St. Panteleimon the Healer

Joyous feast! St. Panteleimon is one of the more beloved saints in the East, well known in Eastern Europe and the Middle East for the many healings he has worked both in his life and since his death. The Saint was born in the 3rd century in the city of Nicomedia to a pagan father and a Christian mother and received a good education, being trained as a physician and eventually becoming attached to the court of the Roman Emperor Maximian.

While at the court of Maximian St. Panteleimon came to know several secret Christians who had survived the persecutions in 303 and began to discuss the Christian Faith with them. Passing by a child newly bitten by a viper, the Saint prayed to the Lord Jesus Christ to heal the child, saying that he would accept baptism if He did so. The child was healed on the spot and St. Panteleimon was baptized, also converting his father to the Faith and healing many who were sick through his prayers.

St. Panteleimon treated all to came to him free of charge, healing the sick, visiting those in prison, and helping the needy. When Emperor Maximian discovered that the Saint had been visiting imprisoned Christians he demanded that the doctor sacrifice to the idols and then had him handed over for torture when he refused the emperor's command. When after many tortures St. Panteleimon was thrown into the circus to be devoured by the wild animals kept there they instead lay down at his feet, causing the crowds to shout, "Great is the God of the Christians!"

After the incident in the stadium St. Panteleimon was bound to an olive tree and beheaded. At the moment of his death the tree to which he was tied burst into fruit, converting many more to the Christian Faith. The Saint's relics were cast into the fire, but did not burn and were eventually handed over to Nicomedia's Christians. His relics are today scattered throughout the world, with his head being kept as one of the treasures of Mount Athos' Panteleimonou Monastery.

More on St. Panteleimon's life can be found here. May his blessing and prayers be with us all!

St. Christina of Tyre

Joyous feast! St. Christina of Tyre lived in what today is Lebanon in the 3rd century, born into the family of Urban, the Roman governor of Tyre. The Saint was exceptionally beautiful and because of this and her privileged background was sought after as a bride. St. Christina's father, however, wanted his daughter to become a priestess and settled her in quarters set apart from the family and filled with many idols and charged her with the duty of offering the daily incense to the idols.

It was in this solitude that St. Christina began to wonder which god had created the heavens and the earth. Casting aside the worship of the idols as foolishness since they had been made by men, the Saint came to believe in the one God and began to fast and to pray to Him with increasingly fervor to reveal Himself to her. God heard her prayers and sent an angel to the Saint to tell her of the coming of the Christ into the world and to forewarn her of the sort of death she would suffer for her faith in Christ her Bridegroom.

After the angel's visit St. Christina destroyed the idols she had cared for and cast them out. When the Saint's father learned what had happened he had his daughter beaten and thrown into prison. When she would not recant the Christian Faith at her trial the governor had St. Christina bound to an iron wheel with a fire set beneath and tortured in this way before being returned to prison. An angel visited the Saint the following night, healing her many wounds and giving her food. Seeing this Urban had his daughter thrown into the sea with weights, but the weights sank while she remained on the sea's surface.

St. Christina underwent many tortures for her faith in the Christ and her witness was so strong that roughly three hundred of the people of Tyre were converted to the Orthodox Faith because of her sufferings. The Saint was finally taken from this world to the next when the new governor of Tyre had her beheaded. More on her life can be found here. May St. Christina's blessing and prayers be with us all!

St. Augustine of Hippo

Joyous feast! St. Augustine was born in the Berber territory of Numidia, then the Roman province of Africa and now divided between Algeria and Tunisia, in 354 and was raised by his devout mother, St. Monica, who eventually sent him to ancient Carthage to further his studies.

The Saint, then a Manichean, eventually became a professor of rhetoric and moved to Milan to teach in the late 300s. In Milan St. Augustine met the great St. Ambrose and was converted to Orthodoxy, giving away his worldly possessions to the poor to become a monk.

In 391 St. Augustine was ordained a priest and, four years later, consecrated to the episcopacy and after some time as an auxiliary was in 395 elected Bishop of Hippo in Numidia. During his 35 years as a bishop St. Augustine wrote his famous Confessions as well as many works combating the various heresies besetting the Church at that time.

St. Augustine fell asleep during the Vandal siege of his see in 430 at the age of seventy-six. More on his life can be found here and here. May his blessing and prayers be with us all!