He is counted as one of the Holy Unmercenary Physicians. "This saint was born of rich and eminent parents in ancient Rome, where he studied all the secular wisdom of that time, devoting himself in particular to the study of medicine. Sampson was a compassionate and liberal physician, and gave the sick medicine for both soul and body, counselling each man to fulfil the requirements of the Christian faith. He moved to Constantinople, where he lived in a tiny house from which he distributed alms, comfort, advice, hope, medicine and all possible aid to those suffering in spirit and in body. The Patriarch heard of Sampson's great virtue and ordained him priest. At that time the Emperor Justinian the Great became ill with what his doctors believed to be an incurable disease. The Emperor prayed with great fervor, and God revealed to him in his sleep that Sampson would heal him. When the Emperor summoned Sampson to court, the old man had only to put his hand on the diseased place and the Emperor was healed. When Justinian offered him an immense sum of money, Sampson thanked him but would accept nothing, saying to the Emperor: 'O Emperor, I had silver and gold and other riches, but I left it all for the sake of Christ, that I might gain heavenly and eternal wealth.' When the Emperor insisted on doing something for him, Sampson asked him to build a house for the poor. In that home, Sampson cared for the poor as a father cares for his children. His compassion for the poor and weak was second nature to him. This holy man, filled with heavenly power and goodness, entered peacefully into rest on June 27th, 530. He was buried in the Church of the Holy Martyr Mocius, his kinsman. After his death, Sampson appeared many times to those who called upon him for aid." (Prologue)

He is honored as the founder of Orthodox monastic life in Russia. He was born in Chernigov province and tonsured at the Monastery of Esphigmenou on the Holy Mountain. His abbot sent him from Mt Athos to Kiev to establish the monastic life there in 1013, during the last years of Prince Vladimir's holy reign. He lived there as a hermit, slowly drawing to himself others who wished to share the ascetical life. In time, the brotherhood grew into the Kiev Caves Lavra. St Anthony refused to serve as abbot of the monastery; this task was taken up by St Theodosius (commemorated May 3). St Anthony continued to live as a cave-dwelling hermit and reposed in peace at the age of ninety.

She was born in Antioch of Pisidia to pagan parents; her father was a pagan priest. When she was about twelve years old her mother died, and she was given into the care of a woman who told her of the Gospel of Christ. She was immediately filled with love for Christ and consecrated her life to His service. Her father, hearing of this, was furious and disowned her. When she was fifteen years old, she was brought before the governor Olymbrius, who first desired to marry her and, when she refused, ordered her to make sacrifice to the idols. She refused and proclaimed herself a Christian. For this she was harshly tortured, imprisoned, and finally beheaded. While she was in prison she was tormented by demons, but drove them away by her prayers. For this reason she is especially invoked for deliverance from demonic possession. One of her hands is preserved at Vatopedi Monastery on the Holy Mountain, and some of her relics are preserved at an Albanian Monastery dedicated to her.

He was born in Nicomedia; his father was a pagan, his mother a Christian. Through her he was taught the Christian Faith and baptized by St Hermolaus (July 26). He became a physician, and practiced his art with compassion and generosity, healing many more through his prayers as by his medicines. His parents had named him Pantoleon ("in all things a lion"), but because of his great compassion he was re-named Panteleimon ("all- merciful"). He once healed a man of blindness by calling on Christ, which led the once-blind man to embrace the Faith. When asked how he came to be healed he named Panteleimon as his healer and proclaimed his newfound faith in Christ. For this the pagans executed him, then arrested Panteleimon, who after many tortures was beheaded in 305. He is counted as the foremost of the Unmercenary Physicians.

"Saint Irene, who was from Cappadocia, flourished in the ninth century. Because of her great beauty and virtue, she was brought to Constantinople as a prospective bride for the young Emperor Michael (8422-867); however, as St Joannicius the Great foretold, it was God's will that she assume the monastic habit instead. She shone forth in great ascetical labors, and suffered many attacks from the demons; while yet a novice, she attained to the practice of St Arsenius the Great, of praying the whole night long with arms stretched out towards Heaven (see May 8). God showed forth great signs and wonders in her, and she became the Abbess of the Convent of Chrysovalantou. She was granted the gift of clairvoyance and knew the thoughts of all that came to her. She appeared in a vision to the king and rebuked him for unjustly imprisoning a nobleman who had been falsely accused. Through a sailor from Patmos to whom he had appeared, St John the Theologian sent her fragrant and wondrous apples from Paradise. She reposed at the age of 103, still retaining the youthful beauty of her countenance. After her repose, marvellous healings beyond number have been wrought by her to the present day." (Great Horologion)

