217 St. Clement of Alexandria Confessor teacher of Origen at the Catechetical School in Alexandria. Egypt.

Born Titus Flavius Clemens, he trained Origen and left numerous writings.

255 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA
AFTER devoting several pages to the life and writings of this eminent father of the Church, Alban Butler says: “Pope Benedict XIV in his learned dissertation, addressed in the form of a brief to the King of Portugal, prefixed to the edition of the Roman Martyrology made in 1748, excellently shows that there is not sufficient reason for ever inserting his name in the Roman Martyrology. The authority of certain private calendars and the custom of sacred biographers suffices for giving his life in this place.” The title Saint is still sometimes accorded to Clement in popular usage, but the deliberate and formal exclusion of his name from the Roman Martyrology is a decisive reason for omitting him from any ordinary collection of saints’ lives.

3rd v. Theodore, Bishop of Alexandria Hieromartyr fiery preacher, powerful of word and church activity born in Egypt in the city of Alexandria.

This city was famous for its many martyrs and confessors: from the holy Evangelist Mark, Protomartyr of Alexandria (April 25), to St Athanasius the Great (January 18 and May 2), a pillar and confessor of Orthodoxy.
Regrettably, historical records do not give us precise details of St Theodore's life and deeds, but the Church of Christ has preserved the name of the hieromartyr in its diptychs for all time.
A fiery preacher, powerful of word and church activity, Bishop Theodore evoked an angry hatred in the boisterous pagans of Alexandria, who did not like his preaching. During one of his sermons they surrounded and seized the saint. They beat him and jeered at him, but he did not offer resistance. They placed a crown of thorns on his head, and led him through the city.

Then they led him to the seacoast and threw him from a cliff into the sea, but the wind and the waves carried him back to dry land. The astonished pagans brought St Theodore to the prefect of the city, who commanded that he be subjected to harsh tortures. Not a word did the torturers hear from the tortured confessor, except his prayer to the Lord. Then the holy martyr was handed over to Roman soldiers and executed in the manner of the Apostle Paul, he was beheaded with a sword.

295 St. Meletius Bishop of Pontus, modern Turkey friend of Eusebius.
In Ponto beáti Melétii, Epíscopi et Confessóris; qui, cum esset ob eruditiónis prærogatívam præcípuus, ob virtútem tamen ánimi et vitæ sinceritátem longe magnificéntior éxstitit.
In Pontus, blessed Meletius, bishop and confessor, who joined to an eminent gift of knowledge the more distinguished glory of fortitude and integrity of life.

His name supposedly derives from MelAtticum, “Attic Honey," denoting eloquence in preaching. Meletius endured many trials during the persecutions of his era.

Greatmartyr Barbara at Heliopolis, in Syria. her legend is most probably spurious.

By night prayed fervently and the Savior Himself

appeared and healed her wounds the Lord sent an angel who covered the nakedness of the holy martyrs with a splendid robe
Nicomedíæ pássio sanctæ Bárbaræ, Vírginis et Mártyris; quæ, in persecutióne Maximíni, post diram cárceris maceratiónem, lampadárum adustiónem, mamillárum præcisiónem atque ália torménta, gládio martyrium consummávit.
At Nicomedia, the passion of St. Barbara, virgin and martyr, in the persecution of Maximinus. After a series of sufferings, a long imprisonment, the burning with torches, and the cutting away of her breasts, her martyrdom was fulfilled by the sword.

ST BARBARA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR
“IN the time that Maximian reigned there was a rich man, a paynim, which adored and worshipped idols, which man was named Dioscorus. This Dioscorus had a young daughter which was named Barbara, for whom he did make a high and strong tower in which he did keep and close this Barbara to the end that no man should see her because of her great beauty. Then came many princes unto the same Dioscorus for to treat with him for the marriage of his daughter, which went anon unto her and said: ‘ My daughter, certain princes be come to me which require me for to have thee in marriage, wherefore tell to me thine intent and what will ye have to do.’ Then St Barbara returned all angry towards her father and said:

‘My father, I pray you that ye will not constrain me to marry, for thereto I have no will nor thought.’ . . . After this he departed thence and went into a far country where he long sojourned.

“Then St Barbara, the handmaid of our Lord Jesu Christ, descended from the tower for to come to see [a bath-house which her father was having built] and anon she perceived that there were but two windows only, that one against the south, and that other against the north, whereof she was much abashed and amarvelled, and demanded of the workmen why they had not made no more windows, and they answered that her father had so commanded and ordained. Then St Barbara said to them: ‘Make me here another window.’...In this same bath-house was this holy maid baptized of a holy man, and lived there a certain space of time, taking only for her refection honeysuckles and locusts, following the holy precursor of our Lord, St John Baptist. This bath-house is like to the fountain of Siloe, in which he that was born blind recovered there his sight..On a time this blessed maid went upon the tower and there she beheld the idols to which her father sacrificed and worshipped, and suddenly she received the Holy Ghost and became marvellously subtle and clear in the love of Jesu Christ, for she was environed with the grace of God Almighty, of sovereign glory and pure chastity. This holy maid Barbara, adorned with faith, surmounted the Devil, for when she beheld the idols she scratched them in their visages, despising them all and saying: ‘All they be made like unto you which have made you to err, and all them that have faith in you’; and then she went into the tower and worshipped our Lord.

“And when the work was full performed her father returned from his voyage, and when he saw there three windows he demanded of the workmen: ‘Wherefore have ye made three windows?’ And they answered: ‘Your daughter hath commanded so.’ Then he made his daughter to come afore him and demanded her why she had do make three windows, and she answered to him and said:

‘I have done them to be made because three windows lighten all the world and all creatures, but two make darkness.’ Then her father took her and went down into the bath-house, demanding her how three windows give more light than two. And St Barbara answered: ‘These three windows betoken clearly the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, the which be three persons and one very God, on whom we ought to believe and worship.’ Then he, being replenished with fury, incontinent drew his sword to have slain her, but the holy virgin made her prayer and then marvellously she was taken in a stone and borne into a mountain on which two shepherds kept their sheep, the which saw her fly...And then her father took her by the hair and drew her down from the mountain and shut her fast inprison...Then sat the judge in judgement, and when he saw the great beauty of Barbara he said to—her: ‘Now choose whether ye will spare yourself and offer to the gods, or else die by cruel torments.’ St Barbara answered to him: ‘I offer myself to my God, Jesu Christ, the which hath created Heaven and earth and all other things.’

When she had been beaten, and comforted by a vision of our Lord in her prison, and again scourged and tortured, “the judge commanded to slay her with the sword. And then her father, all enraged, took her out of the hands of the judge and led her up on a mountain, and St Barbara rejoiced in hastening to receive the salary of her victory. And then when she was drawn thither she made her orison, saying: ‘Lord Jesu Christ, which hast formed Heaven and earth, I beseech thee to grant me thy grace and hear my prayer for all they that have memory of thy name and my passion; I pray thee, that thou wilt not remember their sins, for thou knówest our fragility.’ Then came there a voice down from Heaven saying unto her: ‘Come, my spouse Barbara, and rest in the chamber of God my Father which is in Heaven, and I grant to thee that thou hast required of me.’ And when this was said, she came to her father and received the end of her martyrdom, with St Juliana. But when her father descended from the mountain, a fire from Heaven descended on him, and consumed him in such wise that there could not be found only ashes of all his body. This blessed virgin, St Barbara, received martyrdom with St Juliana the second nones of December. A noble man called Valentine buried the bodies of these two martyrs, and laid them in a little town in which many miracles were showed in praise and glory of God Almighty.”

So is told in Caxton’s version of the Golden Legend the story of one of the most popular saints of the middle ages.

There is, however, considerable doubt of the existence of a virgin martyr called Barbara and it is quite certain that her legend is spurious.

There is no mention of her in the earlier martyrologies, her legend is not older than the seventh century, and her cultus did not spread till the ninth. Various versions differ both as to the time and place of her martyrdom: it is located in Tuscany, Rome, Antioch, Heliopolis and Nicomedia. St Barbara is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers and that she is invoked against lightning and fire and, by association, as patroness of gunners,* [*During the war of 1914—18 there was a tendency among gunners to put themselves under the patronage of St Joan of Arc. Somebody noticed that during the process of her rehabilitation the Duke of Alençon stated that ] he excelled in the tactical disposition of artillery.] military architects, and miners is attributed to the nature of the fate that overtook her father. The tower represented in her pictures and her directions to the builders of the bath-house have caused her to be regarded as a patroness of architects, builders and stonemasons; and her prayer before her execution accounts for the belief that she is an especial protectress of those in danger of dying without the sacraments.

There seems to be general agreement that the story of St Barbara was first written in Greek, but there is no evidence of any early local cultus which would rescue it from being classed in the category of pure romance. We have numerous versions in Latin, Syriac and other languages. See, for the Syriac, Mrs Agnes Smith-Lewis, Studia Sinaitica, vols. ix and x (1900), where an English translation is available. Cf. also W. Weyh, Die syrische Barbara Legende (1952). The Latin texts are pretty fully represented in N. Muller, Acta S. Barbarae (1703), and in P. Paschini, Santa Barbara, note agiografiche (1927). The oldest Greek recension is perhaps that printed by A. Wirth, Danae in Christlichen Legenden (1892), pp. 105—111, though the editor is disposed to exaggerate the dependence of such legends as that of St Barbara on pagan mythology. A good deal has been written concerning her inclusion among the fourteen Nothelfer and the very wide range of interests for which her patronage is invoked. See, for example, T. Marchesi, Santa Barbara protectrice dei cannonieri (1895); Peine, St Barbara, die Schutzheilige der Bergleute und der Artillerie (1896); J. Moret, Ste Barbe, patronne des mineurs (1876); but no very satisfactory explanation has ever been suggested. In an English calendar (Bodleian MS., Digby 63) of the late ninth century St Barbara’s name is already found under December 4. In art her most distinctive emblem is a tower; see Künstle, Ikonographie, vol. ii, pp. 112—115. The folk-lore connected with St Barbara has been dealt with by Bächtold-Stäubli, Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, vol. i, CC. 905—910.

The Holy Great Martyr Barbara lived and suffered during the reign of the emperor Maximian (305-311). Her father, the pagan Dioscorus, was a rich and illustrious man in the Syrian city of Heliopolis. After the death of his wife, he devoted himself to his only daughter.

Seeing Barbara's extraordinary beauty, Dioscorus decided to hide her from the eyes of strangers. Therefore, he built a tower for Barbara, where only her pagan teachers were allowed to see her. From the tower there was a view of hills stretching into the distance. By day she was able to gaze upon the wooded hills, the swiftly flowing rivers, and the meadows covered with a mottled blanket of flowers; by night the harmonious and majestic vault of the heavens twinkled and provided a spectacle of inexpressible beauty. Soon the virgin began to ask herself questions about the First Cause and Creator of so harmonious and splendid a world.

Gradually, she became convinced that the souless idols were merely the work of human hands. Although her father and teachers offered them worship, she realized that the idols could not have made the surrounding world. The desire to know the true God so consumed her soul that Barbara decided to devote all her life to this goal, and to spend her life in virginity.

The fame of her beauty spread throughout the city, and many sought her hand in marriage. But despite the entreaties of her father, she refused all of them. Barbara warned her father that his persistence might end tragically and separate them forever. Dioscorus decided that the temperament of his daughter had been affected by her life of seclusion. He therefore permitted her to leave the tower and gave her full freedom in her choice of friends and acquaintances. Thus Barbara met young Christian maidens in the city, and they taught her about the Creator of the world, about the Trinity, and about the Divine Logos. Through the Providence of God, a priest arrived in Heliopolis from Alexandria disguised as a merchant. After instructing her in the mysteries of the Christian Faith, he baptized Barbara, then returned to his own country.

During this time a luxurious bathhouse was being built at the house of Dioscorus. By his orders the workers prepared to put two windows on the south side. But Barbara, taking advantage of her father's absence, asked them to make a third window, thereby forming a Trinity of light. On one of the walls of the bath-house Barbara traced a cross with her finger. The cross was deeply etched into the marble, as if by an iron instrument. Later, her footprints were imprinted on the stone steps of the bathhouse. The water of the bathhouse had great healing power. St Simeon Metaphrastes (November 9) compared the bathhouse to the stream of Jordan and the Pool of Siloam, because by God's power, many miracles took place there.

When Dioscorus returned and expressed dissatisfaction about the change in his building plans, his daughter told him about how she had come to know the Triune God, about the saving power of the Son of God, and about the futility of worshipping idols. Dioscorus went into a rage, grabbed a sword and was on the point of striking her with it. The holy virgin fled from her father, and he rushed after her in pursuit. His way became blocked by a hill, which opened up and concealed the saint in a crevice. On the other side of the crevice was an entrance leading upwards. St Barbara managed then to conceal herself in a cave on the opposite slope of the hill.

After a long and fruitless search for his daughter, Dioscorus saw two shepherds on the hill. One of them showed him the cave where the saint had hidden. Dioscorus beat his daughter terribly, and then placed her under guard and tried to wear her down with hunger. Finally he handed her over to the prefect of the city, named Martianus. They beat St Barbara fiercely: they struck her with rawhide, and rubbed her wounds with a hair cloth to increase her pain. By night St Barbara prayed fervently to her Heavenly Bridegroom, and the Savior Himself appeared and healed her wounds. Then they subjected the saint to new, and even more frightful torments.

In the crowd where the martyr was tortured was the virtuous Christian woman Juliana, an inhabitant of Heliopolis. Her heart was filled with sympathy for the voluntary martyrdom of the beautiful and illustrious maiden. Juliana also wanted to suffer for Christ. She began to denounce the torturers in a loud voice, and they seized her.

Both martyrs were tortured for a long time. Their bodies were raked and wounded with hooks, and then they were led naked through the city amidst derision and jeers. Through the prayers of St Barbara the Lord sent an angel who covered the nakedness of the holy martyrs with a splendid robe. Then the steadfast confessors of Christ, Sts Barbara and Juliana, were beheaded. Dioscorus himself executed St Barbara. The wrath of God was not slow to punish both torturers, Martianus and Dioscorus. They were killed after being struck by lightning.

In the sixth century the relics of the holy Great Martyr Barbara were transferred to Constantinople. Six hundred years later, they were transferred to Kiev (July 11) by Barbara, the daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenos, who married the Russian prince Michael Izyaslavich. They rest even now at Kiev's St Vladimir cathedral, where an Akathist to the saint is served each Tuesday.

Many pious Orthodox Christians are in the habit of chanting the Troparion of St Barbara each day, recalling the Savior's promise to her that those who remembered her and her sufferings would be preserved from a sudden, unexpected death, and would not depart this life without benefit of the Holy Mysteries of Christ.

Saint Juliana, a virtuous woman of Heliopolis was in the crowd when St Barbara was tortured
Her heart was filled with sympathy for the voluntary martyrdom of the beautiful and illustrious maiden. Wishing to suffer for Christ, Juliana denounced the torturers in a loud voice, and they seized her. For a long while they tortured both holy martyrs: they raked and tore their bodies with hooks, and then led them naked through the city amidst derision and jeers. Through the prayers of St Barbara the Lord sent an angel who covered the nakedness of the holy martyrs with a splendid robe. The steadfast confessors of faith in Christ, Sts Barbara and Juliana, were then beheaded.

415 St. Maruthas Bishop of Maiferkat Syria wrote hymns and was a friend of St. John Chrysostom; He is accounted one of the chief Syrian doctors after St Ephraem because of the writings with which he is credited.
In Mesopotámia sancti Marúthæ Epíscopi, qui Dei Ecclésias, ob persecutiónem Isdegérdis Regis collápsas, in Pérside reparávit, multísque miráculis clarus, apud hostes étiam méruit honorári.
In Mesopotamia, St. Maruthas, bishop, who restored the churches of God that had been ruined in Persia by the persecution of King Isdegerd. Being renowned for many miracles, he merited to be honoured even by his enemies.
He wrote the accounts of the Martyrs of Persia persecuted under King Shapur II.
Maruthas also wrote hymns and was a friend of St. John Chrysostom. He was instrumental in restoring the Church in Persia in the reign of King Yezdigerd. Maruthas is called “the Father of the Syrian Church.” He was also a gifted medical specialist.

