Sunday of the 7th Ecumenical Council
October 11
On the Sunday that falls on or immediately after the eleventh of this month, we chant the Service to the 350 holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which gathered in Nicaea in 787 under the holy Patriarch Tarasius and during the reign of the Empress Irene and her son, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, to refute the Iconoclast heresy, which had received imperial support beginning with the Edict issued in 726 by Emperor Leo the Isaurian. Many of the holy Fathers who condemned Iconoclasm at this holy Council later died as Confessors and Martyrs for the holy Icons during the second assult of Iconoclasm in the ninth century, especially during the reigns of Leo the Armenian and Theophilus.
Reading Courtesy of Holy Transfiguration Monastery



Philip the Apostle of the 70, one of the 7 Deacons
October 11
Saint Philip, who had four daughters that prophesied, was from Caesarea of Palestine. He preached throughout Samaria; it was he also who met the eunuch of Candace, the Queen of the Ethiopians, as the eunuch was reading the Prophet Esaias, and he instructed and baptized him (Acts 8:26-39). He reposed in Tralles of Asia Minor while preaching the Gospel.

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Kosmas the Hagiopolite
October 14
Saint Cosmas was from the Holy City, Jerusalem, and was a contemporary and peer of Saint John of Damascus (Dec. 4), with whom also he was reared when, because of his orphanhood he was adopted by Sergius, Saint John's father, and with whom he had the same instructor. About the year 743, he was elected Bishop of Maiuma, a coastal city of Palestine, aforetime under the jurisdiction of Gaza, with the name Port Gaza. During the reign of Saint Constantine the Great, it became a separate township and at that time was renamed Constantia, after Constantine, the son of the Emperor (see Sozomen, Eccl. Hist., V:3). Cosmas became an excellent hymnographer, from whence he is called "the Composer and Melodist," Among his many compositions are the Canon of the Cross (Sept. 14) and the Canon for the Nativity of Christ, "Christ is born, give ye glory."




Reading Courtesy of Holy Transfiguration Monastery

Icon Courtesy of St. Isaac Skete



Hosea the Prophet
October 17
According to some, Hosea, whose name means "God is help," was from the tribe of Issachar, or more likely, from that of Reuben; he was the son of Beeri. He is the first in order of the twelve minor Prophets and the most ancient of all. He prophesied in the days of the divided Kingdom; the Lord told him to take a harlot to wife (Hosea 1:2), and then an adulteress (ibid., 3:1). The harlot, a known sinner, was a figure of the Kingdom of Israel in Samaria, which openly worshipped idols; the adulteress, lawfully married yet sinning secretly with her lovers, was a figure of the Kingdom of Judah in Jerusalem, which, while having the Temple, and the priesthood, and the divine worship according to the Law, stealthily served the idols also. The Prophet Hosea prophesied for sixty years, and lived for some ninety years, from 810 to 720 B.C. His book is divided into fourteen chapters.

Reading Courtesy of Holy Transfiguration Monastery