The Third "Feast of the Savior" in August While the Lord was preaching in Palestine, his fame reached a king Avgar of Edessa, who suffered from leprosy. Avgar sent a messenger named Ananias to ask whether the Lord could heal his illness. The king also charged Ananias, if he was unable to bring back Jesus Himself, to bring back a likeness of Him. When Ananias found Jesus, the Lord told him that he could not come to Edessa since the time of His passion was at hand. But he took a cloth and washed His face, miraculously leaving a perfect image of His face on the cloth. Ananias brought the holy image back to the king, who reverently kissed it. Immediately his leprosy was healed, save for a small lesion that remained on his forehead. Later the Apostle Thaddeus came to Edessa, preaching the gospel, and Avgar and his household were baptized, at which time his remaining leprosy vanished. The king had the holy likeness mounted on wood and displayed above the city gate for all to revere. But Avgar's grandson returned to idolatry, and the Bishop of Edessa had the image hidden in the city wall to prevent it from being defiled. Many years later, when the Persian king Chosroes besieged Edessa, the Bishop Eulabius was told in a vision to find the sealed chamber, whose location had been forgotten. The holy icon was found, completely incorrupt, and by its power the Persian army was driven off. In the year 944 the image was brought to Constantinople and enshrined in the Church of the Theotokos called the Pharos. This is the event commemorated today.

St Alexander took part in the First Ecumenical Council as delegate of Patriarch Metrophanes, who was too frail to attend; and succeeded Metrophanes on the Patriarchal throne. By his prayer to God that the Church might be spared the schemings of Arius, Arius was struck dead.   St John is, by one account, St John the Faster (Sept. 2), who reposed in 595; by another, St John Scholasticus (Feb. 21), who reposed in 577.   St Paul was Patriarch for five years, then renounced the Patriarchal throne to take the Great Schema.

He was archbishop of Antioch at the time of the wicked Emperor Numerian. Once the Emperor came to Antioch and attempted to enter a church where Babylas was serving. Coming to the door, the Archbishop forbade the Emperor, as a pagan and a shedder of innocent blood, to enter the house where the True God was worshipped. Retreating in humiliation, the Emperor determined to take his revenge. Shortly after he had Babylas imprisoned along with several Christian children. Babylas was made to watch the beheading of each of the children. Having given them encouragement he submitted himself to beheading. At his own request he was buried in the chains with which he had been bound.   After the establishment of Christianity in the Roman Empire, the Emperor Gallus had a church built in honor of Babylas near the site of a temple to Apollos at Daphne, outside Antioch. (This was where, according to pagan legend, the maiden Daphne had been turned into a tree to escape the lust of Apollos). When Julian the Apostate came to Antioch in 362 to consult a famous oracle there, he found that the oracle had been deprived of its power by the presence of a Christian church nearby. He ordered the relics of St Babylas to be dug up and removed from the Church. As soon as this had been done a thunderbolt destroyed the shrine of Apollo, which Julian did not dare to rebuild. Saint John Chrysostom, then Archbishop of Antioch, preached a sermon on these events within a generation after their occurrence.

He was born in Thessalonika around 1300; his mother was a convert from Judaism. He entered monastic life, first at Mt Sinai, then at the Great Lavra on Mt Athos. The so-called "Hesychast controversy" was then raging, and St Philotheos became one of the firmest and most effective supporters of St Gregory Palamas (November 14) in his defense of Orthodoxy against western-inspired attacks on the doctrines of uncreated Grace and the possibility of true union with God. It was St Philotheos who drafted the Hagiorite Tome, the manifesto of the monks of Mt Athos setting forth how the Saints partake of the Divine and uncreated Light which the Apostles beheld at Christ's Transfiguration. In 1351, he took part in the "Hesychast Council" in Constantinople, and wrote its Acts. In 1354 he was made Patriarch of Constantinople; he stepped down after one year, but was recalled to the Patriarchal throne in 1364. He continued to be a zealous champion of undiluted Orthodoxy, writing treatises setting forth the theology of the Uncreated Energies of God and refuting the scholastic philosophy that was then infecting the Western church. Despite (or because of?) his uncompromising Orthodoxy, he always sought a true, rather than political, reconciliation with the West, and even worked to convene an Ecumenical Council to resolve the differences between the churches. This holy Patriarch was deposed in 1376 when the Emperor Andronicus IV came to the throne; he died in exile in 1379.   St Philotheos composed the Church's services to St Gregory Palamas. He is not listed in the Synaxaria, but is venerated as a Saint in the Greek church.