455 ST MARUTHAS, BISHOP OF MAIFERKAT
This holy prelate was an illustrious father of the Syrian church at the end of the fourth century, and was bishop of Maiferkat, between the Tigris and Lake Van near the border of Persia. He compiled the “acts” of the martyrs who suffered in that kingdom during Sapor’s persecution, and brought the relics of so many to his episcopal city that it came to be called Martyropolis. Under that name it is still a titular see. St Maruthas wrote several hymns in praise of the martyrs, which are sung by those who use Syriac in the church offices. Yezdigerd having ascended the Persian throne in 399, St Maruthas made a journey to Constantinople in order to induce the Emperor Arcadius to use his interest with the new king in favour of the distressed Christians. He found the court much occupied with the affairs of St John Chrysostom, and we learn incidentally that Maruthas was very fat: so much so that when at a meeting of bishops he accidentally trod on the foot of Cyrinus of Chalcedon the skin was broken; the wound gangrened and eventually Cyrinus died of it. In a letter to St Olympias, Chrysostom in exile speaks of writing twice to Maruthas and asks her to see the bishop for him. “I need him badly for Persian affairs. Try and find out from him what success he has had in his mission. If he is afraid to write himself, let him tell me the result through you. Do not delay a day in trying to see him about this.”

While at the Persian court on behalf of Theodosius the Younger, St Maruthas endeavoured to get the king’s good will towards his Christian subjects. The historian Socrates says that his knowledge of medicine enabled him to cure Yezdigerd of violent headaches, and that the king from that time called him “the friend of God”. The Mazdeans, fearing that the prince would be brought over to the Christian faith, had recourse to a trick. They hid a man underground in the temple, who, when the king came to worship, cried out, “Drive from this holy place him who impiously believes a priest of the Christians”. Yezdigerd hereupon was going to dismiss the bishop, but Maruthas persuaded him to go again to the temple, assuring him that by opening the floor he would discover the imposture. The king did so, and the result was that he gave Maruthas leave to build churches wherever he pleased. Whatever the circumstances may have been, Yezdigerd certainly favoured St Maruthas, and the bishop set himself to restore order among the Persian Christians.

The organization then established lasted until the Mohammedan invasion in the seventh century, but the Christian hope—and Mazdean fear—that Yezdigerd I would be the “Constantine of Persia” was not fulfilled. St Maruthas’s work of pacification was undone by the violence of Abdas, Bishop of Susa, who towards the end of his reign provoked the king to a renewal of persecution. By this time Maruthas was probably dead, for he predeceased Yezdigerd, who died in 420. The Roman Martyrology says of St Maruthas that he was “renowned for miracles and earned honour even from his adversaries”. He is accounted one of the chief Syrian doctors after St Ephraem because of the writings with which he is credited.

A certain amount of information regarding this saint is furnished by the historian Socrates, as also by Bar Hebraeus, and in the Liber Turns of Man ibn Sulaiman. There is a later biography preserved in Armenian, which was printed with a Latin translation by the Mekhitarists at Venice in 1874, and has been translated into English, with valuable comments, in the Harvard Theological Review for 1932, pp. 47—71. See also Bardenhewer, Geschichte d. altkirchl. Literatur, vol. iv, pp. 381—382; Labourt, Le Christianisme dans l’Empire perse (1904), pp. 87—90; W. Wright, Syriac Literature (1894), pp. 44—46; Oriens Christianus for 1903, pp. 384 seq.; Harnack in Texte und Untersuchungen, vol. xix (1899), and the long footnote in Hefele-Leclercq, Histoire des Conciles, vol. ii, pp. 159—166. A doubt exists whether Maruthas was really the author of several of the works attributed to him.

429 St. Felix of Bologna 5th bishop of Bologna disciple of St. Ambrose.

In Anglia, sancti Osmúndi, Epíscopi et Confessóris. In England, St. Osmund, bishop and confessor.

Italy, and a disciple of St. Ambrose of Milan.
Saint Felix of Bologna B (RM). A deacon of the Church of Milan under Saint Ambrose, and afterwards the fifth bishop of Bologna. (Benedictines).

ARCHDIOCESE OF BOLOGNA HISTORY

Bologna is the principal city in the province of the same name, Italy, and contains about 150,000 inhabitants. It was founded by the Etruscans, who called it Felsina. Later it fell into the hands of the Boii, a Gallic tribe, and from that time took the name of Bononia, whence the present form. The regions round about having been laid waste by the continual wars, in 189 B.C. the Romans established a colony thee, which was enlarged and beautified by Augustus. After Byzantium had broken the power of the Goths in Italy, Bologna belonged to the Exarchate of Ravenna (536). By the donation of Pepin Bologna was made part of the patrimony of the Holy See, but during the disturbances of the ninth century was wrested from the popes. At the beginning of the ninth century it was laid waste during the incursions of the Hungarians. Otto I did much to restore the city to its former condition giving it the privilege of enacting its own laws, and making it directly dependent on the imperial authority. Bologna was then governed by consuls. During the struggles between the empire and the popes, the city took the part of the latter and was enable to assert its independence, which was definitely recognized by Henry V in 1122. Bologna was among the first to join the Lombard League. From 1153 it was ruled by podestas, who were for most part foreigners. From the accession of Frederick II, Bologna was rent into the two factions of Guelphs and Ghibellines, the former being in the majority. On 26 May, 1249, the inhabitants of Bologna in the battle of Fossalto conquered the troops of Frederick II under the leadership of King Enzo (Ezzelino); Enzo himself was taken prisoner, and neither the threats nor the promises of Frederick availed to secure his liberty. He remained in captivity until his death, eleven years later, although for the rest he was always treated with the greatest consideration.

In 1276, in order more thoroughly to safeguard their communal liberty, the inhabitants of Bologna placed themselves under the protection of the Holy See, and Pope Nicholas III sent them as legate his nephew, Berotoldo Orsini, whom he also commissioned to reconcile the opposing factions. In the fourteenth century the preponderance of power was in the hands of the Pepoli family, but later passed to the Visconti of Milan, who alternated with the Bentivoglio family in holding the reins of power. At intervals the popes attempted to make their authority recognized, or else the city spontaneously recognized their sovereignty (1327-34; 1340-47; 1360-76, through the efforts of Cardinal Albornoz; 1377-1401; 1403-11, during the pontificate of John XXIII; 1412-16; 1420-28, under Cardinal Condulmer). In the beginning of the fifteenth century there were frequent popular uprisings against the nobility. From 1443 to 1506 three of the Bentivoglio family succeeded each other as masters of Bologna. In 1506 Julius II incorporated Romagna into the papal states, Bologna included; the city, however, retained a great degree of communal autonomy. The papal authority was vested in a legate te, who in the beginning was generally a cardinal, later, however, only a titular bishop. In 1796 Bologna was occupied by the French and made a part of the Cisalpine Republic, and afterwards of the Italian Kingdom. In 1814 it was seized by the Austrians, who in 1815 restored it to the pope. From the time of its restoration, Bologna was the scene of a series of deep-seated agitations and revolts against the papal rule. These uprisings were repressed by Austrian troops. Finally, in 1859 Romagna, together with the Marches and Umbria, was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy.

CHRISTIANITY IN BOLOGNA
The only sources for the history of the beginnings of Christianity in Bologna are legendary accounts, according to which St. Apollinaris, disciple of St. Peter and first Bishop of Ravenna, was the first to preach the Gospel in Bologna. The first bishop is said to have been St. Zama, who is supposed to have been ordained by Pope St. Dionysius (270). However, it may be maintained with certainty that Christianity, and likewise the episcopate, in Bologna dates back to a more remote period. During the persecution of Diocletian, Bologna was the scene of the martyrdoms of Sts. Vitalis and Agricola, whose bodies were interred in a Jewish cemetery and only discovered in the time of St. Ambrose, in 392, as related by him in a letter (Ep.lv), the authenticity of which, however, is questioned. The fact is referred to perhaps, by Paulinus in his life of the saint, when he speaks of Ambrose taking to Florence some relics of these martyrs. It was possibly the same persecution that the martyrdom of St. Proculus occurred. The episcopal See of Bologna was first subject to the Metropolitan of Milan, and later, probably after Milan had fallen into the hands of the Lombards, it recognized the authority of the Metropolitan of Ravenna. In 1106 it was placed immediately under the Holy See. Finally, in 1582 Gregory XIII raised the Bishop of Bologna to the dignity of a metropolitan, assigning him as suffragans the Sees of Imola, Cervia, Modena, Reggio, Parma, Piacenza and Crema; today, however, only Imola and Faenza are suffragan to Bologna.

Among the Bishops of Bologna worthy of note are Sts. Faustinianus, Basil and Eusebius, in the fourth century. About 400 there is record of St. Felix, succeeded about 430 by St. Petronius, who is extolled for having restored the church of Bologna, and who later became patron of the city. His relics are preserved in the church of San Stefano. A number of the Bishops of Bologna were later raised to the papal chair, as, for instance, John X, Cosimo Migliorati, who assumed the name of Innocent VII; Tomaso Parentuccelli, later Nicholas V; Giuliano della Rovere, who became Julius II; Alessandro Ludovisi, or Gregory XV; and Prospero Lambertini, or Benedict XIV. The last two mentioned were born in Bologna.

450 ST PETER CHRYSOLOGUS, ARCHBISHOP OF RAVENNA, DOCTOR OF THE

CHURCH
Sancti Petri Chrysólogi, Epíscopi Ravennátis, Confessóris et Ecclésiæ Doctóris, cujus memória quarto Nonas hujus mensis recensétur.
St. Peter Chrysologus, bishop of Ravenna, confessor, and doctor of the Church, whose birthday is kept on the 2nd of December.
ST PETER was a native of Imola, a town in eastern Emilia. He was taught the sacred sciences and ordained deacon by Cornelius, bishop of that city, of whom he speaks with veneration and gratitude. Under his prudent direction Peter was formed to virtue from his youth and understood that to command his passions and govern himself was true greatness and the only means of ‘earning to put on the spirit of Christ. The raising of this holy man to the episcopate was, according to his legend, in the following circumstances. Archbishop John of Ravenna dying about the year 433, the clergy of that church, with the people, chose a successor, and entreated Bishop Cornelius of Imola to go at the head of their deputies to Rome to obtain the confirmation of Pope St Sixtus III. Cornelius took with him his deacon, Peter, but the pope (who, it is said, had been commanded so to do by a vision the foregoing night of St Peter and St Apollinaris, the martyred first bishop of Ravenna) refused to ratify the election already made, and proposed Peter, as the person designed by Heaven in his vision, for that post; after some opposition the deputies acquiesced. The new bishop, after receiving episcopal-consecration, was conducted to Ravenna and there received with some unwillingness.

It is very unlikely that St Peter became archbishop of Ravenna in any such fashion. The Emperor Valentinian III and his mother, Galla Placidia, then resided in that city, and St Peter enjoyed their regard and confidence, as well as the trust of the successor of Sixtus, St Leo the Great. When he entered on his charge he found large remains of paganism in his diocese, and abuses had crept in among the faithful; the total extirpation of the one and the reformation of the other were the fruit of his labours. At the town of Classis, then the port of Ravenna, St Peter built a baptistery, and a church dedicated in honour of St Andrew. He employed an extensive charity and unwearied vigilance on behalf of his flock, which he fed assiduously with the bread of life, the word of God. We have many of his discourses still extant: they are all very short, for he was afraid of fatiguing the attention of his hearers.

A life of St Peter was written in the ninth century, but it tells little about him, and Alban Butler made up for lack of information by quoting from the saint’s sermons. These are, he says, “rather instructive than pathetic; and though the doctrine is explained in them at large we meet with little that quickens or affects much. Neither can these discourses be regarded as models of true eloquence, though his reputation as a preacher ran so high as to procure him the surname of Chrysologus, which is as much as to say, that his speeches were of gold, or excellent.”

Nevertheless, if the manner is not all that it might be (though elsewhere Butler says his words are “fit, simple and natural”), the matter of the discourses of St Peter Chrysologus caused him to be declared a doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XIII in 1729: a fact which Butler does not mention. St Peter is said to have preached with such vehemence that he sometimes became speechless from excitement. In his sermons he strongly recommends frequent communion, that the Eucharist, the body of Christ, may be the daily bread of our souls.

Eutyches, the heresiarch, having been condemned by St Flavian in 448, addressed a circular letter to the most distinguished prelates in the Church in his own justification. St Peter, in the answer which he sent, told him that he had read his letter with sorrow, for if the peace of the Church causes joy in Heaven, divisions beget grief; that the mystery of the Incarnation, though inexplicable, is delivered to us by divine revelation and is to be believed in the simplicity of faith. He therefore exhorted him to acquiesce and not dispute. In the same year St Peter received St Germanus of Auxerre with great honour at Ravenna, and after his death there on July 31 officiated at his funeral and kept his hood and sackcloth shirt as relics. St Peter Chrysologus did not long survive him. Being forewarned of approaching death, he returned to Imola, his own country, and there gave to the church of St Cassian some precious altar vessels. After counselling great care in the choice of his successor, he died at Imola on December 2, probably in 450, and was buried in St Cassian’s church.

The unsatisfactory Latin life, which is the only source of information we possess regarding the personal activities of this doctor of the Church, was written as late as the year 836 by Abbot Agnellus: it forms a section of his history of the archbishops of Ravenna. The text has been twice over printed by Migne, PL., vol. lii, cc. 13—20 and vol. cvi, cc. 553—559, but by far the most satisfactory edition is that of Testi Rasponi, Codex pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, vol. (1924). A short biographical sketch of value is that of D. L. Baldisserri, San Pier Crisologo (1920); and there are German monographs by H. Dapper (1867) and G. Bohmer (1919). The question of the sermons attributed to Chrysologus has been much discussed. See in particular Mgr Lanzoni, I sermoni di S. Pier Crisologo (1909); F. J. Peters, Petrus Chrysologus als Homilet (1918); Baxter in Journal of Theol. Studies, vol. xxii (1921), pp. 250—258; and D. Dc Bruyne in the same, vol. xxix (1928), pp. 362—368; as also C. Jenkins in Church Quarterly Review, vol. ciii (1927), pp. 233—259. In the Revue Bénédictine, vol. xxiii (1906), pp. 489—500, Abbot Cabrol gives reasons for attributing the Rotulus of Ravenna to St Peter Chrysologus, but this is doubtful. The sermons which have been edited under the name of Chrysologus may most conveniently be consulted in Migne, PL., vol. lii, but in the volume Spidilegium Liberianum published by F. Liverani in 1863, pp. 125—203, will be found some further sermons and collations of new manuscripts. Consult also Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur, vol. iv, pp. 604—610.

7v St. Ada Abbess and dedicated virgin
noted in France as a patroness of religious women. Ada was a niece of St. Engebert, the bishop who was murdered by his own cousin. Raised in a pious household and influenced by her uncle, Ada joined a convent in Soissons, France. She later became the abbess of St. Julien-des-Prés in Le Mans.

614 St. Bertoara Abbess of Notre-Dame-de Sales, in Bourges
France. She served from 612 until her death there under the Columbanian observance.

749 St. John Damascene last Greek Father Exposition of the Orthodox Faith hand reattached to his arm
Johannes von Damaskus Orthodoxe, Katholische und Anglikanische Kirche: 4. Dezember

Ikonenzentrum Saweljew Johannes Damascenus wurde um 650 in Damaskus geboren. Seine einflußreiche christliche Familie mußte fliehen, als Ende des 7. Jahrhunderts eine Christenverfolgung in Syrien begann. Johannes wurde Mönch und zog sich in das Kloster Mar Saba zurück.Seine hohe Bildung und seine tiefe Frömmigkeit liessen ihn zu einem begehrten Ratgeber werden. Um 700 wurde er zum Priester geweiht. Er starb um 750. Sein Grab ist seit dem 12. Jahrhundert leer.

Sein schriftstellerisches und dichterisches Werk ist zum Teil erhalten geblieben. Er hat wahrscheinlich die Legende von Barlaam und Josaphat aus dem Arabischen in die griechische Sprache übertragen. Sein Hauptwerk 'Quelle der Weisheit' (Pege Gnoseos) enthält ebenso eine Zusammenfassung der Lehren der Väter wie eine kritische Darstellung der Häresien. Johannes wird oft als der letzte der alten Kirchenväter angesehen. Thomas von Aquin bezieht sich in seiner Summa theologica auf Gregor von Nyssa und Johannes von Damaskus (wobei nach neueren Forschungen die zitierten Schriften von Nemesios von Emesa (um 400) stammen, auf dem auch Johannes aufbaut). Johannes von Damaskus wurde 1890 in der katholischen Kirche zum Kirchenlehrer ernannt.

John spent most of his life in the monastery of St. Sabas, near Jerusalem, and all of his life under Muslim rule, indeed, protected by it. He was born in Damascus, received a classical and theological education, and followed his father in a government position under the Arabs. After a few years he resigned and went to the monastery of St. Sabas.

