The tormentor, seeing such a multitude of confessors of Christ that suddenly opened up, became embarrassed and, having stopped testing them, immediately sent news of what had happened to Tsar Diocletian, asking for instructions on what to do. The king soon sent him the following order in response: to subject the superiors to cruel tortures, while the lower ones should be left alone.

Having received the royal command, the ruler sat down at the court, ordered Eudoxius to be brought to him as the main commander, and began to say to him again:

- I advise you, Eudoxius, to leave your evil contradiction and insane resistance and voluntarily offer a sacrifice to the gods; if you do not agree, then you will have to do this against your will, forced to do so by severe torments.

At the same time, the ruler began to count imprisonments, terrible dungeons, wounds, planing of the body, scorching with fire and other cruel torments that terrified at the mere mention.

The martyr replied:

“You are mocking me, ruler, by telling me this. I consider your torments to be a childish scarecrow, for I hope for the future reward that I will receive from the generous Ascetic of Christ. I am afraid not of the fire that you mentioned, but of the one that never goes out, and the gnashing of teeth and other fierce torments that are prepared for those who disobey the true God and reject Him. Your torments are child's play compared to them, and the fire you threaten me with colder than water compared to the fire of Gehenna. Your sword,” continued the saint, “will be my key to the doors of the desired land, where instead of this visible, soon setting sun, I will see the light that never sets and does not flicker, and instead of temporary blessings, I will inherit eternal blessings. Let it be known to you that I will not worship your gods, since it is a great madness to consider trees, stones, gold and silver, dressed by the hand of an artist, as gods.

Hearing this answer of the saint, the ruler said to him:

- Your insane answer is to blame for my indulgence, with which I allow you to dishonor the gods, the king and me so boldly; I can still endure my dishonor, but the dishonor of the gods and the king can no longer be tolerated.

After this, the ruler ordered that the saint be stretched by the arms and legs and beat mercilessly with a hard belt, then hanged and planed his body with sharp iron tools. After these torments, the saint was thrown into prison.

After a few days, they again brought him for interrogation, and the tormentor found Eudoxius as unshakable in faith as before, like an indestructible pillar and an impregnable city; therefore, he ordered that the martyr be beaten with iron rods on the neck and all his limbs be twisted out of the joints, which torment was harder than death itself.

After this, the tormentor condemned Eudoxius to beheading with a sword.

While they were leading the saint to the place of execution, the holy martyr prayed thus:

“God, who looked upon the sacrifices of Abel and Abraham, who graciously accepted the long-suffering of many martyrs, look with Your merciful eye on my sacrifice and do not reject my blood, which I with the warmth of my soul from loving heart I bring you.

Praying like this, Eudoxius saw his wife, who followed him with tears, and asked her if everything had been done as he commanded, and ordered her only after beheading him to take his body and bury it in a place called Amimna; then he again instructed her not to weep over his death, but to honor that day with bright clothes and adorn herself with various jewels.

Seeing then his friend Zenon, weeping for him, Eudoxius said to him:

- Beloved Zenon, do not cry: God, Whom we serve, will not separate us, but as if in one boat we will sail together into eternal life.

These words had such a strong effect on Zenon that he began to exclaim loudly:

– And I am a Christian, and I confess Christ and I want to die for Him!

Immediately he was seized by the wicked servants, and he was reported

ruler. The latter ordered him, along with Eudoxius, to be beheaded with a sword. When they were brought to the place of execution, Zenon was first beheaded with a sword, while Eudoxius was praying for him; so sending his friend to heaven, Eudoxius bowed his head under the sword and accepted a blissful death.

Other martyrs were beheaded along with them, boldly confessing Christ, and their bodies were thrown without burial. Vasilissa, the wife of Eudoxius, fearlessly took his body, buried it with honor in the place where he himself indicated.

For such an act, she was seized and brought to the ruler, before whom she clearly confessed God and scolded idols and their worshipers, wishing to follow her husband to the Lord in the same way of torment.

However, the tormentor told her:

“I know that you would like to follow your husband in order to have praise from the Galileans, but although you are worthy of death, I will not kill you.

Vasilisa said to the tormentor:

– My Lord Jesus Christ knows this desire of mine and will accept it instead of the deed itself; even if I am not tormented by you, yet I will not lose bliss with my husband at the Lord God.