He was born in Samosata in Syria (and is sometimes referred to as "Lucian of Samosata") of noble parents. In his youth he received an excellent education. Though a privileged life was open to him, he gave all his goods away to the poor and embraced a life of asceticism, supporting himself writing and tutoring. He produced an edition of the Old Testament, freeing it from various corruptions introduced by heretics. He was made a priest in Antioch, where he served the Church faithfully. During the persecutions of Maximian, he was arrested while visiting Nicomedia to strengthen the faithful there. He was cast into prison for his faith and allowed to perish of hunger and thirst. Saint John Chrysostom wrote of him: "He scorned hunger; let us also scorn luxury and destroy the lordship of the stomach; that we may, when the time comes for us to meet such torture, be prepared beforehand, by the help of a lesser ascesis, to show ourselves worthy of glory in the hour of battle."

A native of Thessalonica, he rose from secretary to Alexander, Patriarch of Constantinople (commemorated August 30), to deacon, then succeeded St Alexander as Patriarch around 337. For his virtue and his zeal for Orthodoxy he was hated by the Arians, who were still powerful in the Empire. The Arian Emperor Constantius, learning of Paul's election, exiled him and made the Arian Eusebius Patriarch in his place. St Paul went to Rome, where he joined St Athanasius the Great in exile. Furnished with letters from Pope Julius, he was able to ascend the Patriarchal throne once again upon the death of Eusebius. But once again the Arians were able to put one of their party on the Patriarchal throne: Macedonius, who even went beyond the Arian heresy and denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Once again the legitimate, Orthodox Patriarch found himself in exile in Rome. In succeeding years St Paul stood firm for Orthodoxy while complex political and military intrigues swirled around him, with the Orthodox Constans, Emperor of the West (and Constantius' brother) supporting him while Constantius continued to oppose him. For a time Constans was able to enforce Paul's place on the Patriarchal throne, but when he died, Constantius banished St Paul to Cucusus on the Black Sea. There, while he was celebrating the Divine Liturgy in the house where he was kept prisoner, the Arians strangled him with his own omophorion. His relics were brought back to Constantinople by the Emperor Theodosius the Great.

This greatest of Christian orators is commemorated not only today, but as one of the Three Holy Hierarchs (with St Basil the Great and St Gregory the Theologian) on January 30.   He was born in Antioch to pious parents around 345. His mother was widowed at the age of twenty, and devoted herself to rearing her son in piety. He received his literary and oratorical training from the greatest pagan teachers of the day. Though an illustrious and profitable career as a secular orator was open to him, he chose instead to dedicate himself to God. He lived as a monk from 374 to 381, eventually dwelling as a hermit in a cave near Antioch. Here his extreme ascetic practices ruined his health, so that he was forced to return to Antioch, where he was ordained to the priesthood. In Antioch his astonishing gifts of preaching first showed themselves, earning him the epithet Chrysostomos, "Golden-mouth", by which he became universally known. His gifts became so far-famed that he was chosen to succeed St Nectarius as Patriarch of Constantinople. He was taken to Constantinople secretly (some say he was actually kidnapped) to avoid the opposition of the Antiochian people to losing their beloved preacher. He was made Patriarch of Constantinople in 398.   Archbishop John shone in his sermons as always, often censuring the corrupt morals and luxurious living of the nobility. For this he incurred the anger of the Empress Eudoxia, who had him exiled to Pontus in 403. The people protested by rioting, and the following night an earthquake shook the city, so frightening the Empress that she had Chrysostom called back. The reconciliation was short-lived. Saint John did not at all moderate the intensity of his sermons, and when the Empress had a silver statue of herself erected outside the Great Church in 403, accompanied by much revelry, the Patriarch spoke out against her, earning her unforgiving anger. In 404 he was exiled to Cucusus, near Armenia. When Pope Innocent of Rome interceded on his behalf, the imperial family only exiled him further, to a town called Pityus near the Caucasus. The journey was so difficult and his guards so cruel that the frail Archbishop gave up his soul to God before reaching his final place of exile, in 407. His last words were "Glory be to God for all things."   Saint John Chrysostom is the author of more written works than any other Church Father: his works include 1,447 recorded sermons, 240 epistles, and complete commentaries on Genesis, the Gospels of Matthew and John, the Acts of the Apostles, and all the Epistles of St Paul.   His repose was on September 14, but since that is the date of the Exaltation of the Cross, his commemoration has been transferred to this day.

Many meals are eaten in the restaurant setting. This podcast will provide strategies on how to eat in a spiritually minded manner at the restaurant and explains how these good food choices can benefit your health. 

As we continue to move through the fast, it is quite beautiful to see how the physical end of our fasting tradition aids us in the spiritual hunger we all feel.

Fr. Adrian and Chaplain Sarah interview Oncology Chaplain Clio Pavlantos about her formation and experiences in chaplaincy.

Chaplain Sarah and Fr. Adrian continue their discussion about the need for CPE training in order to become a professional, Board Certified Chaplain.

Chaplain Sarah and Fr. Adrian discuss the process of discernment to be a chaplain, and what is involved in Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE).