He is famous in three areas.

First, he is known for his writings against the iconoclasts, who opposed the image veneration.

Paradoxically, it was the Eastern Christian emperor Leo who forbade the practice, and it was because John lived in Muslim territory that his enemies could not silence him.

Second, he is famous for his treatise, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, a summary of the Greek Fathers (of which he became the last).

It is said that this book is to Eastern schools what the Summa of Aquinas became to the West.

Thirdly, he is known as a poet, one of the two greatest of the Eastern Church, the other being Romanus the Melodist.

His devotion to the Blessed Mother and his sermons on her feasts are well known.

Comment: John defended the Church’s understanding of the veneration of images and explained the faith of the Church in several other controversies. For over 30 years he combined a life of prayer with these defenses and his other writings.
His holiness expressed itself in putting his literary and preaching talents at the service of the Lord.
Quote: “The saints must be honored as friends of Christ and children and heirs of God, as John the theologian and evangelist says: ‘But as many as received him, he gave them the power to be made the sons of God....’ Let us carefully observe the manner of life of all the apostles, martyrs, ascetics and just men who announced the coming of the Lord. And let us emulate their faith, charity, hope, zeal, life, patience under suffering, and perseverance unto death, so that we may also share their crowns of glory” (Exposition of the Orthodox Faith).

Martyr John of Damascus

Saint John of Damascus was born about the year 680 at Damascus, Syria into a Christian family. His father, Sergius Mansur, was a treasurer at the court of the caliph. John had also a foster brother, the orphaned child Cosmas (October 14), whom Sergius had taken into his own home. When the children were growing up, Sergius saw that they received a good education. At the Damascus slave market he ransomed the learned monk Cosmas of Calabria from captivity and entrusted to him the teaching of his children. The boys displayed uncommon ability and readily mastered their courses of the secular and spiritual sciences. After the death of his father, John occupied ministerial posts at court and became the city prefect.

In Constantinople at that time, the heresy of Iconoclasm had arisen and quickly spread, supported by the emperor Leo III the Isaurian (717-741). Rising up in defense of the Orthodox veneration of icons [Iconodoulia], St John wrote three treatises entitled, "Against Those who Revile the Holy Icons." The wise and God-inspired writings of St John enraged the emperor. But since the author was not a Byzantine subject, the emperor was unable to lock him up in prison, or to execute him. The emperor then resorted to slander. A forged letter to the emperor was produced, supposedly from John, in which the Damascus official was supposed to have offered his help to Leo in conquering the Syrian capital.

This letter and another hypocritically flattering note were sent to the Saracen caliph by Leo the Isaurian. The caliph immediately ordered that St John be removed from his post, that his right hand be cut off, and that he be led through the city in chains.

That same evening, they returned the severed hand to St John. The saint pressed it to his wrist and prayed to the Most Holy Theotokos to heal him so that he could defend the Orthodox Faith and write once again in praise of the Most Pure Virgin and Her Son. After a time, he fell asleep before the icon of the Mother of God. He heard Her voice telling him that he had been healed, and commanding him to toil unceasingly with his restored hand. Upon awakening, he found that his hand had been attached to his arm once more. Only a small red mark around his wrist remained as a sign of the miracle.

Later, in thanksgiving for being healed, St John had a silver model of his hand attached to the icon, which became known as "Of the Three Hands." Some unlearned painters have given the Mother of God three hands instead of depicting the silver model of St John's hand. The Icon "Of the Three Hands" is commemorated on June 28 and July 12.

When he learned of the miracle, which demonstrated John's innocence, the caliph asked his forgiveness and wanted to restore him to his former office, but the saint refused. He gave away his riches to the poor, and went to Jerusalem with his stepbrother and fellow-student, Cosmas. There he entered the monastery of St Sava the Sanctified as a simple novice.

It was not easy for him to find a spiritual guide, because all the monks were daunted by his great learning and by his former rank. Only one very experienced Elder, who had the skill to foster the spirit of obedience and humility in a student, would consent to do this. The Elder forbade John to do anything at all according to his own will. He also instructed him to offer to God all his labors and supplications as a perfect sacrifice, and to shed tears which would wash away the sins of his former life.

Once, he sent the novice to Damascus to sell baskets made at the monastery, and commanded him to sell them at a certain inflated price, far above their actual value. He undertook the long journey under the searing sun, dressed in rags. No one in the city recognized the former official of Damascus, for his appearance had been changed by prolonged fasting and ascetic labors. However, St John was recognized by his former house steward, who bought all the baskets at the asking price, showing compassion on him for his apparent poverty.

One of the monks happened to die, and his brother begged St John to compose something consoling for the burial service. St John refused for a long time, but out of pity he yielded to the petition of the grief-stricken monk, and wrote his renowned funeral troparia ("What earthly delight," "All human vanity," and others). For this disobedience the Elder banished him from his cell. John fell at his feet and asked to be forgiven, but the Elder remained unyielding. All the monks began to plead for him to allow John to return, but he refused. Then one of the monks asked the Elder to impose a penance on John, and to forgive him if he fulfilled it. The Elder said, "If John wishes to be forgiven, let him wash out all the chamber pots in the lavra, and clean the monastery latrines with his bare hands."

John rejoiced and eagerly ran to accomplish his shameful task. After a certain while, the Elder was commanded in a vision by the All-Pure and Most Holy Theotokos to allow St John to write again. When the Patriarch of Jerusalem heard of St John, he ordained him priest and made him a preacher at his cathedral. But St John soon returned to the Lavra of St Sava, where he spent the rest of his life writing spiritual books and church hymns. He left the monastery only to denounce the iconoclasts at the Constantinople Council of 754. They subjected him to imprisonment and torture, but he endured everything, and through the mercy of God he remained alive. He died in about the year 780, more than 100 years old.

St John of Damascus was a theologian and a zealous defender of Orthodoxy. His most important book is the Fount of Knowledge. The third section of this work, "On the Orthodox Faith," is a summary of Orthodox doctrine and a refutation of heresy. Since he was known as a hymnographer, we pray to St John for help in the study of church singing.

The Damascene Icon of the Mother of God, by ancient tradition, was painted by St John of Damascus in gratitude to the Theotokos for the miraculous healing of his right hand, cut off through the perfidy of Emperor Leo the Isaurian. This icon is also known as "Of the Three Hands" Icon of the Mother of God (June 28, and July 12).

In the ninth century in the time of the Iconoclasts, St John of Damascus (December 4) was zealous in his veneration of holy icons. Because of this, he was slandered by the emperor and iconoclast Leo III the Isaurian (717-740), who informed the Damascus caliph that St John was committing treasonous acts against him. The caliph gave orders to cut off the hand of the monk and take it to the marketplace. Towards evening Saint John, having asked the caliph for the cut-off hand, put it to its joint and fell to the ground before the icon of the Mother of God. The monk begged Our Lady to heal the hand, which had written in defense of Orthodoxy. After long prayer he fell asleep and saw in a dream that the All-Pure Mother of God had turned to him promising him quick healing.

Before this the Mother of God bid him toil without fail with this hand. Having awakened from sleep, St John saw that his hand was unharmed. In thankfulness for this healing St John placed on the icon a hand fashioned of silver, from which the icon received its name "Of Three Hands." (Some iconographers, in their ignorance, have mistakenly depicted the Most Holy Theotokos with three arms and three hands.) According to Tradition, St John wrote a hymn of thanksgiving to the Mother of God: "All of creation rejoices in You, O Full of Grace," which appears in place of the hymn "It is Truly Meet" in the Liturgy of St Basil the Great.

St John Damascene receivedmonasticism at the monastery of St Sava the Sanctified and there bestowed his wonderworking icon. The Lavra presented the icon "Of Three Hands" in blessing to St Sava, Archbishop of Serbia (+ 1237, January 12). During an invasion of Serbia by the Turks, some Christians who wanted to protect the icon, entrusted it to the safekeeping of the Mother of God Herself. They placed it upon a donkey, which without a driver proceeded to Athos and stopped in front of the Hilandar monastery. The monks put the icon in the monastery's cathedral church (katholikon). During a time of discord over the choice of igumen, the Mother of God deigned to head the monastery Herself, and from that time Her holy icon has occupied the igumen's place in the temple. At the Hilandar monastery there is chosen only a vicar, and from the holy icon the monks take a blessing for every obedience.

700 Saint John, Bishop of Polybotum (in Phrygia) gift of healing the infirm and casting out evil spirits opposed Leo for his iconoclasm

Known as a denouncer of the heresy and impiety of Emperor Leo the Isaurian. St John opposed Leo for his iconoclasm, and taught his flock the Orthodox doctrine of the veneration of icons.

The saint died at the beginning of the eighth century. The Lord granted him the gift of healing the infirm and casting out evil spirits.

8th v. Saint John, Bishop of Polybotum (in Phrygia), known as denouncer of heresy and impiety of Emperor Leo the Isaurian
St John opposed Leo for his iconoclasm, and taught his flock the Orthodox doctrine of the veneration of icons.
The saint died at the beginning of the eighth century. The Lord granted him the gift of healing the infirm and casting out evil spirits.

815 St. Theophanes & Companions 4 Byzantine martyrs opponent Leo V the Armenian probably 12 March, 817, on which day he is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology.

Constantinópoli sanctórum Theóphanis et Sociórum. At Constantinople, St. Theophanes and his companions.

Each was an officer in the imperial court of Emperor Leo V the Armenian (r. 813-820) and an opponent of the Iconoclast policies of the ruler. Arrested for treason, they were tortured, and Theophanes died during the ordeal. The others survived, eventually entering monasteries.

St. Theophanes
Chronicler, born at Constantinople, about 758; died in Samothracia, probably 12 March, 817, on which day he is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology. He was the son of Isaac, imperial governor of the islands of the White Sea, and of Theodora, of whose family nothing is known. After the early death of his parents he came to the Court of Constantine Copronimus. He was married at the age of twelve, but induced his wife to lead a life of virginity, and in 799, after the death of his father-in-law, they separated with mutual consent to embrace the religious state, she choosing a convent on an island near Constantinople, while he entered the monastery called Polychronius in the district of Sigriano near Cyzicus. Later he built a monastery on his own lands on the island of Calonymus (now Calomio). After six years he returned to Sigriano, founded an abbey known by the name "of the great acre", and governed it as abbot. As such he was present at the second General Council of Nicaea, 787, and signed its decrees in defense of the sacred images. When the emperor Leo the Armenian again began his iconoclastic warfare, he ordered Theophanes to be brought to Constantinople and tried in vain to induce him to condemn what had been sanctioned by the council. Theophanes was cast into prison and for two years suffered cruel treatment; he was then banished to Samothracia, where, overwhelmed with afflictions, he lived only seventeen days and wrought many miracles after death.

At the urgent request of his friend George Syncellus (d. 810), Theophanes undertook the continuation of his chronicle, during the years 810-15 (P.G., CVIII, 55). He treated of the time from the year 284-813, and made use of material already prepared by Syncellus, probably also the extracts from the works of Socrates, Sozomenus, and Theodoret, made by Theodore Lector, and the city chronicle of Constantinople. The work consists of two parts, the first giving the history, arranged according to years, the other containing chronological tables, full of inaccuracies, and therefore of little value. It seems that Theophanes had only prepared the tables, leaving vacant spaces for the proper dates, but that these had been filled out by someone else (Hurter, "Nomencl." I, Innsbruck, 1903, 735). The first part, though lacking in historical precision and criticism, which could scarcely be expected from a man of such ascetical disposition, greatly surpasses the majority of Byzantine chronicles (Krumbacher, "Gesch. der byz. Litt., 1897, 342). The chronicle was edited at Paris in 1655 by Goar; again at Venice in 1729 with annotations and corrections by Combefis. A Latin version was made by Anastasius Bibliothecarius, and both were ably edited by de Boor (Leipzig, 1883).

1075 St. Anno Archbishop, reformer also called Hanno.

Colóniæ Agrippínæ sancti Annónis Epíscopi. At Cologne, St. Anno, bishop.

ST ANNO, ARCHBISHOP OF COLOGNE
ANNO’S father was a Swabian nobleman whose family had seen better days, and he hoped that in a secular career his very capable son would be able to restore the fortunes of the house. But a relative who was a canon of Bamberg induced Count Walter to entrust Anno to him, and the young man was set to learn in the episcopal school of Bamberg, of which he ultimately became master. Anno had good looks and manner as well as learning and eloquence, and came to the notice of the Emperor Henry III, who made him one of his chaplains and in 1056, when he was forty-six years old, promoted him to be the archbishop of Cologne and chancellor of the empire. The appointment did not give general satisfaction, especially to the citizens of Cologne, who did not think that Anno’s family was good enough:

but the magnificence of his consecration ceremonies was beyond criticism. In the same year Henry III died and the government passed nominally into the hands of his widow, Agnes of Poitou, as regent for the minor Henry IV. She was a gentle woman without political acumen and incapable of vigorous action, her policy alienated the greater nobles, and at Whitsuntide in ro6z, Henry was kidnapped and taken up the Rhine to Cologne. Anno now became guardian and regent, but had to join with himself Adalbert, Archbishop of Bremen, and when the young king came of age he got rid of Anno altogether and gave Adalbert a free hand. In the schism raised against Pope Alexander II by the antipope Cadalus of Parma, Anno was the leader of the German bishops who supported Alexander; but this did not save him from being summoned to Rome for the alleged holding of relations with Cadalus, and again, two years later, to answer a charge of simony. Of this he cleared himself; but he was not free from that favouring of his relatives which was a fault of bishops of his time, and benefices were freely given to his nephews and partisans, on one occasion with disastrous results for the beneficiary.

This was when Anno nominated his nephew Conrad, or Cuno, to the see of Trier. The appointment caused great dissatisfaction among the clergy and people of Trier; they had a canonical right to elect their own bishop, and valued the privilege. To their remonstrances Anno turned a deaf ear, although he must have realized that his power was waning. He sent Conrad with the Bishop of Speyer and an armed escort to take possession of his see. The malcontents had found a strong and unscrupulous leader in Count Theodoric, who though a layman claimed a prescriptive title to bestow investiture upon the archbishop of Trier. As Conrad and his party were passing through Biedburg, they were set upon by the count’s men-at-arms. The Bishop of Speyer, after being plundered, was allowed to escape with his life, but Conrad was hurried off amid many indignities to a castle where he was imprisoned, and then thrown over the battlements. As he was found to be still breathing, he was stabbed to death. His body was found by a peasant hidden under leaves in a wood, and it was subsequently translated to the abbey of Tholey, where Conrad received cultus as a martyr.

Nearly the whole of the life of Anno is a record of events belonging to the troubled political history of the age, much of it rather disedifying now that great prelates no longer have ex officio to take an active part in civil government and all sorts of public affairs. Nevertheless he did not allow secular duties and activities to make him neglect the welfare of the diocese that was his first charge; and, particularly when the emperor’s dislike of him was in the ascendant and he was driven from public life, he prosecuted its reform with something of the energy and thoroughness of his contemporaries St Peter Damian and Cardinal Hildebrand, and by the same means. The monasteries were rigorously reformed and new ones were established by St Anno himself; he rebuilt or enlarged a number of churches; he purged public morals; and he distributed large sums in alms. But, though he built up the position of his see and was a generous benefactor of its flock, St Anno never succeeded in overcoming the opposition of Cologne itself, which grievously disturbed his closing years. At length he retired to the abbey of Siegburg which he had founded, and spent the last twelve months of his life there in rigorous penance, dying on December 4, 1075. It is known that, moving among many of most corrupt morals, St Anno was notable for his purity and austere standards, and it is for the virtue of his private life that he is numbered among the saints.

There is a long but unsatisfactory Life of St Anno compiled by a monk of Siegburg in the twelfth century. It has been edited with useful annotations by R. Kopke in MGH., Scriptores, vol. xi, pp. 463—514. The text in Migne, PL., vol. cxliii, is in many ways inadequate. The early German metrical life, known as the Annolied, is interesting as a monument of vernacular speech in the early twelfth century, but it is of no value as an historical source. See also Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, vol. iii, pp. 752 seq. A. Stonner, Heilige der deutschen Frühzeit (1935), vol. ii; and DHG., vol. iii, cc. 395—396. On the canonization of St Anno consult Brackinan in the Neues Archjv, vol. xxxii (1906), pp. 151—165. An account of his nephew St Conrad was written by Theodoric of Verdun before 1089; it is edited by G. Waitz in MGH., Scriptores, vol. viii, pp. 212—219. The life printed in the Acta Sanctorum, June, vol. i, has been interpolated with sundry mythical incidents.