After these words, the ruler drove her away from him.

Seven days later, Saint Eudoxius appeared to her in a dream and said:

- Tell our friend and steward Macarius to go to the court and follow our example; we are waiting for him.

As soon as Vasilisa told Macarius about this vision, he immediately went to the ruler and declared himself a Christian and a disciple of Eudoxius. The ruler, seeing him and hearing such a bold confession from him, ordered him to cut off his head with a sword.

So Macarius went after Eudoxius and Zinon to the good Ascetic Christ, our Lord. Vasilissa also pleased Him, dying in true faith, and stood among the host of saints before the throne of the glory of God, glorifying the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit forever. Amen.

This blessed Cyril lived during the reign of Emperor Maximian, under the hegemon Agrippina. Adorned with all the virtues, he lived only ninety-five years. Once he went, accompanied by two of his servants, Theophan and Theoktirist, to a monastery. On the way there, he saw how the pagans sacrificed oxen and sheep to idols;

he sighed about such folly and denounced the idolaters. For this they seized him and put him in prison. When Saint Cyril prayed to God here at midnight, he heard such heavenly voice: "Cyril, go to Rome!" The next morning, the doors of the dungeon were open, and all the idols around were broken. St. Cyril reached the monastery and there he saw in a vision the Monk Philoxenus, who said to him: "You will receive two crowns - one hierarchal, and the other martyr." Then the saint went to Rome and there confirmed the believers with his sermon. When the persecution began, he set out to go to Jerusalem. On the way there, on the island of Maleone, a man in white robes appeared to him and commanded him not to bypass the islands of Crete, which he did. In the Cretan city of Gortyn he was appointed bishop; he was then sixty years old. When the persecution of Christians began again, the saint was taken to trial before the hegemon, who began to persuade him to renounce Christ, and since the holy confessor did not want to bow to his admonitions, he was condemned to be beheaded with a sword. Then they put a horse-bit in his mouth and, putting him on a wagon, since he could not walk from old age, they took him. When they brought him to a place called Raxa, a voice was heard from the sky: “Hither to this!” The wagon stopped, and the head of the saint was truncated.

The holy and reverend David was formerly a robber and, living in the desert of Hermopol, caused much evil, killed many, and was so vicious and cruel as no one else. Under his command, he had more than thirty people who robbed with him. One day, sitting with them on the mountain, he thought about his life, and remembering how much evil and disaster he caused people, he was very afraid of God. Leaving all the robbers who were with him, he went to the monastery.

Saint Demetrius, Met. Rostov († 1709)

St. Dimitri, Metropolitan of Rostov, miracle worker, was born in 1651 in the town of Makarov, Kiev province. In the world Daniel, the son of the Cossack centurion Tuptalo. After graduating from the Epiphany School (Mohyla Theological Academy), in 1668 he was tonsured at the Kiev Cyril Monastery. In 1675 - hieromonk. He was hegumen in several monasteries and monasteries. Archimandrite of the Chernigov Yelets Monastery and the Novgorod Seversky Preobrazhensky Monastery. In 1701 he was appointed Metropolitan of Tobolsk; due to illness, he remained in Moscow and took the vacant department in Rostov in 1702. He worked hard to establish church piety and to expose the Old Believers. He struggled in the exploits of fasting, prayer, mercy. For twenty years he labored over the compilation of the Menaia, which he began to write in 1684 in the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery. St. Dimitri died peacefully on October 28, 1709 and was buried, according to his will, in the cathedral church of the Rostov Savior-Yakovlev Monastery. Uncovering the relics - September 21, 1752 Glorification - April 22, 1757 Transferring the relics to a new shrine - May 25, 1763

Lives of the Saints of St. Demetrius, Met. Rostov

Lives of the Saints, in Russian
set out according to the leadership of the Chetyah-menya of St. Demetrius of Rostov.

Month January.
Day eighteen.

Information about the Monk Athanasius of Syandem .

