St. John Cassian

Joyous feast! Today we commemorate our Holy Father John Cassian the Roman, who is well known for his writings on the ascetic life and his introduction of monastic rules from Scetis in Egypt to the West in the late 300s and early 400s.

St. John Cassian was born in the Roman Empire to wealthy parents and at an early age went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which so impacted him that he became a monk in Bethlehem, later moving to Scetis to become a disciple of the elders there. After laboring in Egypt as a monk for a number of years the Saint moved to Constantinople where he became a disciple of St. John Chrysostom, who ordained him to the deaconate and appointed him as sacristan of Holy Wisdom Cathedral.

When St. John Chrysostom was exiled from Constantinople the city's clergy sent St. John Cassian as their representative to Rome to ask Pope Innocent I to intervene with the emperor on the exiled archbishop's behalf. In Rome the Saint was ordained a priest, and after some time in Italy he left for Provence in what today is southern France.

In Provence St. John Cassian founded two monasteries, one for men and one for women, in the coastal city of Marseille. (The men's monastery, St. Victor's Abbey, survives to this day as a Benedictine institution of the Roman Catholic Church.) Through both his labors and his writings St. John Cassian did a great deal to advance the spread of monasticism in the West, and both his Institutes and Conferences are treasured to this day by both Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics.

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

St. John of San Francisco

Joyous feast! С праздником! Today we commemorate the 45th anniversary of the falling asleep of one of the great fathers of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, the missionary and wonderworker St. John, who served as Bishop of Shanghai and later as Archbishop first of Paris and then of San Francisco. Books could be filled with the many miracles worked through St. John both during his life and since his death, so I'll refer you here rather than try to summarize them all on this blog. May St. John's blessing and prayers be with us all!

St. Clotilda

Joyous feast! St. Clotilda was Queen of the Franks through her marriage to Clovis I and it was thanks to her influence (and a battlefield victory) that Clovis accepted baptism in 496 and converted the Franks to Orthodoxy. After Clovis' death in 511 St. Clotilda remained for a time in Paris and at the center of Frankish politics, but later withdrew to Tours to live in seclusion and prayer near the relics of St. Martin, for whom she had a strong devotion.

After 34 years as a widow St. Clotilda reposed and was buried with her husband in the mausoleum church they had founded together in Paris. More on her life can be found here. May St. Clotilda's blessing and prayers be with us all!

St. William of Gellone

Joyous feast! St. William of Gellone, also known after his homeland as St. William of Languedoc, was a count in the southern reaches of the empire of Charlemagne and led the forces that defeated the invading armies of the Emir of Cordoba at the Battle of Orange. The Saint later founded a monastery in Gellone (near Montpellier) that strictly followed the Rule of St. Benedict and eventually retired there as a monk, falling asleep in 812.

After St. William's glorification his relics were exhumed and enshrined in the Gellone Monastery's main church alongside a fragment of the Cross that the Saint had given the Monastery at its founding. Thanks to St. William's popularity his monastery became a major stopover for pilgrims from across Western Europe who were making their way to Compostela.

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

Pictured is the Gellone Monastery, now known as the Abbey of St. William 'of the Desert.'

Ecumenical Patriarch to Visit France

Patriarch Bartholomew I (Arhondonis) of Constantinople is preparing for a visit to France. During his time in France Patriarch Bartholomew will visit St. Sergius' Theological Institute in Paris and meet with the Orthodox hierarchs serving in the country. More here.

St. Martin the Merciful

I just went through today's calendar entry a little more thoroughly than I had time to earlier this morning and I realized that today is a doubly beautiful feast day as it is not only St. Menas' day, but also the feast of St. Martin the Merciful of Tours and therefore the nameday of two very dear friends of mine from that fiery Orthodox Christian beacon on a hill in a land of Evangelical Protestantism, the Commune :-). So, a doubly joyous feast to everyone! May the Saints' blessings and prayers be with us all! For more on St. Martin's life please check out Orthodox America's right up on his life here.