Anno was religious as a child, entertaining thoughts of a military life, but he was guided by his uncle into an ecclesiastical state. In 1055 he became the archbishop of Cologne. Anno was well-educated in spiritual matters but also had literary knowledge as well.
   Because of his learning, he was invited by Emperor Henry III to the imperial court. His contemporaries said he was very handsome and eloquent. At the death of Henry III, Empress Agnes asked Anno to become the regent for young Henry IV.
   Anno was so strict that Henry IV demanded he be dismissed. However, the corruption of Henry's companions led to a reform of the court in 1072, at which time Anno became regent again.
   Anno aided St. Peter Darnien and others in reforming the Church in the region, was involved in the controversy between Pope Alexander II and antipope Honorius II, founded monasteries, and was known for his prayerful life.
   He spent his last years in a monastery doing penance. Anno had placed his nephew, Conrad, in Trier as bishop, despite the objections of Count Theodoric.

Conrad was murdered by Theodoric as a result. Anno died in Sieburg Monastery.

1009 St. Osmund Bishop of Salisbury helped compile Domesday Book
In Anglia, sancti Osmúndi, Epíscopi et Confessóris.
In England, St. Osmund, bishop and confessor.

1075 St. Anno Archbishop, reformer

1099 ST OSMUND, BISHOP OF SALISBURY
A DOCUMENT of the late fifteenth century states that Osmund was the son of Henry, Count of Séez, and Isabella, a half-sister of William the Conqueror. He certainly came to England with the Normans, and succeeded Herfast as chancellor of the realm. In 1078 King William nominated him bishop of Salisbury, and he was consecrated by Lanfranc of Canterbury. Salisbury at this time was no more than a fortress built over the hill which we now call Old Sarum.*[*Peter of Blois called the church and castle the “ark of God shut up in the temple of Baal”. Centuries later William Cobbett, for other reasons, refers to the deserted site as the “Accursed Hill”.]

Osmund’s predecessor, Herman, had begun the building of a cathedral, which was finished by Osmund and consecrated in 1092. Five days later it was struck by lightning and very badly damaged. The foundations of Osmond’s church are clearly marked on the hill, which is now a playground for the children of the suburbs of New Sarum. He Constituted a cathedral chapter on the Norman model, with a clergy school presided over by the chancellor, and the canons were bound to residence and the choral celebration of the Divine Office. This example had considerable importance, for some of the most important cathedrals of England were at that time served by monks and not by the secular clergy. St Osmund was one of the royal commissioners for the Domesday survey, and he was one of the principal ecclesiastical lords present at Old Sarum in 1086 when the Domesday Book was received and the nobles swore that they would be faithful to the king against all other men. In the struggle between William Rufus and St Anselm concerning investitures St Osmund considered Anselm unnecessarily intransigent. At the Council of Rockingham, when Anselm made so moving an appeal to his fellow bishops, he openly sided with the king. But just before his death he submitted his judgement, and asked pardon of St Anselm for his opposition.

St Osmund’s name is commonly associated with work in the field of divine worship. In his time, and for long after, very many dioceses of western Christendom had their own liturgical “uses”, variations from that of Rome, and the liturgical books of the church of Salisbury were in a state of considerable confusion. Osmund reduced them to order, and drew up regulations for the celebration of Mass and the Divine Office and the administration of the sacraments uniformly throughout his diocese. Within a hundred years these revised offices—“according to the use of the Distinguished and Noble Church of Sarum”—had been adopted in most of the English and Welsh dioceses; they were introduced into Ireland in 1172, and into Scotland about 1250. They remained the ordinary use in England till after the reign of Queen Mary, when they were gradually superseded by the reformed Roman rite of Pope St Pius V; this change was made at the Douay college in 1377. +[+ There was even some talk of reviving the Sarum use after the re.establishment of an ordinary hierarchy in England in i 8~o. At the present day the Mass and offices proper to the Dominicans most resemble those used in this country up to the end of the sixteenth century. The distinctive customs in the English Catholic marriage service are a survival from the Sarum ritswle.]

For this work of liturgical revision a considerable collation of manuscripts was necessary, and St Osmund collected together an extensive library at his cathedral. He is said to have written a Life of St Aldhelm, his predecessor in the ecclesiastical government of west Wessex, for whose memory he had a great reverence; he assisted at the enshrining of his relics at Malmesbury.

For all his public activities St Osmund seemed to have spent a good deal of time quietly in his cathedral city, where he liked both to copy and to bind books in the library. William of Malmesbury praises the purity of his life, and remarks that he was neither ambitious nor avaricious, the besetting temptations of great prelates in those days. He was known for his rigour and severity towards penitents, but was no harder to others than he was to himself. He died in the night of December 3—4, 1099, and was buried in his cathedral. Though Richard Poore, Bishop of Salisbury, petitioned for his canonization in 1228 it was not until 1457 that it took place—the last canonization of a saint from England before More and Fisher in 1935. In the same year his relics were translated from Old Sarum to the Lady-chapel of the new cathedral in the new city of Salisbury. The shrine was destroyed by Henry VIII (Alban Butler says the relics were re-interred in the same chapel); a slab from the tomb, inscribed with the date MXCIX, now lies in one of the bays of the nave.* [* Here on a summer’s day in 1924 the present writer heard a verger inform a group of visitors that: “This is all that remains of the tomb of Bishop Osmund, who compiled the first English Prayer Book.” While appreciating that people must be addressed in terms that they can understand, it is pardonable to think that this statement was somewhat misleading.]

St Osmund is named in the Roman Martyrology, and his feast is observed in the dioceses of Westminster, Clifton and Plymouth. There is no early life of St Osmund, though a fragment of some such biography seems to be preserved in MS. Cotton, Titus, F. III at the British Museum. For what we know of the saint we are dependent mainly on William of Malmesbury and Simeon of Durham. A number of documents connected with the canonization are still in existence they consist mostly of accounts of miracles and they were published from the originals in the munimentroom of Salisbury Cathedral by the Wiltshire Record Society in 1901, under the editorship of H. R. Malden. See also W. H. Frere, The Sarum Use, a vols. (1898 and 1901); W. H. R. Jones, The Register of St Osmund, 2 vols. (1883—84), in the Rolls Series; Bradshaw and Wordsworth, Lincoln Cathedral Statutes, vol. iii, pp. 869 seq. the DNB., vol. xlii, pp 313—315 and the Diet, of Eng. Church History, pp. 427—428. A short life, written from the Anglican standpoint, was published by W. J. Torrance in 1920.

1133 St. Bernard degli Uberti Cardinal papal legate of the noble Uberti family of Florence, Italy.
Parmæ sancti Bernárdi, Cardinális et ejúsdem civitátis Epíscopi, ex Ordine Vallis Umbrósæ.
At Parma, St. Bernard, cardinal and bishop of that city, of the Congregation of Vallombrosa of the Order of St. Benedict.
He became a Vallambrosan monk and abbot of San Salvio Monastery; eventually elected the general-superior of the congregation. In 1097, Bernard was made a cardinal by Pope Urban II and served as bishop of Parma, Italy. For supporting Pope St. Gregory VII, Bernard was driven into exile in 1104 by the followers of antipope Maginulf. When he protested the proclamation of Conrad II as king in Germany over the rightful Lothair, he again had to leave Parma. He died in his see on December 4, 1133.
Saint Bernardo degli Uberti, OSB Val. Card. B (RM). A native of Florence, Italy, St. Bernardo was professed a monk at Vallombrosa. He was appointed successively abbot of San Salvi, general of Vallombrosa, cardinal (1097), papal legate, and finally bishop of Parma (1106). He had plenty of worries because Parma at that time was the storm-center of the anti-pope's supporters. Twice he was exiled, but he proved a most resourceful prelate (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
St. Bernardo is portrayed as an elderly bearded cardinal who is carried to heaven by angels. Sometimes he is shown (1) preaching; (2) giving alms; (3) blessing; (4) exorcising; or (5) appearing to votaries after his death. Venerated at Parma (Roeder).
1133 ST BERNARD, BISHOP OF PARMA AND CARDINAL
BERNARD was a member of the great Uberti family at Florence and gave up brilliant secular prospects to become a monk with the Vallumbrosans, an austere congregation founded not long before by St John Gualbert. Bernard became in time abbot of the monastery of San Salvio, then abbot general of the whole order, and Bd Urban II created him cardinal and entrusted him with legatine duties. Parma at this time was shockingly disturbed by schisms, caused first by Bishop Cadalus, who set himself up as antipope, and then by other bishops who supported another antipope, Guibert of Ravenna, himself a Parmesan. In the midst of these disorders St Bernard was appointed bishop of Parma and consecrated by Pope Paschal II. He was a zealous supporter of the true pope and upholder of the reforms of St Gregory VII, especially in the matter of simony, which was rampant in his diocese. He was consequently driven from his see in 1104 by the followers of the antipope Maginulf, who laid hands upon him at the very altar, and was in exile for two years.

At a time when many bishops not only accepted but sought temporal power, St Bernard was distinguished by resigning that which had been received by his predecessors in the see of Parma, and he never forgot, or allowed others to forget, that he had been trained as a monk in the school of perfection; and so far as was compatible with his duties he retained all his monastic observances. When in 1127 the leaders of the Hohenstaufens proclaimed Conrad as German king against Lothair II, St Bernard protested and was again obliged to flee from Parma. Lothair came to Rome to be crowned emperor in 1133 and St Bernard died at Parma In the same year on December 4.

In the supplement to MGH., vol. xxx Pt ix, fasc. 2 (1929) the two more important Latin Lives of St Bernard of Parma, formerly printed is the Chronica Parmensia, have been re-edited by P. E. Schramm from better texts see on this the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xlviii (1930), p. 414. A biography on popular lines is that of M. Ercolani, S. Bernardo degli Uberti (1933). Of the older biographies the best is that of I. Affo (1788) but see also D. Munerati in Rivista di scienze storiche vol. iii (1906), pp. 79—86 and 257—264 the Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, vol. i, C. 1512 and DUG., vol. ix, c. 718. The general political situation is well set out by R. Davidsohn in vol. i, pp. 289 seq. of his Geschichte von Florenz and in pp. 66 seq. of his Forschungen zur alt. Gesch. Florenz.

1505 Saint Gennadius, Archbishop of Novgorod "dignified, intelligent, virtuous and learned in the Holy Scripture." first complete codex of Holy Scripture in Slavonic ("the Gennadius Bible,"

Descended from the Gonzov family and was, in the testimony of contemporaries, "dignified, intelligent, virtuous and learned in the Holy Scripture." His was made a monk at the Valaam monastery, under the spiritual guidance of St Sabbatius of Solovki (September 27). From the year 1472, he was Archimandrite of the Chudov (Miracle of the Archangel Michael) monastery in Moscow. Zealous for celebrating divine services according to the Typikon, he and Bassian, Archbishop of Rostov, and later his successor Joasaph, fearlessly rose up in defense of the ancient Rule during a dispute about moving "like the sun" (from east to west) at the consecration of the Dormition cathedral in Moscow during the years 1479-1481.

In 1483 St Gennadius began construction of a stone church at the Chudov monastery in honor of St Alexis, Metropolitan of Moscow (February 12), the founder of the monastery. On December 12, 1484 St Gennadius was consecrated as Archbishop of Novgorod. Already in Novgorod, but still honoring the memory of St Alexis, Gennadius did not cease to concern himself with the construction of the church, even contributing silver for the completion of this temple.

The time of holy Archbishop Gennadius as hierarch at Novgorod coincided with a terrible period in the history of the Russian Church. In 1470, Judaizing preachers, who traveled to Novgorod in the guise of merchants, had already begun to plant the weeds of heresy and apostasy among the Orthodox.

The first reports about the heresy reached St Gennadius in the year 1487. Four members of a secret society, in a state of intoxication, opened up and told the Orthodox of the existence of the impious heresy. As soon as it became known to him, the zealous archpastor immediately began an inquiry and with deep sorrow became convinced that the danger was a threat not only to local Novgorod piety, but also in Moscow, the very capital of Orthodoxy, where the leaders of the Judaizers had journeyed in 1480.

In September 1487 he sent to Metropolitan Gerontius at Moscow all the material from the inquiry, together with a list of the apostates he had discovered, as well as their writings. The struggle with the Judaizers became the main focus of St Gennadius' archpastoral activity. In the words of St Joseph of Volokolamsk (September 9), "this archbishop, angered by the malevolent heretics, pounced upon them like a lion from out of the thicket of the Holy Scriptures and the splendid heights of the prophets and the apostolic teachings."

For twelve years St Gennadius and St Joseph struggled against the most powerful attempts of the opponents of Orthodoxy to alter the course of history of the Russian Church and the Russian state. By their efforts the Orthodox were victorious. The works of Gennadius in the study of the Bible contributed to this victory. The heretics in their impious cleverness used texts from the Old Testament, but which were different from the texts accepted by the Orthodox. Archbishop Gennadius undertook an enormous task: bringing the correct listings of Holy Scripture together in a single codex. Up until this time Biblical books had been copied in Russia, following the example of Byzantium, not in their entirety, but in separate parts - the Pentateuch (first five books) or Octateuch (first eight books), Kings, Proverbs, the Psalter, the Prophets, the Gospels, the Epistles, and other instructive books.

The holy books of the Old Testament in particular often were subjected to both accidental and intentional errors. St Gennadius wrote about this with sorrow in a letter to Archbishop Joasaph: "The Judaizing heretical tradition adheres to the Psalms of David, or prophecies which they have altered." Gathering around himself learned and industrious Biblical scholars, the saint collected all the books of the Holy Scripture into a single codex, and he gave his blessing for the Holy Books which were not found in manuscripts of the traditional Slavonic Bible to be retranslated from the Latin language. In 1499 the first complete codex of Holy Scripture in Slavonic ("the Gennadius Bible," as they called it after its compiler) was published in Russia. This work became an integral link in the succession of Slavonic translations of the Word of God. From the God-inspired translation of the Holy Scripture by Sts Cyril and Methodius, through the Bible of St Gennadius (1499), reproduced in the first printed Bible (Ostrozh, 1581). The Church has maintained a Slavonic Biblical tradition right through the so-called Elizabethan Bible (1751) and all successive printed editions.

Together with the preparation of the Bible, the circle of church scholars under Archbishop Gennadius also undertook a great literary task: the compilation of the "Fourth Novgorod Chronicle." Numerous hand-written books were translated, corrected and transcribed, bringing the Chronicle up to the year 1496.

Dositheus, the igumen of the Solovki monastery who was at Novgorod on monastery matters, worked for several years with St Gennadius compiling a library for the Solovki monastery. It was at the request of St Gennadius that Dositheus wrote the Lives of Sts Zosimas (April 17) and Sabbatius (September 27).

The majority of the books transcribed with the blessing of the Novgorod hierarch (more than 20), were preserved in the collection of Solovki manuscripts. Ever a zealous advocate for spiritual enlightenment, St Gennadius founded a school for the preparation of worthy clergy at Novgorod.

The memory of St Gennadius is preserved also in his work for the welfare of the Orthodox Church.

At the end of the fifteenth century many Russians were concerned about the impending end of the world, which they believed would take place at the end of the seventh millenium from the creation of the world (in 1492 A.D.). Therefore, in 1408, it was decided not to compute the Paschal dates beyond the year 1491. In September 1491, however, the Archbishops' Council of the Russian Church at Moscow, with the participation of St Gennadius, decreed that the Paschalion for the eighth millenium be calculated.

Metropolitan Zosimas at Moscow on November 27, 1492 "set forth a cathedral Paschalion for twenty years," and asked Bishop Philotheus of Perm and Archbishop Gennadius of Novgorod each to compile their own Paschalion for conciliar review and confirmation on December 21, 1492. St Gennadius finished calculating his Paschalion, which in contrast to that of the Metropolitan, extended for seventy years. It was distributed to the dioceses, with the approval of the Council, as the accepted Paschalion for the next twenty years. Included with the Paschalion was St Gennadius's own commentary upon it in an encyclical entitled, "Source for the Paschalion Transposed to the Eight Thousandth Year."

In his theological explanation of the Paschalion, based upon the Word of God and the holy Fathers, the saint wrote: "It is proper not to fear the end of the world, but rather to await the coming of Christ at every moment. For just as God might deign to end the world, so also might He deign to prolong the course of time."

