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Dormition of the holy righteous Anna, mother of the most holy Theotokos
Saint Anna, whose name in Hebrew means "grace," was of the tribe of Levi and the daughter of the priest Matthan, descended through her mother from the royal line of Judah. Together with her righteous husband Joachim of Nazareth, she lived in piety, almsgiving and the keeping of the Law, but for many years they remained childless and bore the reproach of barrenness as a sorrow before God. After long prayer and fasting, an angel appeared separately to each of them and announced that they would have a daughter through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. In response to this promise, Anna conceived and bore the holy maiden Mary, the future Mother of God, whom they brought into the temple at the age of three to be raised before the Lord.
Joachim reposed first, in his eightieth year, while Saint Anna lived on a little longer in Jerusalem in the company of her holy daughter. According to the tradition of the Church, she fell asleep in peace at the age of seventy-nine, before the Annunciation, and was buried at Gethsemane. The feast of her conception of the Theotokos is kept on 9 December, the feast of her holy meeting with Joachim on 9 September; the present day, 25 July, is set aside for her holy dormition. The faithful invoke her especially as the protector of mothers, the helper of the barren, and the patron of grandparents.
Holy righteous Macrina the younger
379
Saint Macrina was the eldest of the ten children of Saint Basil the Elder and Saint Emmelia, and the elder sister of three of the great fathers of the Church, Saint Basil the Great, Saint Gregory of Nyssa and Saint Peter of Sebaste. Born around 327 in Caesarea of Cappadocia, she was named Macrina after her grandmother, the disciple of Saint Gregory the Wonderworker, but was given a hidden name by her mother in a vision: Thecla. From her childhood she was taught not the fables of the pagans but the Psalter and the wisdom of Solomon, and grew up in a household which one of her brothers later called "a school of philosophy."
Betrothed in early youth, Saint Macrina lost her future husband to an untimely death and refused thereafter all thought of marriage, saying that the bond of betrothal had made her a widow before God. She turned the family estate at Annisa on the river Iris in Pontus into a community of consecrated virgins, and persuaded her widowed mother to live there with the freed maidservants as one sisterhood. By her counsel and example she shaped the path of her brother Basil away from worldly ambition into the monastic life, and she was a guide to all her family. She reposed in 379, a few months after the death of Saint Basil; her brother Saint Gregory of Nyssa hastened to her bedside and afterwards wrote her Life and the dialogue On the Soul and the Resurrection in her honour. Her principal feast is on 19 July; in some calendars she is also remembered on 25 July with her relatives.
Holy righteous Olympias the deaconess of Constantinople
Saint Olympias was born around 368 into one of the leading senatorial families of the Eastern empire, the granddaughter of the Praetorian Prefect Ablabius. Orphaned in childhood, she was brought up under the guidance of Saint Theodosia, the sister of Saint Amphilochius of Iconium, in the company of Saint Gregory the Theologian, who became her spiritual father. Married very young to a high-ranking official, she was widowed within twenty months and steadfastly refused every offer of remarriage, including that of a kinsman of the emperor Theodosius.
The patriarch Saint Nectarius ordained her deaconess of the Great Church, and she founded a community of more than two hundred women near Hagia Sophia, governing it with the wisdom of an abbess and the humility of a servant. She gave her vast inheritance for the freeing of slaves, the relief of the poor, the support of churches and monasteries, and the help of bishops in need. When Saint John Chrysostom became archbishop, she became his closest spiritual daughter and helper. After his unjust deposition in 404 she shared his exile in spirit, refusing all compromise with his enemies, and was herself banished, fined and reduced to want. Worn out by sorrow and illness she reposed at Nicomedia in 408. The seventeen letters which Saint John wrote to her from his exile are among the great treasures of patristic spirituality.
The holy five virgins of Mysia
The holy five virgins are a company of consecrated maidens, Theodota, Thekti, Eutyche, Mary and Cassia, who suffered martyrdom in the western part of Asia Minor in the early centuries of persecution. Each of them, while still young, had renounced an earthly betrothal and dedicated her virginity to Christ. Living in voluntary austerity, they devoted themselves to prayer, the singing of psalms, the works of mercy and the care of those in prison.
Reported as Christians, they were brought before the local governor and questioned together. Their unanimous and fearless confession enraged him; they were subjected to humiliations, beatings, and torture, and at length put to death, some by the sword and others in the flames. Their bodies were taken up by faithful Christians and buried in one place. The Church keeps their joint commemoration on 25 July, holding them up as a pattern of pure virginity preserved unto the shedding of blood.
Venerable Eupraxia of Tabenna
Saint Eupraxia was the daughter of a Christian senator, also named Antigonus, of the family of the emperor Theodosius the Great. Her father reposed in her early childhood, and her mother, also called Eupraxia, withdrew with the child to Egypt to escape the snares of the imperial court and to live a life of prayer. There the elder Eupraxia, after distributing her wealth to the poor, brought her daughter to the women's monastery near Tabenna founded by Saint Pachomius, where the maiden, then only seven years of age, asked to be received as a nun.
The abbess, struck by the child's earnestness, granted her wish, and the young Eupraxia grew up in the discipline of the community. She kept the rule with great severity, fasting often for whole weeks, and outdid the older sisters in obedience and humility. The devil tempted her in many ways, but her elder taught her to overcome each onslaught by the cross and the prayer of Jesus. She was granted the gifts of healing and of casting out demons, and many were brought back to soundness of mind and body through her prayers. She reposed in peace at the age of about thirty, around the year 413.
Commemoration of the holy 165 Fathers of the Fifth Ecumenical Council
553
This council was held in Constantinople during the reign of Justinian the Great. The council condemned the various forms of monophysitism, the heretical writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Theodoret, and the writings of Origen (particularly on universal salvation).
St Olympias the Deaconess
408
She was born to a noble family in Constantinople: her father Anysius Secundus was a senator. She was betrothed to a nobleman who died before they could be wed; resisting all advice to take another husband, Olympias devoted herself entirely to God, giving her large inheritance to the Church and to the poor. She served as a deaconess, first under the Patriarch Nektarios, then under St John Chrysostom. When St John was sent into exile, he advised her to remain in Constantinople, and to continue to serve the Church whatever patriarch took his place. But as soon as the holy hierarch went into exile, a fire destroyed a large part of the City, and St John’s enemies accused the holy Olympias of setting the fire. She in turn was exiled to Nikomedia, where she reposed in 408. She left instructions that her body be placed in a coffin and thrown into the sea, to be buried wherever it was cast up. The coffin came to shore at Vrochthoi and was buried there at a church dedicated to the Apostle Thomas. Her relics have continued to be a source of great miracles of healing.
During his exile, St John Chrysostom wrote a number of letters to St Olympias, seventeen of which have been preserved through the centuries. In one he writes: ‘Now I am deeply joyful, not only because you have been delivered from sickness, but even more because you are bearing adversities with such fortitude, calling them trifles — a characteristic of a soul filled with power and abounding in the rich fruits of courage. You are not only enduring misfortune with fortitude, but are making light of it in a seemingly effortless way, rejoicing and triumphing over it — this is a proof of the greatest wisdom.’