Apostles Archippus and Philemon of the Seventy, and Martyr Apphia
Archippus was the son of Saints Philemon (Nov. 22) and Apphia (Feb. 15), and, like them, was a disciple of the Apostle Paul, who calls him “our fellow soldier” (Philm. 2). He and his father preached the Gospel at Colossae, and Archippus probably served as a priest for the church that gathered there at his family’s house (Col. 4:17). Archippus’ fervor in preaching the Gospel of Christ so angered the pagans that they seized him and brought him before the governor Androcles. When the Saint refused to sacrifice to Artemis, he was stripped, beaten, tormented in various ways, and finally stoned to death.
Holy Apostle Archippus
Saint Archippus was one of the faithful companions of the Apostle Paul and is mentioned in Paul's epistles as a beloved fellow worker in Christ. He laboured with Philemon and Apphia in spreading the Gospel and strengthening the Church. Saint Archippus was devoted to the apostolic ministry and proclaimed Christ with courage and faithfulness. According to Church tradition, he suffered persecution and hardship for the sake of the Gospel. The Orthodox Church honours Saint Archippus as one of the faithful apostolic companions who contributed to the establishment and growth of the early Church.
Holy Apostle Philemon
Saint Philemon was a faithful Christian beloved by the Apostle Paul and mentioned in the epistle bearing his name. Philemon opened his home to the apostles and supported the ministry of the Gospel through his hospitality and generosity. He is remembered as a man of sincere faith whose home became a gathering place for the faithful. Philemon laboured for the Gospel alongside his wife Apphia and their household, including their son Archippus. The Orthodox Church reveres him as an exemplar of Christian hospitality, stewardship, and household holiness in service to Christ.
Holy martyr Apphia, equal to the apostles
Saint Apphia was the wife of the holy apostle Philemon of Colossae and a fellow worker of the apostle Paul. She is greeted by name in the apostle's epistle to her husband (Philemon 2), where Paul calls her "our beloved sister", a sign of her standing in the apostolic community. Together with Philemon she opened her house as a gathering place for the church at Colossae and was diligent in works of mercy, receiving strangers, caring for the sick and providing for the poor and for the wandering preachers of the Gospel.
According to the tradition received in the Church, during the persecution under the emperor Nero a heathen festival of Artemis was kept at Colossae. The faithful were assembled in the house of Philemon for prayer when an enraged crowd of pagans broke in upon them. The ruler Artocles ordered Philemon, Apphia and the holy apostle Archippus to be brought before him for confessing Christ. After torments, Apphia and Philemon were buried in the earth up to the waist and stoned to death, while Archippus was pierced with knives. They thus sealed their preaching of the Gospel by their blood.
Saint Apphia is honoured by the Church together with the apostles Archippus and Philemon on 19 February, and again on 22 November.
Venerable Theodore, abbot of Sanaxar
1719
Saint Theodore of Sanaxar was born in the year 1719 near the town of Romanov in the province of Yaroslavl, the son of the pious nobleman Prince Ignatius Ushakov and his wife Paraskeva. At his baptism he received the name John. Brought up in piety, he entered the imperial guard at Saint Petersburg and seemed destined for a brilliant career, but a sudden death at table among his fellow officers shook him profoundly, and he resolved to renounce the world.
Withdrawing in secret, he lived for some time as a hermit in the forests near Lake Ladoga. When his absence was discovered the empress Elizabeth had him sought out, but on hearing of his desire for the monastic life she forgave him and allowed him to enter the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. There he was tonsured with the name Theodore. After receiving the priesthood and gathering disciples, he was sent in 1759 to restore the deserted Sanaxar monastery in the diocese of Tambov, of which he became abbot.
Saint Theodore guided his community by the strict cenobitic rule of the holy fathers, and his counsel was sought by many, among them his nephew the future admiral Saint Theodore Ushakov. For a time he was unjustly exiled to the Solovki monastery on a slander, but he was vindicated and returned to Sanaxar, where he reposed in peace on 19 February 1791. He was canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1999.
Our Venerable Mother Philothea of Athens
1589
“This bright star of compassion arose in the dark days of the Turkish occupation to shed God’s mercy upon the oppressed people of Athens and to guide many endangered souls onto the path of righteousness.” (Synaxarion)
She was born in 1528 to the prominent Venizelou family, miraculously answering her mother’s prayer of many years. Though even in childhood she showed a love for ascesis and prayer, she was much sought-after as a wealthy heiress, and was married at the age of twelve to a rough, violent man. She endured his ill-treatment nobly, and prayed daily for his conversion. After three years, the brutal husband died, and Philothea gave herself entirely to a life of prayer and fasting, living like a hermitess though still in her parents’ house. When her parents died ten years later, she used her entire fortune to found a convent. Its design had been given her in a vision by the Apostle Andrew, and it was dedicated to him. Alongside the monastery, she founded a hospital, a hospice for the poor, and schools where boys and girls could receive a Christian education, something obviously not provided by the Turkish rulers.
As soon as the monastery was begun, she took monastic vows under the name of Philothea, and she, her own maidservants, and many young women of the city, became the first nuns there. Philothea continued in her boundless compassion for the poor and infirm, whom she visited and tended. She was so free in her almsgiving that more than once the monastery was left without food or other necessities of life, and the sisters began to complain about her. But each time, large donations appeared unexpectedly and saved the community from starvation.
Philothea offered asylum and refuge to Christian slave women who had fled their masters to preserve their faith and chastity. This angered the Turks, who surrounded the monastery, seized Philothea, and brought her before the judge. She was told to deny Christ or die, and when she refused was sentenced to death; but some influential Athenian Greeks were able to intervene on her behalf and to obtain her release.
Immediately upon her release she redoubled her prayers, her apostolic labors and her works of mercy, and was soon granted the gift of working miracles and healings. So many disciples came to join her that she established a second monastery. Her growing influence aroused the hatred of some of the Turks, who broke into the monastery one night and beat her violently, leaving her half-dead. She bore the effects of her injuries patiently, and after a short time gave back her soul to God in 1589.
Twenty years after her repose, a beautiful scent began to issue from her tomb. Her precious relics, venerated at the Cathedral in Athens, remain incorrupt to this day.