No one knows when the world created by God will end, "not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father "(Mt. 24:36). Therefore, the holy Fathers, inspired by the Holy Spirit, explained the cycle of years from the creation of the world precisely as a cycle. "This occurs in a circular motion, not having an end." The saint contrasts the heretical methods of calculating the times with the way hallowed by the Church, a constant spiritual sobriety. St Gennadius expounded on the theological fundamentals of the Paschalion. He explained that on the basis of the cycle of years from the world's creation, it is possible to determine a Paschalion for the future, as may be required. The Paschalion of St Gennadius, by his own testimony, was not something new that he created, but rather was based on a former tradition; in part, on the basis of the Paschalion for 1360-1492 under St Basil Kalika, Archbishop of Novgorod (July 3).

In 1539, under Archbishop Macarius of Novgorod, a Paschalion was compiled for the eighth millenium, based on the principles of the Paschalion of St Gennadius.

A prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos, which he composed in 1497, also demonstrates his deep spiritual life and prayerful inspiration. In addition to his letters to Metropolitans Zosimas and Simon, to Archbishop Joasaph, to Bishops Niphon and Prochorus, and a letter to the 1490 Council, Archbishop Gennadius also wrote a church "Small Rule" and the "Tradition for Monks," who live according to the monastic Rule of skete life.

Leaving his archpastoral service in 1504, the saint lived in retirement at the Chudov monastery, where he peacefully fell asleep in the Lord on December 4, 1505. In the Stepen-Ranks book we read: "Archbishop Gennadius served as archbishop for nineteen years, beautifying the churches, improving the behavior of the clergy, and proclaiming the Orthodox Faith among the heretics. Then he lived at Moscow for a year and a half at the Chudov monastery, dedicated to the Miracle of the Archangel Michael and to St Alexis the Metropolitan and wonderworker, where he had been Archimandrite, and then he fell asleep in the Lord."

The holy relics of St Gennadius were put into the church of the Miracle of the Archangel Michael at Chonae (September 6), in that place particularly venerated by him, where the relics of St Alexis, Metropolitan of Moscow rested. St Gennadius is also commemorated on the third Sunday after Pentecost, when the Church remembers all the Saints who shone forth at Novgorod.

1601 The Hieromonk Seraphim Bishop of the Phanar and Neochorion martyred refusal to accept Islam
From the village of Bezoula, Agrapha diocese in Greece. He lived in asceticism at first as a monk at the Monastery of the Most Holy Theotokos at Koronis, and later was chosen as bishop of the Phanar and Neochorion. For his refusal to accept Islam, he was beaten and impaled by the Turks in 1601. His head is at the monastery at Koronis and has been glorified by numerous miracles.

1623 St. Francis Galvez Franciscan Japan Martyr
He was born in New Castile, Spain, and became a Franciscan in 1591. Assigned to Manila, Philippines, he worked there for twelve years and entered Japan in 1612. When the persecutions started, Francis went to Macau, where he had his skin dyed to make him appear Japanese. He entered Japan again in 1618 but was arrested. Francis was burned alive in Edo. He was beatified in 1867.

1861 St. Theophane Venard Vietnam Martyr

Constantinópoli sanctórum Theóphanis et Sociórum. At Constantinople, St. Theophanes and his companions.

Born on November 21, 1829, and originally from the diocese of Poitiers, France, he entered into the Foreign Missions of Paris and was ordained in 1852. Sent to Vietnam two years later, he devoted his time to teaching in a seminary until his arrest and brutal martyrdom. Theophane was chained in a cage for months and then beheaded. Canonized in 1988 by Pope John Paul II.

1937 Glorification of the Priestmartyr Alexander Hotovitzky constructed the architecturally remarkable and majestic St Nicholas Cathedral in New York
The New Martyr of Russia Alexander Hotovitzky was born on February 11, 1872 in the city of Kremenetz, into the pious family of Archpriest Alexander, who was Rector of the Volhynia Theological Seminary and would later be long remembered in the hearts of the Orthodox inhabitants of Volhynia as a good shepherd. Young Alexander received a good Christian upbringing from his parents, who instilled in him love for the Orthodox Church and for the people of God.

The future pastor was educated at the Volhynia Seminary and the St Petersburg Theological Academy, from which he graduated with a Master's degree in 1895.

After graduation from the Academy, he was sent for missionary service to the Diocese of the Aluetians and North America, where he was assigned to the position of reader at the newly-established St Nicholas Orthodox Church in New York City. Following his marriage to Maria Scherbuhina, a graduate of the Pavlovsk Institute in St Petersburg, the Hieromartyr Alexander was ordained to the diaconate, and soon after, on February 25, 1896, to the priesthood by Bishop Nicholas (Ziorov) of the Aleutians, whom Father Alexander would always later remember with gratitude and love.

The ordination took place at the diocesan cathedral in San Francisco. In his address to the newly-ordained Father Alexander, Bishop Nicholas explained his selection of the new priest for ordained ministry in these words: "Your special sense of decency, your good upbringing, your noble idealism, and your sincere piety immediately caused me to look favorably upon you and compelled me to single you out among the young people, with whom you used to visit me in St Petersburg…I could see that you had that special spark from God, which makes any service an action truly done for God's sake, and without which a vocation becomes soul-less and dead work…Your first experience in preaching has shown you the power of this kind of inspiration: you saw how the people gathered around you and how attentively they stood and listened at length to your discourses… Why did these people listen to you rather than going to hear other preachers? Clearly the spark which burns within you attracts the hearts of these people like a magnet."

A week after his ordination, the young priest returned to New York to assume the pastorate of the parish where he had previously served as reader. From 1898 to 1907, the New Martyr Alexander served as a pastor under the omophorion of Bishop Tikhon. Saint Tikhon, who, in the tragic year of 1917, was to be elevated by Divine Providence to the primatial see as Patriarch of Moscow, valued highly Father Alexander's sincere piety, his gift of pastoral love, and his multifaceted theological erudition. The spectrum of his activity in the United States was quite broad and very fruitful. He was successful in missionary service, primarily among Uniates newly-emigrated from Galicia and Carpathian Rus. He was also one of the closest collaborators of the Orthodox archpastors in America and represented the Orthodox Church before American religious institutions and meetings.

Father Alexander's missionary work was not without many temptations and sorrows. Archbishop, later Metropolitan, Platon (Rozhdestvensky) expressed gratitude for the Passion-bearer Alexander's labors in America in an address delivered at the Divine Liturgy on February 26, 1914. Bidding farewell to Father Alexander, the Archbishop said, "One morning, during the years we worked together, you came to my room and, without saying much, unbuttoned your shirt, revealing a very large, bluish, bloody abrasion on your chest. That wound from a fanatic, who in a fit of rage attacked you wildly with a stick, followed the meeting of Russian people at which you had encouraged your own ethnic brother to renounce the pernicious Unia with Rome… My entire being was shaken to the core and I was profoundly moved, for before me at that moment was a genuine example of witness for Christ."

Through Father Alexander's efforts, Orthodox parishes were established in Philadelphia, Yonkers, and Passaic as well as other large and small towns throughout North America. The parishioners of these churches were cradle Orthodox whom fate had brought to the New World, as well as Carpatho-Russians converted from the Unia and former Protestant converts to the Orthodox Church.

An important contribution to the witness of the truth of Orthodoxy before heterodox American society was made by the American Orthodox Messenger, which was published in English and Russian under Father Alexander's editorship. Articles by the editor regularly appeared in this journal.

The New Martyr Alexander actively participated in the establishment of an Orthodox diocesan mutual aid society and at various times, he served as treasurer, first secretary, and president of this organization. The society provided material aid to Austrian Carpatho-Russians, Macedonian Slavs, Russian troops in Manchuria, and to Russian prisoners of war in Japanese camps.

Father Alexander also took upon himself the ascetical burden of constructing the architecturally remarkable and majestic St Nicholas Cathedral in New York to replace the small parish church. The cathedral was to become an adornment of the city. He visited Orthodox communities throughout America soliciting funds for the construction of the Cathedral. In 1901, he also traveled to his homeland, Russia, for this purpose. In the annals of St Nicholas Church, which in 1903 became the diocesan Cathedral, it is recorded that, "This Cathedral was established and constructed in the City of New York in North America, under the supervision and through the efforts and labors of the most honorable Archpriest Father Alexander Hotovitzky in the year of Our Lord 1902."

On February 26, 1906, Orthodox America celebrated the tenth anniversary of priestly service of Archpriest Alexander, one of its most remarkable pastors. Bishop Tikhon greeted the jubilarian with these words: "As you remember your ordination as a priest of God at this anniversary, you are doubtless unwillingly contemplating how you have used your God-given talents, and asking yourself if the Grace of God was bestowed on you in vain and how far you have advanced on the path of moral perfection. As you judge yourself in this way, you are at the same time the judge and the accused. In order for a judgment to be fair, the testimony of onlookers, the witnesses, must be heard. Now they are speaking before you - listen to them. Thanks be to the Lord! We just heard their eloquent and heartfelt testimony praising you. For myself as your superior, I can testify that you have proven to be trustworthy, and have justified the expectations which were hoped for at your ordination."

The sacrificial and dedicated pastoral service of the New Martyr Alexander in America was concluded on February 26, 1914, exactly eighteen years after his ordination to the priesthood. In his farewell address, Father Alexander said, "Farewell, American Orthodox Rus - my dear Mother, the Holy American Church. I, your ever-grateful son, bow filially to the ground before you. You gave birth to me spiritually, you nurtured me, from your depths you inspired me by your strength. Through the shining witness of your founders, through the enlightened apostolic teachings of your preachers, through the fervor of your faithful flock, you have given me the greatest possible joy - to be your son."

From 1914 to 1917, Father Alexander served as a priest in Helsinki, Finland, where the majority of the population was Protestant. Although Finland was then part of the Russian Empire, the Orthodox clergy there had to exert great efforts to protect the Orthodox Karelians from the proselytic expansionism of the Finnish Lutherans. In Finland, the New Martyr Alexander was a loyal, active, and dedicated assistant to his archpastor - Sergius (Stragorodsky), the future Patriarch.

In August 1917, Archpriest Alexander was transferred to Moscow and assigned as assistant pastor of Christ the Savior Cathedral. Here he was again under the direct guidance of Saint Tikhon, with whom he had already been closely associated in America.

The Passion-bearer Alexander participated in the deliberations of the Church Council of 1917-18. When the Council discussed the drafting of a message to the Orthodox flock concerning elections to the State Council, he stated that, as the fate of Russia was at stake, the Church and the Council in particular should not shy away from the struggle to save the nation. Speaking about the efforts of the Council to upbuild the Church, he outlined his preliminary plans for order and healing in the internal life of the Church and stated with some bitterness, "It seems as if there were builders who were furiously preparing blueprints, plans and so forth for the construction of an edifice and at the same time were calmly observing the destruction brick by brick of this edifice by enemies."

During the difficult years of the Civil War, the New Martyr Alexander collaborated closely with St Tikhon in the administration of the Moscow diocese. In 1918, under the spiritual leadership of the rector, Father Nicholas Arseniev, and the assistant pastor, Father Alexander, a brotherhood affiliated with Christ the Savior Cathedral was established. As its first activity, the brotherhood issued an appeal to the Orthodox flock, which Father Alexander helped write.

This document stated, "People of Russia! Christ the Savior Cathedral, the adornment of Moscow, the pride of Russia, the joy of the Orthodox Church has been condemned to slow destruction. This glorious monument to the great exploits of Russian warriors, who gave their lives for their native land and the Holy Orthodox Faith, has been denied state support…People of Russia! Will you really surrender this wonderful church of the Savior to mockery? Is it really true, as is claimed by the persecutors of the Holy Church, that the people of Russia no longer need holy things - Churches, sacraments, services, because all this is outdated and superstitious? Respond, you faithful! All of you, respond as one! Rise up and protect your holy things! May the generous and well-intentioned donations of the rich be added to the precious pennies of the faithful poor. Moscow, you are the heart of Russia! Preserve your holy shrine - your golden-domed Church of the Savior!…"

In response to this appeal, Orthodox inhabitants of Moscow joined the brotherhood of Christ the Savior Cathedral, and gave their alms to support the majestic church.

Pastoral service at that time was accompanied by much grief and danger. In May 1920 and November 1921 Father Alexander was arrested for brief periods. He was accused of violating the decrees concerning the separation of the Church from the state, and the school from the Church, by holding church school for the children.

In 1922, the Church was subjected to harsh tribulations when, under the pretext of helping the starving, ecclesiastical treasures including sacred vessels, icons, and other holy things were violently confiscated by the state. Heeding the appeal of Her holy primate, the Orthodox Church made generous donations to assist the starving. However, when Saint Tikhon issued a statement to his flock throughout Russia forbidding the cooperation of the clergy in surrendering sacred vessels for non-ecclesiastical use based on canon law, a slanderous campaign against the Church was begun in the press, Her primate was arrested, and a wave of court cases took place throughout Russia, in which servants of the Lord's altar were accused of counterrevolutionary activity. During these trials many faithful servants of the Church of Christ were sentenced to death and shed their blood as hieromartyrs and martyrs.

During this difficult time for the Church, Father Alexander was unwaveringly guided by the statements of the Holy Patriarch to his flock and also followed his directives. Funds to assist the starving were collected at Christ the Savior Cathedral. At the same time, measures were undertaken to protect the sacred objects of this church. Meetings of the clergy and parishioners of Christ the Savior Cathedral were held at Father Alexander's apartment in order to draft a resolution of the general parish meeting concerning the state decree.

A draft of the resolution, prepared by Father Alexander, protested against the violent confiscation of church valuables. A general meeting of parishioners was convened on March 23, 1922 at Christ the Savior Cathedral, presided by Archpriest Nicholas Arseniev. Father Alexander had already been arrested. This meeting adopted the final text of the resolution, which demanded guarantees from the state that all donations be used to save the lives of the starving. The participants in the meeting protest the poisonous publications against the Church as well as insults against the hierarchy. The drafting of this document was deemed by the authorities to be criminal counterrevolutionary activity.

After two court cases against the Church, in Petrograd and Moscow, which resulted in the executions of hieromartyrs and martyrs, a new highly visible trial of clergy and laity began in Moscow on November 27, 1922, during which they were accused of supposedly "attempting to retain in their hands possession of church valuables and, through the resulting starvation, to topple the Soviet regime."

On trial in this case were 105 clergy and laity. Among the main defendants were Archpriest Sergius Uspensky, dean of the second district of forty church in Prechistenka, Archpriest Nicholas Arseniev, dean of Christ the Savior Cathedral, Archpriest Alexander Hotovitzky, assistant pastor of this Cathedral, Ilya Gromoglasov, priest of Christ the Savior Cathedral, Lev Evgenievich Anohin, warden of this Cathedral, and Archpriest Simeon Golubev, rector of St John the Warrior Church.

The most significant part of the indictment submitted to the Court concerned the activity of the clergy and laity of Christ the Savior Cathedral. The indictment stated, "The main organizers and leaders of this criminal activity were Priest Hotovitzky, chairman of the council of parishes in this area, Priest Arseniev, rector of the Cathedral, Priest Zotikov, Priest Gromoglasov, former lawyer Kayutov, former deputy minister Shchepkin, the merchant Golovkin, and engineer Anohin. When the decree of the Supreme Central Executive Committee concerning the confiscation of church valuables was issued, they began their preliminary activities under the leadership of the priest Hotovitzky, who repeated secretly gathered the above named people at his apartment in order to plan with them the measures which they proposed to enact to achieve their criminal intentions."

The case was in court for two weeks. After the detailed indictment was read, questioning of the defendants began. Father Alexander remained cool and calm during the questioning as he tried to protect the other defendants. He did not admit any guilt, stating, "I consider that it is not counterrevolutionary to ask for a corresponding amount of metal in return for church valuables."

Following the interrogation of all the defendants and witnesses, at the Court session on December 6, the later infamous, sinister prosecutor Vishinsky delivered the concluding statement for the prosecution. He asked the court for a sentence of capital punishment for thirteen defendants including Archpriests Alexander Hotovitzky, Nicholas Arseniev, Sergius Uspensky, Priest Ilya Gromoglasov, Abbess Vera (Pobedinskaya) of the Novodevichy Women's Monastery and L.E. Anohin. Vishinsky requested that the other defendants be sentenced to prison terms of varying length.

On December 11, defendants were given an opportunity to say a final word to the court. In his comments, Father Alexander attempted, first of all, to obtain the court's leniency and mercy for his brother clergy, "I direct your attention to those who were at the meeting in my apartment: some of them are old and the others are very young and guilty of nothing. This was a completely ordinary meeting, it was not counterrevolutionary and it cannot by any means be characterized as a shady plot."

