Alphabetic Saints Game

[Poche]

St Lawrence Justinian pray for us.

[Shin]

St. Margaret Mary, pray for us! 

[Shin]

St. Norbert, pray for us. 

[CyrilSebastian]

St. Osmund of Salisbury, pray for us.

[Benedict]

From Acts Chapter 6:5
The holy, glorious, all-laudable Apostle Parmenas was one of the original seven deacons chosen by the Twelve Apostles to minister to the Church of Jerusalem, according to the Acts of the Apostles. He was also one of the Seventy Apostles sent out by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 10. After preaching for many years in Asia Minor, he settled down in Macedonia. Hippolytus says that Parmenas was the Bishop of Soli. He is thought to have died a martyr in Philippi, Macedonia, in the year 98 AD, during the persecution of the Christians under the Roman Emperor Trajan.

Troparion (Tone 3)

Holy apostle Parmenas of the Seventy;
entreat the merciful;
to grant our souls forgiveness of transgressions.
Kontakion (Tone 4)

The Church ever sees you as a shining star, O apostle Parmenas,
Your miracles have manifested great enlightenment.
Therefore we cry out to Christ:
"Save those who with faith honor Your apostle, O Most Merciful One."

Saint Parmenas the Apostle, pray for us!

[CyrilSebastian]

St. Rachilidis was a Benedictine nun. Her feast day is November 23.

[Benedict]

The holy, glorious, all-laudable Apostle and Archdeacon Stephen the Protomartyr (Stephen meaning "crown") was an early Christian convert from among the Hellenistic Jews, one of the original seven deacons ordained by the Apostles, and the first martyr of the Orthodox Church.

Godspeed Saint Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, Protomarytr, perfect Apostle of the Lord, Corps Commander  of Holy Martyrs; blessed is the pure heart of Stephen who beheld Jesus standing by the right hand of the Father in heaven, blessed is the faith of Stephen and blessed by God was the testimony of Stephen; glorious Stephen, archdeacon of Christ, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death and pray for the holy souls in purgatory to be lifted up to heaven through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Troparion (Tone 4) [Holy Tradition]

O First Martyr and Apostle Of Christ,
Thou hadst fought the good fight.
And didst expose the perversion of the persecutors,
For when thou wast killed by stoning at the hands of wicked men,
Thou didst receive a crown from the right hand on high,
And didst cry out to God saying,
"O Lord do not charge this sin against them!"

Kontakion (Tone 3) [Holy Tradition]

Yesterday the Master came to us as a man,
And today his servant departs from life.
Yesterday the King was born as a man,
And today His servant is stoned to death.
For the sake of Christ, Holy Stephen became the first martyr.

Saint Stephen Protomarytr pray for us!

[CyrilSebastian]

St. Theodorus of Amasea: His feast day is November 9.

[Benedict]

Saint Ursula Pray for us!
Responsory Hymn to St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins by Saint Hildegard of Bingen who's favorite Saint was Saint Ursula

Spiritui Sancto honor sit, qui in mente Ursule virginis virginalem turbam velut columbas collegit. Unde ipsa patriam suam sicut Abraham reliquit. Et etiam propter amplexionem Agni desponsationem viri sibi abstraxit. Nam iste castissimus et aureus exercitus in virgineo crine mare transivit. O quis umquam talia audivit? Et etiam propter amplexionem Agni ... Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto. Et etiam propter amplexionem Agni ... Gloria Patri et Filio ...

Homage to the Holy Spirit, who in the mind of Ursula  the maiden gathered a maidenly flock, like doves. Because of this, like Abraham, she left her homeland. And even, to embrace the Lamb, she freed herself from betrothal to a man. This most chaste and golden army, maidenly hair flowing, crossed the sea. Who had ever heard the like? And even, to embrace the Lamb ... Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. And even, to embrace the Lamb ... Glory be to the Father and to the Son ...

[CyrilSebastian]

Saint Valerie of Limoges (3rd c.), virgin and martyr

[Benedict]

Saint Wilfrid, First Bishop of England, establisher of the Episcopal See in the Kingdom of Sussex, converter of pagans to Christianity.
Saint Wilfrid, First Benedictine Abbot in England, ordained a priest after being Abbot for 5 years, was consecrated Bishop in Gaul because of the lack of validly consecrated Bishops in England at the time.
Saint Wilfrid, Illuminator of England, in Selsey you established an episcopal see and converted the pagan inhabitants of the Kingdom of Sussex to Christianity.
Saint Wilfrid, Successor to the Apostles, you supported the Roman method of calculating Easter at the Council of Whitby in 664.

Saint Wilfrid, Illuminator of Kingdom and King alike, preaching the Gospel and Baptisizing in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, you lead souls to heaven!
Saint Wilfrid, Orthodox and Godly Benedictine Saint, pray for us that we may be saved through Christ our Lord! Amen
Feast day October 12

[CyrilSebastian]

Saint Xystus was a Kemetian Bishop.

[Benedict]

Saint Yvette of Huy, prophet and anchoress, pray for us!
Feast day January 13

[CyrilSebastian]

Saint Zita is the patroness of domestic workers. Her feast day is April 27.

