Holy hieromartyr Therapont, bishop of Cyprus
632
Saint Therapont led a life of ascetic struggle in a monastery, and was afterwards consecrated a bishop on the island of Cyprus. He travelled to Jerusalem where he preached the holy Gospel and laboured greatly in works of charity for the people, but as the people honoured him and his fame spread throughout the region, he chose to leave Jerusalem and return to Cyprus. He was first received in the home of a man whose wife had been bedridden for nine years with a high fever, and through the prayers of the saint she was at once restored to health in the name of Jesus Christ. By many signs and healings he led souls to the true faith of Orthodoxy, and the governor of the island gave him the diocese of Kition (Larnaca), where he served as bishop with apostolic zeal. During the Arab invasion of Cyprus in the seventh century he was seized at the holy altar and beheaded for the name of Christ in the year 632. The relics of the hieromartyr at first remained on Cyprus and were glorified by numerous miracles; in the year 806, on account of the threat of further invasions, they were translated to Constantinople, where they continue to be venerated. The Holy Synod of the Church of Greece has declared him a patron of the medical profession.
Holy martyr Isidore of Chios
251
Saint Isidore lived during the reign of the Emperor Decius (249 to 251). He came from Alexandria in Egypt and served as an officer in the Roman fleet under the admiral Numerius. When the imperial edict went out commanding all soldiers to offer sacrifice to the gods, the centurion Julius discovered that Isidore was a Christian and reported him to the admiral. Brought before Numerius, Saint Isidore openly confessed Christ and refused to sacrifice to inanimate idols, saying, "You may be able to kill my body, but you have no power over my soul; the true and living God, Jesus Christ, abides in me, and after my death also I shall be with Him, and He with me." For this confession he was beaten with whips, dragged over rocky ground and his tongue cut out, but by the grace of God he continued to speak and to praise the Lord. The pagan father of Saint Myrope, a Christian widow, sought to mutilate the holy body, but the saint at last received the crown of martyrdom by beheading on the island of Chios in the year 251. Saint Myrope secretly retrieved his relics by night and buried them honourably; for this she was herself arrested and, refusing to deny Christ, gave up her soul in prison. The faithful of Chios afterwards built a chapel over the graves of the two martyrs.
Venerable Serapion of Pskov
Saint Serapion of Pskov was born at Yuriev (the present-day Tartu) at a time when that city was under the rule of Germans who sought to stamp out the Orthodox faith. His parents were faithful members of the Russian church of Saint Nicholas in Yuriev, and from childhood he was diligent in the Holy Scriptures and more than once took up the defence of Orthodoxy against those who pressed him to convert by force. To escape such pressure he departed to the Tolva wilderness near Pskov, where the great ascetic Saint Euphrosynus had begun his prayerful labours, and under his guidance he learned the wisdom of the desert life. Once, without his elder's blessing, he wished to leave to live alone in complete solitude, but the Lord brought the inexperienced novice to repentance: he seriously injured his leg, recognised his self-will, and returned to the elder. Having received the great schema he dwelt with Saint Euphrosynus for fifty-five years, strictly keeping the vow of silence. He was a model of monastic obedience, of voluntary poverty so strict that the writer of his life called him "an unburied corpse", and of humility, bearing every offence as if he himself were to blame and being the first to seek forgiveness. He held the common prayer of the church in great reverence, saying that the order of the twelve psalms in the cell could not equal one "Lord have mercy" sung in church. Saint Serapion reposed on 8 September 1480, the feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, and is commemorated on 7 September together with Saint Euphrosynus. A common service was composed to the two ascetics, sung also on this day, in which Saint Serapion is glorified as the first co-ascetic, companion and friend of Saint Euphrosynus.
Venerable Therapont of Belozersk and Mozhaysk
Saint Therapont was born about the year 1337 at Volokolamsk into the noble family of Poskochin and was given in the world the name Theodore. From childhood he was drawn to the things of God, and at the age of forty he was tonsured a monk in the Simonov monastery of Moscow by the igumen Saint Theodore, who was a nephew of Saint Sergius of Radonezh. There he became close friends with Saint Cyril, the future founder of the White Lake monastery, and together they passed through the labours of prayer and fasting. Sent on monastic business to the northern country of Belozersk, he came to know the wild forests around White Lake. Soon afterwards he and Saint Cyril, at the call of the Mother of God, departed Simonov and travelled north, raising a cross and digging a cell in the ground near Mount Myaura at Lake Siversk. After a while Saint Therapont withdrew about fifteen versts from his companion to a still more remote place between two lakes, where he lived alone in great hardship. In time monks gathered to him, and the wilderness became the famous Theraponov monastery, in which in 1398 he built a wooden church in honour of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos. In 1408, at the request of Prince Andrew Dimitrievich, the elder went to Mozhaysk and there founded the Luzhetsky monastery in honour of the Birth of the Theotokos, where he remained as igumen until his repose on 27 May 1426. He was glorified as a saint in 1549, and his relics were uncovered incorrupt in 1514. He is commemorated on this day for the uncovering of his relics, and on 27 May for his repose.
Our Holy Father Serapion the Sindonite
5th c.
“ ‘Sindon’ means ‘linen cloth,’ and this saint was called ‘the Sindonite’ because he covered his naked body only with a linen cloth. He carried the Gospels in his hand. Serapion lived like the birds, with no roof and no cares, moving from one place to another. He gave his linen cloth to a poor wretch who was shivering with cold, and himself remained completely naked. When someone asked him: ‘Serapion, who made you naked?’, he indicated the Gospels and said: ‘This!’ But, after that, he gave away the Gospels also for the money needed by a man who was being hounded to prison by a creditor in debt. [note: Gospel books were all hand-written, and were uncommon and valuable.] At one time in Athens, he did not eat for four days, having nothing, and began to cry out with hunger. When the Athenian philosophers asked him what he was shouting about, he replied: ‘There were three to whom I was in debt: two have quietened down, but the third is still tormenting me. The first creditor is carnal lust, who has tormented me from my youth; the second is love of money, and the third is the stomach. The first two have left me alone, but the third one still torments me.’ The philosophers gave him some gold to buy bread. He went to a baker, bought a single loaf, put down all the gold and went out. He went peacefully to the Lord in old age, in the 5th century.” (Prologue)
Blessed Isidore the Fool for Christ
1484
He was German by birth but, drawn to the Orthodox faith, he moved to Rostov and not only became Orthodox, but took on the podvig of folly for Christ. He lived in complete destitution, spending the days pretending madness and the nights in prayer. Many wonders were performed by this Saint even in his lifetime. When he died in his meager hut in 1484, the people of Rostov smelled a fragrant odor throughout the city. A merchant whom he had miraculously saved from drowning built a church in the place where his hut had stood.