Dr. Adrian Budica, ThM, ACPE, BCC, Director of Field Education, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, Crestwood NY, and Sara Byrne-Martelli, MDiv, DMin candidate, BCC, Chaplain, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA. Video presentation available here.

In a new series beginning today, Fr. Andrew presents a study of major themes of the Orthodox Christian faith as found in the letters of the 2nd century martyr and third bishop of Antioch, Ignatius the God-bearer.

In the second half of part one, Fr. Andrew talks more extensively about martyrdom and the statement by St. Ignatius: "I am God's wheat and shall be ground by the teeth of wild animals."

Fr. Andrew continues his series on St. Ignatius with a study of his view what it means to be a Christian.

This is the second half of part 2 in Fr. Andrew's series on St. Ignatius.

Fr. Andrew talks about the instruction of St. Ignatius on Church unity and Bishops.

What did St. Ignatius have to say about the role of the Bishop in the Church. Listen to the first half of Fr. Andrew's fourth talk in this series.

St. Ignatius emphasized the importance of obedience to the Bishop.

Over and over again in the writings of St. Ignatius, he emphasizes the importance of the physical aspect of Christ's first coming to earth. Fr. Andrew reviews these references and their implications.

In this final episode in the Voice from Antioch series, Fr. Andrew concludes his talk on the views of St. Ignatius about the Eucharist and the physical nature of Christianity.

Bringing together the life of St. Theodora (the wife of the Emperor St. Justinian) with the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Fr. Andrew looks at how God likes to use those who are least likely.

On the feast of St. Anthony the Great, Fr. Andrew preaches on why someone would walk out into the desert to find God.

On this Sunday after the Elevation of the Cross, Fr. Andrew discusses Gal. 2:20, in which Paul says he's no longer living.

On the feast of the Circumcision of Christ, Fr. Andrew talks about the New Covenant made in Christ and how Christians participate in it.

Fr. Andrew talks about the religious and irreligious space we now inhabit and draws on the writings of a saint of celebrated on the day, Silouan the Athonite, for a way forward. (Spoiler alert: Our age is more like the apostles' age.)

There are so many talks about the importance of prayer, but how do we actually do it? Fr. Antony Hughes of St. Mary Orthodox Church in Cambridge, MA, leads a College Conference East workshop on truly living and dwelling in God.

"But whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant"- Matthew 20:26 The All-Stars series continues with guest Athena Vlamis, a senior at Kennesaw State University and Georgia District Student Leader for OCF. In this podcast, Tasya and Athena talk about Athena's leadership role in a new Pan-Orthodox initiative, the Connect Conference. The college seniors also discuss servant leadership, using our talents for the glory of God, the role of young adults in the church, the foundation OCF has laid in their lives, the importance of living as an Orthodox in day-to-day life, and more.

Fr. Brendan Pelphrey returns for the second instalment of Orthodox Apologetics for the 2017-2018 school year. In this episode, Fr. Brendan gives an overview of the history of the Protestant churches. He also answers some questions that Protestants may ask Orthodox college students. If you have any questions for Fr. Brendan, please email Tasya at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)/**/.

The first keynote address from Dn. Nicholas Belcher.

The second keynote address by Dn. Belcher.

A lively discussion worth downloading. For details on the panel, download this PDF which has all of the information.

Keynote address 3 by Dn. Belcher.

The interviewer is Jonathan Bush, OCF Regional Representative for the South along with his friend Bekah. The subject of the interview is "What is a vocation?"

Join Fr. Nicholas and Dr. Roxanne Louh as they welcome Dr. Jeannie Constantinou to the show to talk about Christmas and families.

This week on Healthy Minds, Healthy Souls, join Fr. Nick and Pres. Roxanne Louh as they talk with Orthodox director Robert Krantz about his new movie, FAITH, HOPE, & LOVE.

Fr. Nick and Dr. Roxanne Louh welcome actor and producer Robert Krantz, most recently known for his film Faith, Hope, & Love. Join this conversation on life, relationships, and renewal.

Do you struggle to help your little ones participate in Lent? How can we make this great spiritual season meaningful for the youngest believers? Join Fr. Nick and Dr. Roxanne Louh for a conversation with Pres. Michelle Triant about Love at Lent, a set of colorful activity cards that encourage kindness, humility, and mindfulness in daily practice.

Fr. John examines the difference between true healing and mere relief.

How wonderful to know that we are loved and wanted by God, who calls to us by name!

Fr. John Oliver reflects upon the cross that we are called to bear as we follow Christ, and pursue the healing of our will.

Fr. John Oliver reflects on the role evil and suffering plays in drawing us closer to God.

Fr. John Oliver reflects on suffering.

Take a trip in the time machine with Fr. Joseph and travel back to the 4th Century (with a brief musical stop in the 1970s).