Hellenic Net

ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ  Ὡς ἐγκρυφίας ἄρτος ἐξωπτημένος, Καυθεὶς προσήχθη Πιόνιος Κυρίῳ. The Holy Martyr Pionios lived during the time of the emperor Decius (249 - 251 AD) and was an elder of the Church of Smyrna. He controlled the Jews and the Gentiles and convinced them from the Holy Scriptures that there is only one true God, the Creator of all and His only begotten Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and preached that all sinners and unbelievers will be punished and they will be consigned to eternal fire. So he was captured by the pagans along with other Christians. And first he delivered himself in chains to Polemon, the priest of the idols and the ruler of the city Elpidius. He was then taken to the ruler of the country, Viceroy Contylianus, who ordered that he be tortured. They beat him mercilessly to death and after hanging him on a tree, burned his ribs with burning torches. Then they threw him into a furnace and the Saint, praying in it, ended his life as a martyr. His Synaxis was held...

ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ The Holy Hieromartyr Evlogios was born in the city of Cordoba, Spain in the 8th century AD. from a pious and aristocratic family. From his childhood he was raised with the threads of the Christian faith. But those years were difficult. The Arab occupation of the country (711 AD) had brought many sufferings to the Church, which was divided into three provinces with twenty-nine Bishops and was trying to cope with the persecutions of the Mohammedan conquerors as well as temptations from within, such as heresies. Many clergy and monks, due to the invasion of foreigners, settled in France, bringing with them the Visigothic ecclesiastical spirit and the Mozarabic standard. Nevertheless, in Spain, the Mozarabic Church maintained its tradition and organization until the time of the "full reconquest" (15th century AD), when, unfortunately, schismatic Rome had already imposed everywhere in the reconquered places with the Latin tradition and its formal and heretical teaching. A...

ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ Χαίροις βασιλίδων ἡ καλλονή, χαίροις τῶν Ἀρταίων,  ἐγκαλώπισμα ἱερόν· χαίροις δωρημάτων,  ταμεῖον οὐρανίων, Ὁσία Θεοδώρα, ἀξιοθαύμαστε. Theodora Petralifena or Saint Theodora of Arta (Serbia, 1210 - 1280) was the wife of the Despot of Epirus Michael II and an Orthodox Christian Saint. Early years Theodora was born and raised around the year 1210 AD. in Serbia, Macedonia. Her father was Sebastokrator Ioannis Petraliphas governor of Thessaly and Macedonia, Her mother was Eleni who came from an aristocratic family of Constantinople. The Petralifa Family was of Norman origin with Peter of Alifa as its progenitor from Alife, near Caserta, participated in Robert Guiscard's Norman invasions and then entered Byzantine service. The Petralifa Family was originally settled in Didymoteicho, offered many important services to the empire and was honored with high offices. Her life was unknown until the time when a monk named Job wrote the "Hagiography of Saint Theodora of Arta...

ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ  Ἔσπευδε τηρεῖν καὶ κεραίαν τοῦ νόμου, Ὁ Σωφρόνιος, οὗ παρ᾽ οὐρανοῖς κέρας. Ἑνδεκάτῃ σαόφρων ἔδυ Σωφρόνιος παρὰ τύμβον. Saint Sophronius (Arabic: سفرونيوس, c. 560 – 11 March 638), Sophronius I of Jerusalem, called Sophronius the Sophist, was the Patriarch of Jerusalem from 634 until his death. He is honored as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. Before reaching the primacy of Jerusalem, he was a monk and theologian who was the main protagonist of orthodox teaching in the doctrinal controversy about the essential nature of Jesus and his volitional acts. He is also known for negotiating the surrender of Jerusalem to the Muslim caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab. He was born in Damascus, Syria about 560. It has been argued that he is of Byzantine Greek or Syrian descent. ] near Bethlehem. He received a great philosophical and theological education. He went to Jerusalem, where he became a monk in the Monastery of Agios Theodosios and devoted himself to deeper theolo...