Orthodox Life

The post commemorates the Holy Apostle Thomas, one of the Twelve, on his feast day of October 6th. Thomas, also called Didymus, meaning the Twin, was a Galilean fisherman called by Jesus Christ. The author recalls that when Christ set out toward dangerous territory before the resurrection of Lazarus, Thomas urged the other disciples to go with Him, saying, 'Let us also go, that we may die with Him.' The post treats Thomas's doubt about the Resurrection as 'blessed unbelief' or 'saving doubt,' because it strengthened the Church's faith.

When Christ appeared to him eight days after Pascha and invited him to touch His wounds, Thomas confessed, 'My Lord and my God!' The post also recounts a tradition in which divine providence used Thomas to confirm the bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary. Arriving three days late to her burial in Jerusalem, he asked that her tomb be opened so he could venerate her.

The empty sepulcher showed her ascent into heaven, and the Mother of God comforted his grief by giving him her holy sash, a relic connected with the feast of the holy belt celebrated on August 31. After Pentecost, Thomas preached outside the Roman Empire in Palestine, Mesopotamia, Parthia, Ethiopia, and India, converting many and building churches.

His preaching provoked a pagan ruler in Meliapur, and he was martyred by being pierced with five spears.

The post commemorates Saint Charitina of Amisus, an early Christian virgin and martyr of the late 3rd and early 4th centuries, whose feast falls on October 5th. Orphaned young in Amisus, modern-day Samsun in Turkey, she was raised by a pious Roman Christian named Claudius as his own daughter. Though not yet formally baptized, she was a Christian at heart, studied divine law day and night, and vowed perpetual virginity.

Her example converted many pagans, which drew the attention of Governor Dometius, an official under Emperor Diocletian during his persecution of Christians. Ordered before a tribunal, Charitina confessed Christ and refused to sacrifice to idols. The judge subjected her to tortures: her head was shaved, burning coals were placed on her flesh, and she was thrown into the sea with a stone around her neck.

The post relates that, according to pious tradition, she was preserved or healed each time, and stepped from the sea unharmed, calling the immersion her baptism. The judge then ordered her to public dishonor by dissolute youths. To protect her purity, Charitina knelt and prayed for God to take her soul; she reposed peacefully in 304 AD before her attackers could touch her.

Her foster-father recovered her body after it washed ashore three days later and buried her honorably.

October 4 marks the commemoration of the holy icon of the Theotokos known as Panagia Kitrinopetritissa, Our Lady of Yellow Rock. The wonderworking icon is housed at the Holy Monastery of St George in Yellow Rock, New South Wales, and is described as the first miraculous Orthodox icon formally named after an Australian location. The Greek title translates as All-Holy Mother of the Yellow Rock.

The account traces the icon's origin to prophetic visions received by a Greek woman, Eleni Federikou, while she lived in London. In these dreams the Virgin Mary commanded her to travel to a distant overseas country and build a church, showing her an unfamiliar landscape of wild bushland, winding creeks and native eucalyptus trees beneath a massive glowing silver cross in the sky.

Eleni and her husband Dimitrianos migrated to Australia in 1958. Their search, at first focused on northern Sydney, was redirected by another dream telling them to move further into the rural west. It ended when they reached the small village of Yellow Rock, which Eleni recognized as the exact property from her visions.

With the blessing of Archbishop Ezekiel, the couple purchased the land on October 4, 1962, laying the groundwork for Australia's first Orthodox monastery. The icon now stands in the monastery's main church and draws Greek Orthodox believers from across Australia and beyond, including students, parishioners and pilgrims seeking blessings and intercession.

The post commemorates Saint Ieronymos of Aegina, an Eastern Orthodox elder and ascetic remembered on October 3. He was born Basil Apostolides in 1883 in Gelveri, Cappadocia, in modern-day Turkey. As a child he was influenced by local cave-ascetics and an atmosphere of unceasing prayer. He was ordained a deacon in Constantinople and served in Asia Minor early in his ministry.

After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the population exchange of the 1920s between Greece and Turkey, he came to Greece as a refugee. He was ordained a hieromonk in 1923 and settled on the island of Aegina, where he spent the rest of his life. There he served as a hospital chaplain and built a hospital church dedicated to St. Dionysios.

He became known across Greece as a gifted father-confessor, a clairvoyant, and a healer of souls who cared for the poor and suffering. Later he founded the Hermitage of the Annunciation of the Theotokos and lived as a strict monastic hermit, practicing noetic prayer. After a vision of Christ's flesh and blood in the communion chalice, he stopped serving the Divine Liturgy out of holy awe, though crowds still traveled to his monastery for counsel.

In 1940 he returned to the traditional Old Calendar, seeing the Greek Church's calendar change as a compromise with secularization. He avoided factionalism, refused to condemn New Calendarists, and prioritized Christian love and church unity, so that Old and New Calendarists alike regarded him as a living saint. He reposed in an Athens hospital on October 3, 1966, and his relics were returned to his hermitage on Aegina.

On October 2nd the Church commemorates the holy martyrs Cyprian and Justina, who suffered in Nicomedia during the persecutions under Emperor Diocletian. Before his conversion, Cyprian was a wealthy pagan sorcerer and philosopher in Antioch who dealt in dark magic and invoked demonic spirits. Justina was a devout Christian virgin who had converted her own pagan parents and dedicated her chastity to Christ.

Their lives intersected when a wealthy pagan suitor, unable to win Justina's affections, hired Cyprian to use his magical arts to compromise her virtue and force her into marriage. Cyprian sent powerful demonic spirits to torment Justina, but she repelled every assault through fasting, intense prayer, and the sign of the Holy Cross.

After his demons were three times put to flight by the grace of Christ, Cyprian recognized the impotence of Satan's power. He repented, publicly burned his expensive magic books, and sought baptism from the local bishop. He later rose through the clergy to become a bishop, while Justina was ordained a deaconess and appointed abbess of a convent.

Under Diocletian both were arrested for their faith and tortured, including being thrown into a boiling cauldron, which they miraculously survived. They refused to sacrifice to pagan idols, so the authorities transferred them to Nicomedia, where the governor ordered their execution in 304 AD.

The post commemorates Saint Romanos the Melodist, whose feast falls on October 1st. Romanos lived in the 6th century during the height of the Byzantine Empire and is counted among the greatest hymnographers of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Born in Syria, he served as a deacon in Beirut before moving to Constantinople during the reign of Emperor Justinian I. Church tradition holds that Romanos was not initially a gifted singer or writer, and his weakness caused him embarrassment among his peers.

On Christmas Eve he received a vision of the Virgin Mary, who commanded him to swallow a scroll. After doing so, he was blessed with musical talent and a beautiful voice, and he stepped onto the ambo to chant his famous hymn on the Nativity. Romanos is credited with pioneering and perfecting the kontakion, a form of chanted verse sermon and a multi-stanza poem set to music.

His hymns combined biblical narratives with vivid dialogue, theological insight, and dramatic tension. They also served an educational purpose, explaining theological concepts to ordinary people in an accessible and emotionally stirring way. He is said to have composed over one thousand hymns, of which about eighty kontakia survive today.

His subjects included the lives of saints, major feast days, the Passion of Christ, and the Last Judgment. His poetic skill earned him the title of the 'Pindar of rhythmic poetry.' The saint reposed in 556 AD.