The lengthiest final comments were delivered by the professor and priest Ilya Gromoglasov. This defendant attempted to gain the favor of the court by expounding on his former opposition to the Holy Synod. Concerning the conclusions of the prosecution, he said that he "knew nothing of the criminal organization headed by Hotovitzky."

On December 13, the verdict of the revolutionary tribunal was announced. It was milder than the bloodthirsty verdicts delivered at previous trials held in Petrograd and Moscow in conjunction with the confiscation of church valuables. Each of the main defendants - Abbess Vera (Pobedinskaya), Archpriest Sergius Uspensky, and Archpriest Alexander Hotovitzky were sentenced to ten years in prison, the confiscation of their personal property and the deprivation of their civil rights for five years. The others were sentenced to lesser terms of imprisonment. Appeals for pardon, made by those who were sentenced to the longest terms of imprisonment, including that of Archpriest Alexander, were rejected by the presidium of the Supreme Central Executive Committee on February 16, 1923.

After the holy Patriarch Tikhon resumed his administration of the Church and made several statements regarding loyalty to the governmental authorities, many hierarchs, clergy, church leaders and laity, who had previously received sentences from the judiciary in conjunction with the confiscation of church valuables, were granted amnesty. Father Alexander was among those freed in October 1923. Following his liberation, he was not assigned to a parish but served by invitation at various churches in Moscow.

He remained free for only a short time. Already on September 4, 1924, E. Tuchkov, head of the 6th section of the Department of State Political Management, compiled a list of thirteen clergy and church leaders of Moscow and recommended that they be subjected to administrative exile. The New Martyr Alexander, who was included in the list, was characterized as follows in this document, "A priest and preacher with a post-graduate education, very active, zealous and influential among the Tikhonites. His outlook is anti-Soviet."

On September 9, 1924, the New Martyr Alexander was subjected to an interrogation. "In my religious convictions," he said at that time, "I consider myself to be a Tikhonite. My relations with the Patriarch are intimate rather than just strictly administrative, but lately, I have avoided meeting with Patriarch Tikhon, as I felt that this might inconvenience him due to my conviction in conjunction with the confiscation of church valuables. I have never expressed an opinion concerning the restoration of the former government and such a thought has not even crossed my mind."

By a decision of a special meeting of the administration of the Department of State Political Management, the New Martyr Alexander was exiled to the Turuhan region for a period of three years. His already failing health was further weakened by his sojourn in the far north.

Following his return from exile, Father Alexander was raised to the rank of protopresbyter and became one of the closest assistants of the Deputy Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, Metropolitan (later Patriarch) Sergius, who knew him well since the time of his service in Finland.

In the 1930s, Protopresbyter Alexander served as rector of the Church of the Deposition of the Robe on Donskoy Street. One of the parishioners of this church recalls, "In 1936, Father Alexander did not preach, as he was apparently forbidden to do so. In 1936-7, I was present many times when Father Alexander served. He was a tall, gray-haired priest with gentle facial features, who looked extremely intelligent. Gray, trimmed hair, a small beard, very kind gray eyes, a high-pitched, loud tenor…pronounced exclamations distinctly and with inspiration…His appearance reminded me of many priests who were exiles from the western regions…Father Alexander had many parishioners who greatly revered him…Even today, I remember Father Alexander's eyes. It seemed as if his glance penetrated your heart and embraced it with affection. I had the same feeling when I saw the holy Patriarch Tikhon…The same light also shining in Father Alexander's eyes was testimony of his sanctity."

In the fall of 1937, the New Martyr Alexander was arrested again. The documentary evidence about him at our disposal ends with this; however, a majority of oral reports testify to his death as a martyr. The Orthodox Church in America, on whose territory Protopresbyter Alexander served as a priest until 1914, venerates him as a passion-bearer, whose life as a confessor ended with sufferings for Christ. The place of his burial is unknown.

The Church of Russia also commemorates St Alexander on August 7, along with the Archpriests Alexei Vorobiev, Michael Plishevsky, John Voronets, the priests Demetrius Milovidov, and Peter Tokarev, the deacon Elisha Sholder, and Igumen Athanasius Egorov.

To Save A Life is Earthly; To Save A Soul is Eternal

THE PSALTER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY PSALM 213

I will exalt thee, O Mother of the Son of God: and every day I will sing thy praises.

Generations and peoples will praise thy works: and the islands shall expect thy mercy.

The angels will utter the abundance of thy sweetness: and the saints will pronounce thy sweetness.

Our eyes hope in thee, O Lady: send us food and delightful nourishment.

My tongue shall speak thy praise: and I will bless thee for ever and ever.

For thy spirit is kind: thy grace fills the whole world.

Thunder, ye heavens, from above, and give praise to her: glorify her, ye earth, with all the dwellers therein.

Rejoice, ye Heavens, and be glad, O Earth: because Mary will console her servants and will have mercy on her poor.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost as it was in the beginning and will always be.

God loves variety. He doesn't mass-produce his saints. Every saint is unique, for each is the result of a new idea.

As the liturgy says: Non est inventus similis illis--there are no two exactly alike. It is we with our lack of imagination, who paint the same haloes on all the saints. Dear Lord, grant us a spirit that is not bound by our own ideas and preferences.
Grant that we may be able to appreciate in others what we lack in ourselves. O Lord, grant that we may understand that every saint must be a unique praise of Your glory. Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives. Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation to use his or her unique gifts. God calls each one of us to be a saint in order to get into heaven: only saints are allowed into heaven.

The more "extravagant" graces are bestowed NOT for the benefit of the recipients so much as FOR the benefit of others.

There are over 10,000 named saints beati from history
and Roman Martyology Orthodox sources
Patron_Saints.html Widowed_Saints html Indulgences The Catholic Church in China
LINKS: Marian Shrines India Marian Shrine Lourdes of the East Lourdes 1858 China Marian shrines 1995
Kenya national Marian shrine Loreto, Italy Marian Apparitions (over 2000) Quang Tri Vietnam La Vang 1798
Links to Related MarianWebsites Angels and Archangels Saints Visions of Heaven and Hell
Widowed Saints html
Doctors_of_the_Church Acts_Of_The_Apostles Roman Catholic Popes Purgatory Uniates Chalcedon

Mary the Mother of Jesus Miracles_BC Lay Saints Miraculous_Icons Miraculous_Medal_Novena Patron Saints
Miracles by Century 100   200   300   400   500   600   700    800   900   1000    1100   1200   1300   1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000
Miracles 100   200   300   400   500   600   700    800   900   1000
1100   1200   1300   1400 1500 1600 1700 1800   1900 Lay Saints

The great psalm of the Passion, Chapter 22, whose first verse “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Jesus pronounced on the cross, ended with the vision: “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord;
and all the families of the nations shall worship before him” For kingship belongs to the LORD, the ruler over the nations. All who sleep in the earth will bow low before God; All who have gone down into the dust will kneel in homage. And I will live for the LORD; my descendants will serve you. The generation to come will be told of the Lord, that they may proclaim to a people yet unborn the deliverance you have brought.

Pope Benedict XVI to The Catholic Church In China {whole article here} 2000 years of the Catholic Church in China
The saints “a cloud of witnesses over our head”, showing us life of Christian perfection is possible.

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Saint Frances Xavier Seelos Practical Guide to Holiness

1. Go to Mass with deepest devotion. 2. Spend a half hour to reflect upon your main failing & make resolutions to avoid it.
3. Do daily spiritual reading for at least 15 minutes, if a half hour is not possible. 4. Say the rosary every day.
5. Also daily, if at all possible, visit the Blessed Sacrament; toward evening, meditate on the Passion of Christ for a half hour, 6. Conclude the day with evening prayer & an examination of conscience over all the faults & sins of the day.
7. Every month make a review of the month in confession.
8. Choose a special patron every month & imitate that patron in some special virtue.
9. Precede every great feast with a novena that is nine days of devotion. 10. Try to begin & end every activity with a Hail Mary

My God, I believe, I adore, I trust and I love Thee. I beg pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not

O most Holy trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the Tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference by which He is offended, and by the infite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I beg the conversion of poor sinners, Fatima Prayer, Angel of Peace

The voice of the Father is heard, the Son enters the water, and the Holy Spirit appears in the form of a dove.

THE spirit and example of the world imperceptibly instil the error into the minds of many that there is a kind of middle way of going to Heaven; and so, because the world does not live up to the gospel, they bring the gospel down to the level of the world. It is not by this example that we are to measure the Christian rule, but words and life of Christ. All His followers are commanded to labour to become perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect, and to bear His image in our hearts that we may be His children. We are obliged by the gospel to die to ourselves by fighting self-love in our hearts, by the mastery of our passions, by taking on the spirit of our Lord.

These are the conditions under which Christ makes His promises and numbers us among His children, as is manifest from His words which the apostles have left us in their inspired writings. Here is no distinction made or foreseen between the apostles or clergy or religious and secular persons. The former, indeed, take upon themselves certain stricter obligations, as a means of accomplishing these ends more perfectly; but the law of holiness and of disengagement of the heart from the world is general and binds all the followers of Christ.

God loves variety. He doesn't mass-produce his saints. Every saint is unique each the result of a new idea.

As the liturgy says: Non est inventus similis illis--there are no two exactly alike.
It is we with our lack of imagination, who paint the same haloes on all the saints.
Dear Lord, grant us a spirit not bound by our own ideas and preferences.
Grant that we may be able to appreciate in others what we lack in ourselves.
O Lord, grant that we may understand that every saint must be a unique praise of Your glory.
Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives.

Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation to use his or her unique gifts.

The 15 Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary ) Revealed to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan)

1. Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces. 2. I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary. 3. The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies. 4. It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of people from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. Oh, that soul would sanctify them by this means. 5. The soul that recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish. 6. Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying themselves to the consideration of its Sacred Mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise them in His justice, they shall not perish by an unprovided death; if they be just, they shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life. 7. Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church. 8. Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plentitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the Saints in Paradise. 9. I shall deliver from purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary. 10. The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in Heaven. 11. You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary. 12. I shall aid all those who propagate the Holy Rosary in their necessities. 13. I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death. 14. All who recite the Rosary are my children, and brothers and sisters of my only Son, Jesus Christ. 15. Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.

His Holiness Aram I, current (2013) Catholicos of Cilicia of Armenians, whose See is located in Lebanese town of Antelias. The Catholicosate was founded in Sis, capital of Cilicia, in the year 1441 following the move of the Catholicosate of All Armenians back to its original See of Etchmiadzin in Armenia. The Catholicosate of Cilicia enjoyed local jurisdiction, though spiritually subject to the authority of Etchmiadzin. In 1921 the See was transferred to Aleppo in Syria, and in 1930 to Antelias.

Its jurisdiction currently extends to Syria, Cyprus, Iran and Greece.

Aramaic dialect of Edessa, now known as Syriac

The exact date of the introduction of Christianity into Edessa {Armenian Ourhaï in Arabic Er Roha, commonly Orfa or Urfa, its present name} is not known. It is certain, however, that the Christian community was at first made up from the Jewish population of the city. According to an ancient legend, King Abgar V, Ushana, was converted by Addai, who was one of the seventy-two disciples. In fact, however, the first King of Edessa to embrace the Christian Faith was Abgar IX (c. 206) becoming official kingdom religion.

Christian council held at Edessa early as 197 (Eusebius, Hist. Ecc7V,xxiii).

In 201 the city was devastated by a great flood, and the Christian church was destroyed (“Chronicon Edessenum”, ad. an. 201).

In 232 the relics of the Apostle St. Thomas were brought from India, on which occasion his Syriac Acts were written.

Under Roman domination martyrs suffered at Edessa: Sts. Scharbîl and Barsamya, under Decius; Sts. Gûrja, Schâmôna, Habib, and others under Diocletian.

In the meanwhile Christian priests from Edessa evangelized Eastern Mesopotamia and Persia, established the first Churches in the kingdom of the Sassanides. Atillâtiâ, Bishop of Edessa, assisted at the Council of Nicæa (325). The “Peregrinatio Silviæ” (or Etheriæ) (ed. Gamurrini, Rome, 1887, 62 sqq.) gives an account of the many sanctuaries at Edessa about 388.

Although Hebrew had been the language of the ancient Israelite kingdom, after their return from Exile the Jews turned more and more to Aramaic, using it for parts of the books of Ezra and Daniel in the Bible. By the time of Jesus, Aramaic was the main language of Palestine, and quite a number of texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls are also written in Aramaic.

Aramaic continued to be an important language for Jews, alongside Hebrew, and parts of the Talmud are written in it.

After Arab conquests of the seventh century, Arabic quickly replaced Aramaic as the main language of those who converted to Islam, although in out of the way places, Aramaic continued as a vernacular language of Muslims.

Aramaic, however, enjoyed its greatest success in Christianity. Although the New Testament wins written in Greek, Christianity had come into existence in an Aramaic-speaking milieu, and it was the Aramaic dialect of Edessa, now known as Syriac, that became the literary language of a large number of Christians living in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire and in the Persian Empire, further east. Over the course of the centuries the influence of the Syriac Churches spread eastwards to China (in Xian, in western China, a Chinese-Syriac inscription dated 781 is still to be seen); to southern India where the state of Kerala can boast more Christians of Syriac liturgical tradition than anywhere else in the world.

680 Shiite saint Imam Hussein, grandson of Islam's Prophet Muhammad Known as Ashoura and observed by Shiites across the world, the 10th day of the lunar Muslim month of Muharram: the anniversary of the 7th century death in battle of one of Shiite Islam's most beloved saints. Imam Hussein died in the 680 A.D. battle fought on the plains outside Karbala, a city in modern Iraq that's home to the saint's shrine. The battle over a dispute about the leadership of the Muslim faith following Muhammad's death in 632 A.D. It is the defining event in Islam's split into Sunni and Shiite branches. The occasion is the source of an enduring moral lesson. "He sacrificed his blood to teach us not to give in to corruption, coercion, or use of force and to seek honor and justice." According to Shiite beliefs, Hussein and companions were denied water by enemies who controlled the nearby Euphrates. Streets get partially covered with blood from slaughter of hundreds of cows and sheep. Volunteers cook the meat and feed it to the poor. Hussein's martyrdom recounted through a rich body of prose, poetry and song remains an inspirational example of sacrifice to many Shiites, 10 percent of the world's estimated 1.3 billion Muslims.

Meeting of the Saints walis (saints of Allah)

Great men covet to embrace martyrdom for a cause and principle.

So was the case with Hazrat Ali. He could have made a compromise with the evil forces of his time and, as a result, could have led a very comfortable, easy and luxurious life. But he was not a person who would succumb to such temptations. His upbringing, his education and his training in the lap of the holy Prophet made him refuse such an offer.
Rabia Al-Basri (717–801 C.E.) She was first to set forth the doctrine of mystical love and who is widely considered to be the most important of the early Sufi poets. An elderly Shia pointed out that during his pre-Partition childhood it was quite common to find pictures and portraits of Shia icons in Imambaras across the country.
Shah Abdul Latif: The Exalted Sufi Master born 1690 in a Syed family; died 1754. In ancient times, Sindh housed the exemplary Indus Valley Civilisation with Moenjo Daro as its capital, and now, it is the land of a culture which evolved from the teachings of eminent Sufi saints. Pakistan is home to the mortal remains of many Sufi saints, the exalted among them being Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, a practitioner of the real Islam, philosopher, poet, musicologist and preacher. He presented his teaching through poetry and music - both instruments sublime - and commands a very large following, not only among Muslims but also among Hindus and Christians. Sindh culture: The Shah is synonymous with Sindh. He is the very fountainhead of Sindh's culture. His message remains as fresh as that of any present day poet, and the people of Sindh find solace from his writings. He did indeed think for Sindh. One of his prayers, in exquisite Sindhi, translates thus: “Oh God, may ever You on Sindh bestow abundance rare! Beloved! All the world let share Thy grace, and fruitful be.”
Shia Ali al-Hadi, died 868 and son Hassan al-Askari 874. These saints are the 10th and 11th of Shia's 12 most revered Imams. Baba Farid Sufi 1398 miracle, Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki renowned Muslim Sufi saint scholar miracles 569 A.H. [1173 C.E.] hermit gave to poor, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti greatest mystic of his time born 533 Hijri (1138-39 A.D.), Hazrat Ghuas-e Azam, Hazrat Bu Ali Sharif, and Hazrat Nizamuddi n Aulia Sufi Saint Hazrath Khwaja Syed Mohammed Badshah Quadri Chisty Yamani Quadeer (RA) 1236-1325 welcomed people of all faiths & all walks of life.