[Benedict]

Saint Athanasius the Great, Feast day January 18th

In the half-century after the First Ecumenical Council held in Nicaea in 325, if there was one man whom the Arians feared and hated more intensely than any other, as being able to lay bare the whole error of their teaching, and to marshal, even from exile or hiding, the beleaguered forces of the Orthodox, it was Saint Athanasius the Great. This blazing lamp of Orthodoxy, which imperial power and heretics' plots could not quench when he shone upon the lampstand, nor find when he was hid by the people and monks of Egypt, was born in Alexandria about the year 296. He received an excellent training in Greek letters and especially in the sacred Scriptures, of which he shows an exceptional knowledge in his writings. Even as a young man he had a remarkable depth of theological understanding; he was only about twenty years old when he wrote his treatise On the Incarnation. Saint Alexander, the Archbishop of Alexandria, brought him up in piety, ordained him his deacon, and, after deposing Arius for his blasphemy against the Divinity of the Son of God, took Athanasius to the First Council in Nicaea in 325; Saint Athanasius was to spend the remainder of his life labouring in defence of this holy Council. In 326, before his death, Alexander appointed Athanasius his successor.

In 325, Arius had been condemned by the Council of Nicaea; yet through Arius' hypocritical confession of Orthodox belief, Saint Constantine the Great was persuaded by Arius' supporters that he should be received back into the communion of the Church. But Athanasius, knowing well the perverseness of his mind, and the disease of heresy lurking in his heart, refused communion with Arius. The heresiarch's followers then began framing false charges against Athanasius; finally Saint Constantine the Great, misled by grave charges of the Saint's misconduct-which were completely false-had him exiled to Tiberius (Treves) in Gaul in 336. When Saint Constantine was succeeded by his three sons Constantine II, Constans, and Constantius, in 337, Saint Athanasius returned to Alexandria in triumph. But his enemies found an ally in Constantius, Emperor of the East; Saint Athanasius' second exile was spent in Rome. It was ended when Constans prevailed with threats upon his brother Constantius to restore Athanasius. For ten years Saint Athanasius strengthened Orthodoxy throughout Egypt, visiting the whole country and encouraging all, clergy, monastics, and layfolk, being loved by all as a father. But after Constans' death in 350, Constantius became sole Emperor,and Athanasius was again in danger. In the evening of February 8, 356, General Syrianus with more than five thousand soldiers surrounded the church in which Athanasius was serving, and broke open the doors. Athanasius' clergy begged him to leave, but the good shepherd commanded that all the flock should withdraw first; and only when he was assured of their safety, he also, protected by divine grace, passed through the midst of the soldiers and disappeared into the deserts of Egypt, where for some six years he eluded the soldiers and spies sent after him.

When Julian the Apostate succeeded Constantius in 361, Athanasius returned again, but only for a few months. Because Athanasius had converted many pagans, and the priests of the idols in Egypt wrote to Julian that if Athanasius remained, idolatry would perish in Egypt, the heathen Emperor ordered not Athanasius' exile, but his death. Athanasius took ship up the Nile. When he learned that his imperial pursuers were following him, he had his men turn back, and as his boat passed that of his pursuers, they asked him if he had seen Athanasius. "He is not far," he answered. After returning to Alexandria for a while, he fled again to the Thebaid until Julian's death in 363. Saint Athanasius suffered his fifth and last exile under Valens in 365, which only lasted four months because Valens, fearing a sedition among the Egyptians for their beloved Archbishop, revoked his edict in February, 366.

The great Athanasius passed the remaining seven years of his life in peace. Of his fifty-seven years as Patriarch, he had spent some seventeen in exiles. Shining from the height of his throne like a radiant evening star, and enlightening the Orthodox with the brilliance of his words for yet a little while, this much-suffering champion inclined toward the sunset of his life, and, in the year 373, took his rest from his lengthy sufferings, but not before another luminary of the truth, Basil the Great, had risen in the East, being consecrated Archbishop of Caesarea in 370. Besides all his other achievements, Saint Athanasius wrote the life of Saint Anthony the Great, with whom he spent time in his youth; ordained Saint Frumentius first Bishop of Ethiopia; and in his Paschal Encyclical for the year 367 set forth the books of the Old and New Testaments accepted by the Church as canonical. Saint Gregory the Theologian, in his Oration On the Great Athanasius, said he was "Angelic in appearance, more angelic in mind; rebuking with the tenderness; of a father, praising with the dignity of a ruler ... Everything was harmonious, as an air upon a single lyre, and in the same key; his life, his teaching, his struggles, his dangers, his return, and his conduct after his return be treated so mildly and gently those who had injured him, that even they themselves, if I may say so, did not find his restoration distasteful.

Troparion
O holy father Athanasius,
like a pillar of orthodoxy
you refuted the heretical nonsense of Arius
by insisting that the Father and the Son are equal in essence.
O venerable father, beg Christ our God to save our souls.

Saint Athanasius the Great, pray for us! Amen

[CyrilSebastian]

Saint Balderic was an abbot and prince. He was the son of King Sigebert II of Austrasia.   
He became the abbot-founder of Montfaucon Abbey in France.