AT At the end of the 15th century, among the numerous ascetics of the ancient Valaam monastery, the monk Athanasius labored, a disciple and prayer book of the hermit Alexander, who worked for the Lord in a cramped cave on one of the Valaam islands. Soul-saving advice and examples of high virtues of Alexander strengthened Athanasius on the difficult path of salvation. With the passage of time, according to the inscrutable fates of God, the mentor and the disciple had to part. The Monk Alexander withdrew into the forests of the Obonezh Pyatina on the Svir River, and spent seven years there in the strictest seclusion, and then set about building a hostel, then the Monk Athanasius moved from Valaam again under his guidance.

FROM peace of mind and obedience made Athanasius the most beloved disciple of the venerable hegumen, and he was honored to be a witness to the blessed visitation of his teacher by the Most Holy Theotokos.

P On the repose of the Monk Alexander (in 1533), the Monk Athanasius retired to the wilderness in the dense forests of Karelia and built himself a hut on the hill of the isthmus of two small lakes, Syandem and Roshchinsky. Some of the companions of the Monk Alexander followed Athanasius into solitude, and they were joined by several more lovers of desert life. Thus, the beginning of the later flourishing Syandem desert was laid.

FROM The Monk Athanasius spoke about his settlement in the desert like this. He lived in the Obonezh Pyatina, in the Olonets district, on Lake Syandem in the desert on Sofia land, in a wild forest from Olonets 20 versts, and from nearby villages 10 versts; the Olonchans allowed him to build that desert on a pilgrimage for the sovereign and as a refuge for themselves. With the blessing of Archbishop Pimen, he built a chapel in the desert in the name of Life-Giving Trinity yes eight cells. And ten brothers gathered to him in the wilderness; he plowed the field. But out of envy, those Olonchans slandered him before Archbishop Pimen, as if he had built his hermitage by force, and sent him out of the hermitage. The desert remained empty. The monk withdrew to the Svir monastery and was elected there to be hegumen. Probably, at this time he received the priesthood, at least in 1577 he is called a priestly monk. How long the Monk Athanasius ruled the monastery of his mentor remains unknown, only in 1577 he was already called the former hegumen of the Svirsky monastery and asked the Archbishop Alexander of Novgorod for permission to build a monastery with a temple in the name of the Life-Giving Trinity on the site of the desert and take the land under arable land. Such permission was given; the arable land was allotted to the monastery one verst in all four directions. The monastery was exempted from duties in favor of the Novgorod Sophia treasury. The monk served as an example to the brethren in diligence and patience, and all the brethren earned their livelihood by the labor of their hands.

O the founder of the monastery was also the mentor of the new brotherhood. For his own teaching, he had frequent spiritual conversations with the Monk Adrian Andrusovsky, a Valaam schemamonk, who founded a monastic monastery on the shores of Lake Ladoga around the same time. The ascetics lived 20 miles away from each other. The monuments of this spiritual communion were the crosses erected by the saints of God on the way through all the space that separated them from each other. Tradition says that in the place where now the church is in the name of the miracle worker Nicholas, in the village of Tulox, the Monk Athanasius was put on the cross and the creation of a temple for the service of the Lord was predicted. The prophecy was fulfilled, the church of St. Nicholas, almost contemporary with the founder of the Syandem Hermitage, exists to this day. At the mouth of the river Syandemka (flowing for nine versts, from Lake Syandem to the Tuloksu river, there are two stone crosses on both of its banks. According to legend, they accompanied the Monk Athanasius from Valaam and are the blessing of the elders there, the founder of the Syandemskaya hermitage. The surrounding residents have preserved stories, that these crosses miraculously sailed behind the reverend, against the river current, from the side of Lake Ladoga.

P about the ancient legend, the saint of God Athanasius spent the last years of his holy life in solitude on one of the islands of Lake Syandem, which is still called holy.

P Reverend Athanasius reposed in his desert and was buried on one of the capes of Lake Roshchinsky, where later a church was built over his grave in the name of Saints Cyril and Athanasius, Patriarchs of Alexandria.

H The invasion of Lithuania and the Swedes at the beginning of the 17th century destroyed all written evidence of the time and labors of the founder of the desert. Before this unfortunate event, the monastery flourished: the temples of God surprised with their splendor, the economy abounded with all lands. During the invasion of enemies, the elders, in order to save some church objects and bells, lowered everything into the lake, on the boggy day of which they remained forever. At the beginning of the 18th century, by God's permission, the Syandem Hermitage burned to the ground and, as can be seen from the inscription of the mortgage cross, in 1720 the church of Saints Cyril and Athanasius was built again.