801 Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya Sufi One of the most famous Islamic mystics
(b. 717). This 8th century saint was an early Sufi who had a profound influence on later Sufis, who in turn deeply influenced the European mystical love and troubadour traditions. Rabi'a was a woman of Basra, a seaport in southern Iraq. She was born around 717 and died in 801 (185-186). Her biographer, the great medieval poet Attar, tells us that she was "on fire with love and longing" and that men accepted her "as a second spotless Mary" (186). She was, he continues, “an unquestioned authority to her contemporaries" (218).
Rabi'a began her ascetic life in a small desert cell near Basra, where she lost herself in prayer and went straight to God for teaching. As far as is known, she never studied under any master or spiritual director. She was one of the first of the Sufis to teach that Love alone was the guide on the mystic path (222). A later Sufi taught that there were two classes of "true believers": one class sought a master as an intermediary between them and God -- unless they could see the footsteps of the Prophet on the path before them, they would not accept the path as valid. The second class “...did not look before them for the footprint of any of God's creatures, for they had removed all thought of what He had created from their hearts, and concerned themselves solely with God. (218)
Rabi'a was of this second kind. She felt no reverence even for the House of God in Mecca: "It is the Lord of the house Whom I need; what have I to do with the house?" (219) One lovely spring morning a friend asked her to come outside to see the works of God. She replied, "Come you inside that you may behold their Maker. Contemplation of the Maker has turned me aside from what He has made" (219). During an illness, a friend asked this woman if she desired anything.
"...[H]ow can you ask me such a question as 'What do I desire?' I swear by the glory of God that for twelve years I have desired fresh dates, and you know that in Basra dates are plentiful, and I have not yet tasted them. I am a servant (of God), and what has a servant to do with desire?" (162)
When a male friend once suggested she should pray for relief from a debilitating illness, she said,
"O Sufyan, do you not know Who it is that wills this suffering for me? Is it not God Who wills it? When you know this, why do you bid me ask for what is contrary to His will? It is not well to oppose one's Beloved." (221)
She was an ascetic. It was her custom to pray all night, sleep briefly just before dawn, and then rise again just as dawn "tinged the sky with gold" (187). She lived in celibacy and poverty, having renounced the world. A friend visited her in old age and found that all she owned were a reed mat, screen, a pottery jug, and a bed of felt which doubled as her prayer-rug (186), for where she prayed all night, she also slept briefly in the pre-dawn chill. Once her friends offered to get her a servant; she replied,
"I should be ashamed to ask for the things of this world from Him to Whom the world belongs, and how should I ask for them from those to whom it does not belong?" (186-7)
A wealthy merchant once wanted to give her a purse of gold. She refused it, saying that God, who sustains even those who dishonor Him, would surely sustain her, "whose soul is overflowing with love" for Him. And she added an ethical concern as well:
"...How should I take the wealth of someone of whom I do not know whether he acquired it lawfully or not?" (187)
She taught that repentance was a gift from God because no one could repent unless God had already accepted him and given him this gift of repentance. She taught that sinners must fear the punishment they deserved for their sins, but she also offered such sinners far more hope of Paradise than most other ascetics did. For herself, she held to a higher ideal, worshipping God neither from fear of Hell nor from hope of Paradise, for she saw such self-interest as unworthy of God's servants; emotions like fear and hope were like veils -- i.e., hindrances to the vision of God Himself. The story is told that once a number of Sufis saw her hurrying on her way with water in one hand and a burning torch in the other. When they asked her to explain, she said:
"I am going to light a fire in Paradise and to pour water on to Hell, so that both veils may vanish altogether from before the pilgrims and their purpose may be sure..." (187-188)
She was once asked where she came from. "From that other world," she said. "And where are you going?" she was asked. "To that other world," she replied (219). She taught that the spirit originated with God in "that other world" and had to return to Him in the end. Yet if the soul were sufficiently purified, even on earth, it could look upon God unveiled in all His glory and unite with him in love. In this quest, logic and reason were powerless. Instead, she speaks of the "eye" of her heart which alone could apprehend Him and His mysteries (220).
Above all, she was a lover, a bhakti, like one of Krishna’s Goptis in the Hindu tradition. Her hours of prayer were not so much devoted to intercession as to communion with her Beloved. Through this communion, she could discover His will for her. Many of her prayers have come down to us:
       "I have made Thee the Companion of my heart,
        But my body is available for those who seek its company,
        And my body is friendly towards its guests,
        But the Beloved of my heart is the Guest of my soul." [224]

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Mother Angelica saving souls is this beautiful womans journey

Shrine_of_The_Most_Blessed_Sacrament

Colombia was among the countries Mother Angelica visited.
In Bogotá, a Salesian priest - Father Juan Pablo Rodriguez - brought Mother and the nuns to the Sanctuary of the Divine Infant Jesus to attend Mass. After Mass, Father Juan Pablo took them into a small Shrine which housed the miraculous statue of the Child Jesus. Mother Angelica stood praying at the side of the statue when suddenly the miraculous image came alive and turned towards her. Then the Child Jesus spoke with the voice of a young boy: “Build Me a Temple and I will help those who help you.”

Thus began a great adventure that would eventually result in the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, a Temple dedicated to the Divine Child Jesus, a place of refuge for all. Use this link to read a remarkable story about The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament

Father Reardon, Editor of The Catholic Bulletin for 14 years Lover of the poor; “A very Holy Man of God.”

Monsignor Reardon Protonotarius Apostolicus
Pastor 42 years BASILICA OF SAINT MARY Minneapolis MN

America's First Basilica Largest Nave in the World

August 7, 1907-ground broke for the foundation

by Archbishop Ireland-laying cornerstone May 31, 1908

James M. Reardon Publication History of Basilica of Saint Mary 1600-1932

Index to Part I and Part II 1932

James M. Reardon Publication History of the Basilica of Saint Mary 1955 {update}

Brief History of our Beloved Holy Priest Here and his published books of Catholic History in North America
Reardon, J.M. Archbishop Ireland; Prelate, Patriot, Publicist, 1838-1918.
A Memoir (St. Paul; 1919); George Anthony Belcourt Pioneer Catholic Missionary of the Northwest 1803-1874 (1955);
The Catholic Church IN THE DIOCESE OF ST. PAUL from earliest origin to centennial achievement 1362-1950 (1952);
The Church of Saint Mary of Saint Paul 1875-1922; (1932)
The Vikings in the American Heartland;
The Catholic Total Abstinence Society in Minnesota;

James Michael Reardon Born in Nova Scotia, 1872; Priest, ordained by Bishop Ireland;

Member -- St. Paul Seminary faculty.

Affiliations and Indulgences Litany of Loretto in Stained glass windows here. Nave Sacristy and Residence Here
Sanctuary spaces between them filled with grilles of hand-forged wrought iron the life of our Blessed Lady After the crucifixon

Apostle statues Replicas of those in St John Lateran--Christendom's earliest Basilica.
Ordered by Rome's first Christian Emperor, Constantine the Great, Popes' cathedral and official residence first millennium of Christian history.

The only replicas ever made: in order from west to east {1932}.

Saints Simon (saw), Bartholomew (knife), James the Lesser (book), John (eagle), Andrew (transverse cross), Peter keys), Paul (sword), James the Greater (staff), Thomas (carpenter's square), Philip (serpent), Matthew (book), and Jude sword

Every Christian must be a living book wherein one can read the teaching of the gospel
It Makes No Sense Not To Believe In GOD

THE BLESSED MOTHER AND ISLAM By Father John Corapi.

June 19, Trinity Sunday, 1991: Ordained Catholic Priest under Pope John Paul II;
then 2,000,000 miles delivering the Gospel to millions, and continues to do so.

By Father John Corapi
THE BLESSED MOTHER AND ISLAM By Father John Corapi.

June 19, Trinity Sunday, 1991: Ordained Catholic Priest under Pope John Paul II;
then 2,000,000 miles delivering the Gospel to millions, and continues to do so.

By Father John Corapi

Among the most important titles we have in the Catholic Church for the Blessed Virgin Mary are Our Lady of Victory and Our Lady of the Rosary. These titles can be traced back to one of the most decisive times in the history of the world and Christendom. The Battle of Lepanto took place on October 7 (date of feast of Our Lady of Rosary), 1571. This proved to be the most crucial battle for the Christian forces against the radical Muslim navy of Turkey. Pope Pius V led a procession around St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City praying the Rosary. He showed true pastoral leadership in recognizing the danger posed to Christendom by the radical Muslim forces, and in using the means necessary to defeat it. Spiritual battles require spiritual weapons, and this more than anything was a battle that had its origins in the spiritual order—a true battle between good and evil.

Today we have a similar spiritual battle in progress—a battle between the forces of good and evil, light and darkness, truth and lies, life and death. If we do not soon stop the genocide of abortion in the United States, we shall run the course of all those that prove by their actions that they are enemies of God—total collapse, economic, social, and national. The moral demise of a nation results in the ultimate demise of a nation. God is not a disinterested spectator to the affairs of man. Life begins at conception. This is an unalterable formal teaching of the Catholic Church. If you do not accept this you are a heretic in plain English. A single abortion is homicide. The more than 48,000,000 abortions since Roe v. Wade in the United States constitute genocide by definition. The group singled out for death—unwanted, unborn children.

No other issue, not all other issues taken together, can constitute a proportionate reason for voting for candidates that intend to preserve and defend this holocaust of innocent human life that is abortion.
As we watch the spectacle of the world seeming to self-destruct before our eyes, we can’t help but be saddened and even frightened by so much evil run rampant. Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia, North Korea—It is all a disaster of epic proportions displayed in living color on our television screens. These are not ordinary times and this is not business as usual. We are at a crossroads in human history and the time for Catholics and all Christians to act is now. All evil can ultimately be traced to its origin, which is moral evil. All of the political action, peace talks, international peacekeeping forces, etc. will avail nothing if the underlying sickness is not addressed. This is sin. One person at a time hearts and minds must be moved from evil to good, from lies to truth, from violence to peace.
Islam, an Arabic word that has often been defined as “to make peace,” seems like a living contradiction today. Islam is a religion of peace. As we celebrate the birthday of Our Lady, I am proposing that each one of us pray the Rosary for peace. Prayer is what must precede all other activity if that activity is to have any chance of success. Pray for peace, pray the Rosary every day without fail. There is a great love for Mary among Muslim people. It is not a coincidence that a little village named Fatima is where God chose to have His Mother appear in the twentieth century. Our Lady’s name appears no less than thirty times in the Koran. No other woman’s name is mentioned, not even that of Mohammed’s daughter, Fatima. In the Koran Our Lady is described as “Virgin, ever Virgin.”

Archbishop Fulton Sheen prophetically spoke of the resurgence of Islam in our day. He said it would be through the Blessed Virgin Mary that Islam would be converted. We must pray for this to happen quickly if we are to avert a horrible time of suffering for this poor, sinful world. Turn to our Mother in this time of great peril. Pray the Rosary every day. Then, and only then will there be peace, when the hearts and minds of men are changed from the inside.

Talk is weak. Prayer is strong. Pray! God bless you, Father John Corapi

Father Corapi's Biography

Father John Corapi is what has commonly been called a late vocation. In other words, he came to the priesthood other than a young man. He was 44 years old when he was ordained. From small town boy to the Vietnam era US Army, from successful businessman in Las Vegas and Hollywood to drug addicted and homeless, to religious life and ordination to the priesthood by Pope John Paul II, to a life as a preacher of the Gospel who has reached millions with the simple message that God's Name is Mercy!

Father Corapi's academic credentials are quite extensive. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Pace University in the seventies. Then as an older man returned to the university classrooms in preparation for his life as a priest and preacher. He received all of his academic credentials for the Church with honors: a Masters degree in Sacred Scripture from Holy Apostles Seminary and Bachelor, Licentiate, and Doctorate degrees in dogmatic theology from the University of Navarre in Spain.

Father John Corapi goes to the heart of the contemporary world's many woes and wars, whether the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, or the Congo, or the natural disasters that seem to be increasing every year, the moral and spiritual war is at the basis of everything. “Our battle is not against human forces,” St. Paul asserts, “but against principalities and powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness...” (Ephesians 6:12).
The “War to end all wars” is the moral and spiritual combat that rages in the hearts and minds of human beings. The outcome of that unseen fight largely determines how the battle in the realm of the seen unfolds. The title talk, “With the Moon Under Her Feet,” is taken from the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation, and deals with the current threat to the world from radical Islam, and the Blessed Virgin Mary's role in the ultimate victory that will result in the conversion of Islam. Few Catholics are aware of the connection between Islam, Fatima, and Guadalupe. Presented in Father Corapi's straight-forward style, you will be both inspired and educated by him.

About Father John Corapi.

Father Corapi is a Catholic priest .

The pillars of father's preaching are basically:

Love for and a relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary
Leading a vibrant and loving relationship with Jesus Christ
Great love and reverence for the Most Holy Eucharist from Holy Mass to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
An uncompromising love for and obedience to the Holy Father and the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church

God Bless you on your journey Father John Corapi

Records on life of Father Flanagan, founder of Boys Town, presented at Vatican
Jul 23, 2019 - 03:01 am .- The cause for canonization of Servant of God Edward Flanagan, the priest who founded Nebraska's Boys Town community for orphans and other boys, advanced Monday with the presentation of a summary of records on his life.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen to be beatified
Jul 6, 2019 - 04:00 am .- Pope Francis approved the miracle attributed to Archbishop Fulton Sheen Friday, making possible the American television catechist's beatification.

Brooklyn diocese advances sainthood cause of local priest
Jun 25, 2019 - 03:01 am .- The Bishop of Brooklyn accepted last week the findings of a nine-year diocesan investigation into the life of Monsignor Bernard John Quinn, known for fighting bigotry and serving the African American population, as part of his cause for canonization.

Fr. Augustus Tolton, former African American slave, advances toward sainthood
Jun 12, 2019 - 05:03 am .- Fr. Augustus Tolton advanced along the path to sainthood Wednesday, making the runaway slave-turned-priest one step closer to being the first black American saint.

Pope Francis will beatify these martyred Greek-Catholic bishops in Romania
May 30, 2019 - 03:01 pm .- On Sunday in Blaj, Pope Francis will beatify seven Greek-Catholic bishops of Romania who were killed by the communist regime between 1950 and 1970.

Woman who served Brazil’s poorest to be canonized
May 14, 2019 - 06:53 am .- Pope Francis Tuesday gave his approval for eight sainthood causes to proceed, including that of Bl. Dulce Lopes Pontes, a 20th-century religious sister who served Brazil’s poor.

Seven 20th-century Romanian bishops declared martyrs
Mar 19, 2019 - 12:01 pm .- Pope Francis declared Tuesday the martyrdom of seven Greek-Catholic bishops killed by the communist regime in Romania in the mid-20th century.

Pope advances sainthood causes of 17 women
Jan 15, 2019 - 11:12 am .- Pope Francis approved Tuesday the next step in the canonization causes of 17 women from four countries, including the martyrdom of 14 religious sisters killed in Spain at the start of the Spanish Civil War.

Nineteen Algerian martyrs beatified
Dec 10, 2018 - 03:08 pm .- Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, were beatified Saturday during a Mass in Oran.

The Algerian martyrs shed their blood for Christ, pope says
Dec 7, 2018 - 10:02 am .- Ahead of the beatification Saturday of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, Pope Francis said martyrs have a special place in the Church.
Algerian martyrs are models for the Church, archbishop says
Nov 16, 2018 - 03:01 am .- Archbishop Paul Desfarges of Algiers has said that Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, are “models for our lives as disciples today and tomorrow.”

Francesco Spinelli to be canonized after healing of a newborn in DR Congo
Oct 9, 2018 - 05:01 pm .- Among those being canonized on Sunday are Fr. Franceso Spinelli, a diocesan priest through whose intercession a newborn was saved from death in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Algerian martyrs to be beatified in December
Sep 14, 2018 - 06:01 pm .- The Algerian bishops' conference has announced that the beatification of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in the country between 1994 and 1996, will be held Dec. 8.

Now a cardinal, Giovanni Angelo Becciu heads to congregation for saints' causes
Jun 28, 2018 - 11:41 am .- Newly-minted Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu will resign from his post as substitute of the Secretariat of State tomorrow, in anticipation of his appointment as prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints later this summer.

Pope Francis creates new path to beatification under ‘offering of life’
Jul 11, 2017 - 06:22 am .- On Tuesday Pope Francis declared a new category of Christian life suitable for consideration of beatification called “offering of life” – in which a person has died prematurely through an offering of their life for love of God and neighbor.

