Charitina the Martyr
October 5
Saint Charitina contested for Christ during the reign of Diocletian, in the year 290. The handmaid of a certain Claudius, she was betrayed as a Christian to Dometian, the Count, before whom she fearlessly confessed Christ. After suffering the most terrible tortures, including the uprooting of her teeth and nails, she gave up her soul into the hands of the Lord.

Reading Courtesy of Holy Transfiguration Monastery

Icon Courtesy of St. Isaac Skete



Thomas the Apostle of the 12
October 6
The name Thomas means, "twin." He was one of the Twelve, a Galilean by birth. Sophroneus (not the famous Patriarch of Jerusalem [7th Century, celebrated March 11], but a friend of Jerome's), quoted also by Jerome, says that Saint Thomas preached to the Parthians, Pesians, Medes, Hyrcanians, Bactrians, and neighbouring nations. According to Heracleon, the Apostle died a natural death; according to other accounts, he was martyred at Meliapur His tomb was known by Saint John Chrysostom to be at Edessa in Syria, to which city his holy relics may have been translated from India in the fourth century.

Reading Courtesy of Holy Transfiguration Monastery

Icon Courtesy of St. Isaac Skete



Sergius & Bacchus the Great Martyrs of Syria
October 7
These holy Martyrs were Romans of high rank in the service of the Emperor Maximian, to whom it was reported that they did not take part in the festivals of the idols. When he called them into his presence, they confessed their Faith in the one God. He had them arrayed in women's clothes and paraded through the streets in mockery. They were afterwards scourged, from which Saint Bacchus died. This was about the year 296. Saint Sergius was then taken to Resapha in Syria, where he was tortured and beheaded. His tomb in Resapha became a very famous shrine, to which pilgrims came from as far away as Western Europe; Resapha was later renamed Sergiopolis in his honour.


Reading Courtesy of Holy Transfiguration Monastery

Icon Courtesy of St. Isaac Skete



Abraham the Righteous & his nephew Lot
October 9
The holy Patriarch Abraham, born a pagan, ten generations after Noah, when the knowledge of God had perished from among men, became the beginning of God's dispensation for the universal renewal and salvation of man. He was called out of his country--the land of the Chaldees, that is, Mesopotamia--to the land of Canaan, and received the promise that through his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed; through his singular faith in the promises of God, he was justified before the giving of the Law and the coming of Grace; through his willingness to sacrifice Isaac, he portrayed the love wherewith God loved the world in sacrificing His only-begotten Son. The greatness of Abraham, and the trials that he and his righteous nephew Lot underwent, are set forth in the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament, chapters twelve through twenty-five. See also the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, December 11-17.
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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.

Reading Courtesy of Holy Transfiguration Monastery