov and establish the Church there.
Metropolitan Michael reposed in peace in 992, having planted in Russia the seeds of Russian Orthodoxy, which in coming generations would become the very soul of the Russian people. His relics were found to be incorrupt in the twelfth century and were translated to the Monastery of the Kiev Caves.