M The nature of Syandem is very picturesque. The monastery is located almost in the center of a circular meadow, having a diameter of up to 400 sazhens; its circumference is made up of a dense coniferous forest, and two lakes overflow on the northern and southern sides and form many delightful views with their bays. On the elevated isthmus of these lakes stands a wooden temple of the Assumption of the Mother of God, erected by the trustee of the Andrus Desert, Abbot Innocent of Valaam. At this time, the honest relics of the Monk Athanasius were found. After the fire, while digging a ditch under the foundation of the current church, they found its holy body incorruptible, and even the rosary and the charter with a permissive prayer in the hands of the saint of God were completely intact. For several days the holy relics remained on the earth's surface, and then on May 2 they were buried in the former grave. Above the relics inside the temple, a mahogany shrine was erected with the image of the reverend; at the southern doors there is also his full-length icon, and behind the left kliros is depicted the visitation of the Most Holy Theotokos, which the Monk Athanasius was honored with together with his reverend teacher.

According to the calendar, their name day on January 31 is celebrated by those who, at baptism, received such feminine and male names, like Ksenia, Oksana, Alexander, Dmitry, Emelyan, Ephraim, Illarion and Maxim.

Also birthdays on this day and those who were baptized in honor of the New Martyrs Alexander, Vladimir, Eugene, Mikhail and Sergei There are no days of their veneration in the ancient calendar, but they are presented in church calendar for 2019.

However, Kirillov and Mariy have the most important name day on this day, since January 31 Orthodox Church venerates the memory of Saints Cyril and Mary of Radonezh, parents St. Sergius Radonezh.

Therefore, among all the male and female names for boys and girls born today, it is recommended to choose these. This is how the ancient tradition of naming a child in honor of his Guardian Angel is observed.

It is believed that if a person’s name day and birthday fall on the same date, then between him and his heavenly patron a special connection is established, the saint endows him with his power, provides reliable protection from evil.

In addition, all names affect the character of the child in different ways, for example, Kirills grow up ambitious, ambitious and hardworking, they know what they want, and they certainly achieve it.

Mary is characterized by extraordinary kindness and the ability to understand others, they are caring, charming and truly feminine.

The spouses came from noble boyar families and were provided with considerable material benefits, but they valued spiritual treasures more, so they used the money to help those in need, and they themselves lived more than modestly in the village.

Their marriage produced three children, the middle of which - Bartholomew, who received the tonsure name Sergius - became famous for his spiritual exploits and virtues and became the rector of the Radonezh monastery.

For their pious way of life, humility and love for their neighbors, the Lord gave them an extraordinary child, who, even in his mother's womb, echoed church hymns, and in infancy already observed fasts.

He was born in 1350 and very early (at the age of 9) was left without his father (Prince John the Red). His upbringing was handled by St. Alexei of Moscow, as well as St. Sergius of Radonezh. From a young age, Dimitri began to show abilities not only for Christian life but also to the management of public affairs. So, at the age of 12, he took the throne of the Grand Duke and considered the unification of Russian lands and liberation from the Tatar-Mongol yoke to be his most important task.

In 1380, having asked for blessings from St. Sergius, Demetrius went to fight with Khan Mamai. Many miracles and signs took place at that time. One of them is the discovery of the relics of the great-grandfather of Dmitry Donskoy - Alexander Nevsky. The night before the battle, he prayed fervently. The next morning, when the battle broke out, he himself, along with ordinary soldiers, fought in a great slaughter. For the Victory on the Kulikovo field, he, Dimitri, was nicknamed Donskoy. In memory of fallen soldiers Prince Dimitri made a nationwide commemoration and ordered that this be done in the future. This is how Dimitri's parental Saturdays appeared.

But the most difficult trials lay ahead of him. So, Khan Tokhtamysh moved with hordes to Moscow. They burned the city to the ground, killing anyone who stood in their way. There was no limit to the grief of Dimitri Ivanovich, he sobbed on the ruins of the city. In order to somehow help his people, he ordered that all those killed be buried at his own expense. Soon he felt the nearness of his death and invited St. Sergius of Radonezh to perform the necessary Sacraments. Barely reaching the age of 40, he peacefully passed away to the Lord.