15 / 28 June

The Holy Prophet Amos

He was born in the village of Tekoa, close to Bethlehem, he was of simple birth and lived a simple life. Amos was a herdsman for rich men in Jerusalem. But God, who never looks into 'Who's Who', and judges a man by the purity of his heart and not by his external appearance, the same God who took Moses and David from their sheep to make them leaders of the nation; this same God also took Amos to be His prophet. Amos rebuked King Uzziah and his pagan priests for their idolatry and turned the people from the worship of the golden calves, teaching them to worship the one, only and living God. When Amaziah, the chief of the pagan priests, began to persecute him, he prophesied the triumph of the Assyrians over Israel, the slaying of King Jeroboam and Amaziah's sons and the defiling of his wife by the Assyrian soldiers before his own eyes, because Amaziah had led the nation into adultery with idols. And so it all came to pass. The son of the priest struck the prophet on the forehead with a staff so forcefully that he fell down. He was carried, barely alive, to his village of Tekoa, where he surrendered his holy soul to God. He lived in the 8th century before Christ. The Holy Martyr Vitus, with Modestus and Crescentia.

On the same day: Our Holy Father Doulas The Holy Martyr Lazar, Prince of Serbia; St. Ephrain, Patriarch of Serbia; Blessed Augustine, Bishop of Hippo