Twentieth century Polish nurse among causes advancing toward sainthood
Jul 7, 2017 - 06:14 am .- Pope Francis on Friday approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Hanna Chrzanowska, a Polish nurse and nursing instructor who died from cancer in 1973, paving the way for her beatification.

Sainthood causes advance, including layman who resisted fascism
Jun 17, 2017 - 09:22 am .- Pope Francis on Friday recognized the heroic virtue of six persons on the path to canonization, as well as the martyrdom of an Italian man who died from injuries of a beating he received while imprisoned in a concentration camp for resisting fascism.

Solanus Casey, Cardinal Van Thuan among those advanced toward sainthood
May 4, 2017 - 10:47 am .- Pope Francis on Thursday approved decrees of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints advancing the causes for canonization of 12 individuals, including the American-born Capuchin Solanus Casey and the Vietnamese cardinal Francis Xavier Nguen Van Thuan.

Pope clears way for canonization of Fatima visionaries
Mar 23, 2017 - 06:44 am .- On Thursday Pope Francis approved the second and final miracle needed to canonize Blessed Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of the shepherd children who witnessed the Fatima Marian apparitions.
Surgeon and father among sainthood causes moving forward
Feb 27, 2017 - 11:03 am .- Pope Francis recognized on Monday the heroic virtue of eight persons on the path to canonization, including an Italian surgeon and father of eight who suffered from several painful diseases throughout his life.

Records on life of Father Flanagan, founder of Boys Town, presented at Vatican
Jul 23, 2019 - 03:01 am .- The cause for canonization of Servant of God Edward Flanagan, the priest who founded Nebraska's Boys Town community for orphans and other boys, advanced Monday with the presentation of a summary of records on his life.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen to be beatified
Jul 6, 2019 - 04:00 am .- Pope Francis approved the miracle attributed to Archbishop Fulton Sheen Friday, making possible the American television catechist's beatification.

Brooklyn diocese advances sainthood cause of local priest
Jun 25, 2019 - 03:01 am .- The Bishop of Brooklyn accepted last week the findings of a nine-year diocesan investigation into the life of Monsignor Bernard John Quinn, known for fighting bigotry and serving the African American population, as part of his cause for canonization.

Fr. Augustus Tolton, former African American slave, advances toward sainthood
Jun 12, 2019 - 05:03 am .- Fr. Augustus Tolton advanced along the path to sainthood Wednesday, making the runaway slave-turned-priest one step closer to being the first black American saint.

Pope Francis will beatify these martyred Greek-Catholic bishops in Romania
May 30, 2019 - 03:01 pm .- On Sunday in Blaj, Pope Francis will beatify seven Greek-Catholic bishops of Romania who were killed by the communist regime between 1950 and 1970.

Woman who served Brazil’s poorest to be canonized
May 14, 2019 - 06:53 am .- Pope Francis Tuesday gave his approval for eight sainthood causes to proceed, including that of Bl. Dulce Lopes Pontes, a 20th-century religious sister who served Brazil’s poor.

Seven 20th-century Romanian bishops declared martyrs
Mar 19, 2019 - 12:01 pm .- Pope Francis declared Tuesday the martyrdom of seven Greek-Catholic bishops killed by the communist regime in Romania in the mid-20th century.

Pope advances sainthood causes of 17 women
Jan 15, 2019 - 11:12 am .- Pope Francis approved Tuesday the next step in the canonization causes of 17 women from four countries, including the martyrdom of 14 religious sisters killed in Spain at the start of the Spanish Civil War.

Nineteen Algerian martyrs beatified
Dec 10, 2018 - 03:08 pm .- Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, were beatified Saturday during a Mass in Oran.

The Algerian martyrs shed their blood for Christ, pope says
Dec 7, 2018 - 10:02 am .- Ahead of the beatification Saturday of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, Pope Francis said martyrs have a special place in the Church.
Algerian martyrs are models for the Church, archbishop says
Nov 16, 2018 - 03:01 am .- Archbishop Paul Desfarges of Algiers has said that Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, are “models for our lives as disciples today and tomorrow.”

Francesco Spinelli to be canonized after healing of a newborn in DR Congo
Oct 9, 2018 - 05:01 pm .- Among those being canonized on Sunday are Fr. Franceso Spinelli, a diocesan priest through whose intercession a newborn was saved from death in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Algerian martyrs to be beatified in December
Sep 14, 2018 - 06:01 pm .- The Algerian bishops' conference has announced that the beatification of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in the country between 1994 and 1996, will be held Dec. 8.

Now a cardinal, Giovanni Angelo Becciu heads to congregation for saints' causes
Jun 28, 2018 - 11:41 am .- Newly-minted Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu will resign from his post as substitute of the Secretariat of State tomorrow, in anticipation of his appointment as prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints later this summer.

Pope Francis creates new path to beatification under ‘offering of life’
Jul 11, 2017 - 06:22 am .- On Tuesday Pope Francis declared a new category of Christian life suitable for consideration of beatification called “offering of life” – in which a person has died prematurely through an offering of their life for love of God and neighbor.

Twentieth century Polish nurse among causes advancing toward sainthood
Jul 7, 2017 - 06:14 am .- Pope Francis on Friday approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Hanna Chrzanowska, a Polish nurse and nursing instructor who died from cancer in 1973, paving the way for her beatification.

Sainthood causes advance, including layman who resisted fascism
Jun 17, 2017 - 09:22 am .- Pope Francis on Friday recognized the heroic virtue of six persons on the path to canonization, as well as the martyrdom of an Italian man who died from injuries of a beating he received while imprisoned in a concentration camp for resisting fascism.

Solanus Casey, Cardinal Van Thuan among those advanced toward sainthood
May 4, 2017 - 10:47 am .- Pope Francis on Thursday approved decrees of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints advancing the causes for canonization of 12 individuals, including the American-born Capuchin Solanus Casey and the Vietnamese cardinal Francis Xavier Nguen Van Thuan.

Pope clears way for canonization of Fatima visionaries
Mar 23, 2017 - 06:44 am .- On Thursday Pope Francis approved the second and final miracle needed to canonize Blessed Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of the shepherd children who witnessed the Fatima Marian apparitions.
Surgeon and father among sainthood causes moving forward
Feb 27, 2017 - 11:03 am .- Pope Francis recognized on Monday the heroic virtue of eight persons on the path to canonization, including an Italian surgeon and father of eight who suffered from several painful diseases throughout his life.

8 Martyrs Move Closer to Sainthood 8 July, 2016
Posted by ZENIT Staff on 8 July, 2016

The angel appears to Saint Monica
This morning, Pope Francis received Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato. During the audience, he authorized the promulgation of decrees concerning the following causes:

***
MIRACLES:
Miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Servant of God Luis Antonio Rosa Ormières, priest and founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Guardian Angel; born July 4, 1809 and died on Jan. 16, 1890
MARTYRDOM:
Servants of God Antonio Arribas Hortigüela and 6 Companions, Missionaries of the Sacred Heart; killed in hatred of the Faith, Sept. 29, 1936
Servant of God Josef Mayr-Nusser, a layman; killed in hatred of the Faith, Feb. 24, 1945
HEROIC VIRTUE:

Servant of God Alfonse Gallegos of the Order of Augustinian Recollects, Titular Bishop of Sasabe, auxiliary of Sacramento; born Feb. 20, 1931 and died Oct. 6, 1991
Servant of God Rafael Sánchez García, diocesan priest; born June 14, 1911 and died on Aug. 8, 1973
Servant of God Andrés García Acosta, professed layman of the Order of Friars Minor; born Jan. 10, 1800 and died Jan. 14, 1853
Servant of God Joseph Marchetti, professed priest of the Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Charles; born Oct. 3, 1869 and died Dec. 14, 1896
Servant of God Giacomo Viale, professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, pastor of Bordighera; born Feb. 28, 1830 and died April 16, 1912
Servant of God Maria Pia of the Cross (née Maddalena Notari), foundress of the Congregation of Crucified Sisters Adorers of the Eucharist; born Dec. 2, 1847 and died on July 1, 1919

Sunday, November 23 2014 Six to Be Canonized on Feast of Christ the King.

On the List Are Lay Founder of a Hospital and Eastern Catholic Religious
VATICAN CITY, June 12, 2014 (Zenit.org) - Today, the Vatican announced that during the celebration of the feast of Christ the King on Sunday, November 23, an ordinary public consistory will be held for the canonization of the following six blesseds, who include a lay founder of a hospital for the poor, founders of religious orders, and two members of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with the Holy See:
-Giovanni Antonio Farina (1803-1888), an Italian bishop who founded the Institute of the Sisters Teachers of Saint Dorothy, Daughters of the Sacred Hearts
-Kuriakose Elias Chavara (1805-1871), a Syro-Malabar priest in India who founded the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate
-Ludovico of Casoria (1814-1885), an Italian Franciscan priest who founded the Gray Sisters of St. Elizabeth
-Nicola Saggio (Nicola da Longobardi, 1650-1709), an Italian oblate of the Order of Minims
-Euphrasia Eluvathingal (1877-1952), an Indian Carmelite of the Syro-Malabar Church
-Amato Ronconi (1238-1304), an Italian, Third Order Franciscan who founded a hospital for poor pilgrims

CAUSES OF SAINTS July 2015.
Pope Recognizes Heroic Virtues of Ukrainian Archbishop
Recognition Brings Metropolitan Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky Closer to Beatification
By Junno Arocho Esteves Rome, July 17, 2015 (ZENIT.org)
Pope Francis recognized the heroic virtues of Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky. According to a communique released by the Holy See Press Office, the Holy Father met this morning with Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

The Pope also recognized the heroic virtues of several religious/lay men and women from Italy, Spain, France & Mexico.
Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky is considered to be one of the most influential 20th century figures in the history of the Ukrainian Church.
Enthroned as Metropolitan of Lviv in 1901, Archbishop Sheptytsky was arrested shortly after the outbreak of World War I in 1914 by the Russians. After his imprisonment in several prisons in Russia and the Ukraine, the Archbishop was released in 1918.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic prelate was also an ardent supporter of the Jewish community in Ukraine, going so far as to learn Hebrew to better communicate with them. He also was a vocal protestor against atrocities committed by the Nazis, evidenced in his pastoral letter, "Thou Shalt Not Kill." He was also known to harbor thousands of Jews in his residence and in Greek Catholic monasteries.
Following his death in 1944, his cause for canonization was opened in 1958.
* * *
The Holy Father authorized the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees regarding the heroic virtues of:
- Servant of God Andrey Sheptytsky, O.S.B.M., major archbishop of Leopolis of the Ukrainians, metropolitan of Halyc (1865-1944);
- Servant of God Giuseppe Carraro, Bishop of Verona, Italy (1899-1980);
- Servant of God Agustin Ramirez Barba, Mexican diocesan priest and founder of the Servants of the Lord of Mercy (1881-1967);
- Servant of God Simpliciano della Nativita (ne Aniello Francesco Saverio Maresca), Italian professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, founder of the Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Hearts (1827-1898);
- Servant of God Maria del Refugio Aguilar y Torres del Cancino, Mexican founder of the Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament (1866-1937);
- Servant of God Marie-Charlotte Dupouy Bordes (Marie-Teresa), French professed religious of the Society of the Religious of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (1873-1953);
- Servant of God Elisa Miceli, Italian founder of the Rural Catechist Sisters of the Sacred Heart (1904-1976);
- Servant of God Isabel Mendez Herrero (Isabel of Mary Immaculate), Spanish professed nun of the Servants of St. Joseph (1924-1953)

October 01, 2015 Vatican City, Pope Authorizes following Decrees
(ZENIT.org) By Staff Reporter
Polish Layperson Recognized as Servant of God
Pope Authorizes Decrees
Pope Francis on Wednesday authorised the Congregation for Saints' Causes to promulgate the following decrees:

MARTYRDOM
- Servant of God Valentin Palencia Marquina, Spanish diocesan priest, killed in hatred of the faith in Suances, Spain in 1937;

HEROIC VIRTUES
- Servant of God Giovanni Folci, Italian diocesan priest and founder of the Opera Divin Prigioniero (1890-1963);
- Servant of God Franciszek Blachnicki, Polish diocesan priest (1921-1987);
- Servant of God Jose Rivera Ramirez, Spanish diocesan priest (1925-1991);
- Servant of God Juan Manuel Martín del Campo, Mexican diocesan priest (1917-1996);
- Servant of God Antonio Filomeno Maria Losito, Italian professed priest of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (1838-1917);
- Servant of God Maria Benedetta Giuseppa Frey (nee Ersilia Penelope), Italian professed nun of the Cistercian Order (1836-1913);
- Servant of God Hanna Chrzanowska, Polish layperson, Oblate of the Ursulines of St. Benedict (1902-1973).

March 06 2016 MIRACLES authorised the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees:
Pope Francis received in a private audience Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, during which he authorised the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees:
MIRACLES

– Blessed Manuel González García, bishop of Palencia, Spain, founder of the Eucharistic Missionaries of Nazareth (1877-1940);
– Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity (née Elisabeth Catez), French professed religious of the Order of Discalced Carmelites (1880-1906);
– Venerable Servant of God Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus (né Henri Grialou), French professed priest of the Order of Discalced Carmelites, founder of the Secular Institute “Notre-Dame de Vie” (1894-1967);
– Venerable Servant of God María Antonia of St. Joseph (née María Antonio de Paz y Figueroa), Argentine founder of the Beaterio of the Spiritual Exercise of Buenos Aires (1730-1799);
HEROIC VIRTUE

– Servant of God Stefano Ferrando, Italian professed priest of the Salesians, bishop of Shillong, India, founder of the Congregation of Missionary Sisters of Mary Help of Christians (1895-1978);
– Servant of God Enrico Battista Stanislao Verjus, Italian professed priest of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, coadjutor of the apostolic vicariate of New Guinea (1860-1892);
– Servant of God Giovanni Battista Quilici, Italian diocesan priest, founder of the Congregation of the Daughters of the Crucified (1791-1844);
– Servant of God Bernardo Mattio, Italian diocesan priest (1845-1914);
– Servant of God Quirico Pignalberi, Italian professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual (1891-1982);
– Servant of God Teodora Campostrini, Italian founder of the Minim Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Sorrows (1788-1860);
– Servant of God Bianca Piccolomini Clementini, Italian founder of the Company of St. Angela Merici di Siena (1875-1959);
– Servant of God María Nieves of the Holy Family (née María Nieves Sánchez y Fernández), Spanish professed religious of the Daughters of Mary of the Pious Schools (1900-1978).

April 26 2016 MIRACLES authorised the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees:
Here is the full list of decrees approved by the Pope:

MIRACLES
– Blessed Alfonso Maria Fusco, diocesan priest and founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. John the Baptist (1839-1910);
– Venerable Servant of God John Sullivan, professed priest of the Society of Jesus (1861-1933);
MARTYRDOM
– Servants of God Nikolle Vinçenc Prennushi, O.F.M., archbishop of Durres, Albania, and 37 companions killed between 1945 and 1974;
– Servants of God José Antón Gómez and three companions of the Benedictines of Madrid, Spain, killed 1936;
HEROIC VIRTUES
– Servant of God Thomas Choe Yang-Eop, diocesan priest (1821-1861);
– Servant of God Sosio Del Prete (né Vincenzo), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, founder of the Congregation of the Little Servants of Christ the King (1885-1952);
– Servant of God Wenanty Katarzyniec (né Jósef), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual (1889-1921);
– Servant of God Maria Consiglia of the Holy Spirity (née Emilia Paqualina Addatis), founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Addolorata, Servants of Mary (1845-1900);
– Servant of God Maria of the Incarnation (née Caterina Carrasco Tenorio), founder of the Congregation of the Franciscan Tertiary Sisters of the Flock of Mary (1840-1917);
– Servant of God , founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Family of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1851-1923);
– Servant of God Ilia Corsaro, founder of the Congregation of the Little Missionaries of the Eucharist (1897-1977);
– Servant of God Maria Montserrat Grases García, layperson of the Personal Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei (1941-1959).

LINKS:
Marian Apparitions (over 2000) India Marian Shrine Lourdes of the East   Lourdes Feb 11- July 16, Loreto, Italy 1858
China Marian shrines May 23, 1995 Zarvintisya Ukraine Lourdes Kenya national Marian shrine    Quang Tri Vietnam La Vang 1798
Links to Related Marian Websites Angels and Archangels Doctors_of_the_Church   Acts_Apostles Roman Catholic Popes Purgatory Uniates, 213 2022