Saint Eustratius of the Kiev Caves, martyr
Saint Eustratius was a wealthy citizen of Kiev who, in the late eleventh century, distributed his goods to the poor and entered the Kiev Caves Lavra as a monk under the holy abbot Saint John. He embraced strict fasting and obedience and was known for his patience and prayerful disposition. When the Polovtsians sacked Kiev in 1096, Eustratius was taken captive together with thirty monks and fifty laymen and sold to a Jewish slaver in the Crimean city of Cherson. The slaver tortured his prisoners by starvation to compel them to deny Christ, but Eustratius strengthened his fellow captives, all of whom died rather than apostatise. On the day of Holy Pascha he was nailed to a cross, where he hung for fifteen days, blessing his persecutor and rejoicing in his union with the crucified Lord. After his death his body was cast into the sea, and his incorrupt relics were later recovered and brought to the Caves of the Lavra, where they rest to this day.
Saint Herodion of Iliotsk, abbot
Saint Herodion of Iliotsk was a disciple of Saint Cornelius of Komel and a younger contemporary of Saint Cyril of New Lake. Drawn by love of stillness, he withdrew to a remote spot near Lake Iloza, in the Belozersk wilderness of northern Russia, where in the early sixteenth century he founded a small skete in honour of the Mother of God. Living in great poverty and unceasing prayer, he was joined by disciples who followed his example of silence and labour. Saint Herodion reposed about 1541 and was buried in the church he had built. Over the centuries his memory has been preserved among the venerable fathers of the Russian North, whose lives knit the wilderness of Vologda and Belozersk into a constellation of monastic holiness.
Venerable Stephen the Wonderworker of Trigleia
Saint Stephen was a venerable monastic father and wonderworker venerated in the Orthodox Church. The designation "wonderworker" indicates that he was known for performing miracles and experiencing supernatural grace. Stephen devoted himself to the ascetic life and achieved great spiritual advancement. Through his prayers and intercession, he became a channel of God's healing and protective power, assisting the afflicted and those in need. The traditions concerning him recount numerous instances of divine intervention on behalf of those who sought his help. Stephen's life exemplifies the Orthodox belief that sanctity produces miraculous charisms, and his veneration continues as the Church calls upon his intercessions for healing and assistance.
Repose of Gerontissa Gavrilia
1992
Mother Gavrilia, who was known to many who are still alive, has not been officially glorified by the Church, but is considered by many to be a Saint of our time. Her fine biography, Ascetic of Love, has been translated into English and several other languages. The account below is excerpted from that on the web site of St Gregory Palamas Monastery.
“The Gerontissa Gabrielia was born in Constantinople a hundred years ago on October 2/15, 1897. She grew up in the City until her family moved to Thessalonika in 1923. She went to England in 1938 and stayed there throughout the Second World War. She trained as a chiropodist and physiotherapist. In 1945 she returned to Greece where she worked with the Friends Refugee Mission and the American Farm School in Thessalonika in early post-war years. Later she opened her own therapy office in Athens until 1954. In March of that year her mother died and the office was closed. Sister Lila left Greece and traveled overland to India where she worked with the poorest of the poor, even the lepers, for five years.
“It was not until 1959 that she went to the Monastery of Mary and Martha in Bethany, Palestine, to become a nun. When she arrived she asked Fr. Theodosius the chaplain for a rule of prayer. Fr. Theodosius was somewhat surprised to find that she could read even ancient Byzantine Greek. Fr. Theodosius said, “The great elders that we hear about no longer exist. I certainly am not one. You came here to save your soul. If I start giving you rules, you will lose you soul and I will as well. But here is Fr. John. He will be your elder.” So for her first year in the monastery he set her to reading only the Gospels and St. John Climacus. (It should be noted that at that time the Ladder had not been published in modern Greek.)
“She was three years in Bethany. In April, 1962, word came that Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople sought to send an Orthodox monastic to Taize in France. Sister Gabrielia went by way of Taize (she spoke fluent French from childhood) to America.
“In 1963 she was back in Greece. The Gerontissa was tonsured to the Small Schema by Abbot Amphilochios (Makris) on Patmos in the Cave of St. Anthony under the Monastery of Evangelismos just before she and the nun Tomasina left again for India. Elder Amphilochios was enthusiastic at the idea a nun who would be open to the an active outreach in the world. In India she was for three year in Nani Tal in Uttar Pradesh where Fr. Lazarus Moore was the priest and where he consulted the Gerontissa in his translations of the Psalter and the Fathers. Between 1967 and 1977 the Gerontissa traveled in the Mission field of East Africa, in Europe including visiting old friends and spiritual fathers Lev Gillet and Sophrony of Essex, again to America, and briefly in Sinai where Archbishop Damianos was attempting to reintroduce women’s monasticism. She traveled extensively, with much concern and broad love for the people of God. Some of her spiritual children found her in Jerusalem beside the Tomb of Christ; others found her on the mission field of East Africa. For years beginning in about 1977, she lived hidden in a little apartment, the “House of the Angels” in Patissia in the midst of the noise and smog and confusion of central Athens. A little place, a hidden place, a precious place to those who knew her there.
“In 1989 she moved to Holy Protection hermitage on the island of Aegina, close by the shrine of St. Nectarios. There she called the last two of her spiritual children to become monastics near her, and there she continued to receive many visitors. At the start of Great Lent in 1990 she was hospitalized for lymphatic cancer. She was forty days in the hospital, leaving during Holy Week and receiving communion of Pascha. And to the puzzlement of the doctors, the cancer disappeared. It was not yet her time.
“The Gerontissa finally withdrew to quiet. With only one last nun she moved for the last time in this life, to the island of Leros. There they established the hesychastirion of the Holy Archangels. Only in this last year of her life did she accept the Great Schema at the hands of Fr. Dionysious from Little St. Anne’s Skete on Athos. He came to give her the Schema in the Chapel of the Panaghia in the Kastro on the top of Leros.
“Gerontissa Gabrielia passed from this world on March 28, 1992, having never built a monastery. Over the years, six of her spiritual children did become monastics, but never more that one or two were with her at a time. Only the angels could count the number of lives that God touched and changed through her. Her biography and collected writings were published in Greek in 1996, through the work of her last monastic daughter and the contribution of many, many others who held the Gerontissa dear. An English translation is in process [Note: it has now been published].
“Anyone who knew the Gerontissa realized that God has not left us without His saints, even down to the present day. The few words recorded here scarcely suggest the clarity and love of her soul. Words are only the tools of this world; the wonder of the Gerontissa was wrapped in the mystery of the silence of the world to come.
“She never sought a reputation. She never allowed anything about her to be published during her long life and only allowed her children to take photographs in her very last years. Those whom God touched through her called her Gerontissa; she never made herself anything but the nun Gabrielia.
“She was humility and love incarnate.”
The Gerontissa embodied an ‘ecumenism’ that might serve as a model for many in our time: she was completely loving and open to all people of all faiths, yet while working freely with protestants and Hindus in service to man, she never compromised any aspect of her Orthodox faith. Once, some protestant fellow-workers suggested that they pray together; Mother Gavrilia thanked them lovingly, but said ‘I only pray in church or alone.’