30 August / 12 September

Ss Alexander, John and Paul the New, Patriarchs of Constantinople

Alexander took part in the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea, in place of the aged Patriarch Metrophanes, whom he then succeeded. When certain philosophers tried to dispute with him about faith, he said to one of them: 'In the name of my Lord Jesus Christ, I command you to remain silent!', and the philosopher became dumb from that moment. By his prayers, also, Arius's life was shortened. Alexander died at the age of ninety-eight, in the year 340. St John the Faster governed the Church in the days of the wicked Emperor Anastasius, an Acephalite heretic. He entered into rest in 595. St Paul IV governed the Church for five years and eight months and renounced the throne to receive the Great Habit secretly, to repent of his sins when he first supported the iconoclasts. He was the predecessor of the great Tarasius, and entered into rest in the time of Irene and Constantine, in 784.

On the same day: The Assembly of the Enlighteners and Teachers of Serbia; Our Holy Father Christopher; St Eulalius, Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia; At Todi in Umbria, Ss. Terence and Flaccus, martyrs; Translation of the relics of St. Alexander Nevsky