Macedonian Orthodox Church Calendar

The Holy Apostles Herodion, Agabus, Rufus, Asyncritus, Phlegon and Hermas

They were all among the Seventy, and are all mentioned by St Paul in his Epistles. Herodion was a kinsman of Paul’s: `Salute Herodion my kinsman’, he writes to the Romans (16:11). Herodion suffered greatly at the hands of the Jews as Bishop of Neoparthia; he was beaten about the head, stoned on the mouth and stabbed in the legs. When they had left him for dead, St Herodion arose and continued to serve the apostles. He helped the Apostle Peter in Rome, and was beheaded along with many other Christians on the same day that Peter was crucified. St Agabus had a spirit of prophecy. Two of his prophecies are recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. First, he prophesied a great famine throughout the world, which came to pass in the time of Claudius Caesar (Acts 11:28). The second was when he met the Apostle Paul in Caesarea. Paul was on his way to Jerusalem, and Agabus took Paul’s girdle and bound himself hand and foot, saying: `Thus saith the Holy Spirit: so shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle’ (21:11). St Rufus was Bishop of Thebes in Greece. The Apostle Paul mentions him also: `Salute Rufus, chosen in the Lord’ (Rom. 16:13). St Asyncritus (Rom. 16:14) was Bishop of Hyrcania in Asia. St Phlegon, who is mentioned in the same place as St Rufus, was bishop in the Thracian city of Marathon. St Hermas, mentioned with the others, was bishop in Dalmatia. All these, with bee-like industry, spread the Gospel, suffering greatly for the love of Christ. They all went to the eternal Kingdom of their beloved Christ.

Catholic Calendar

St. Anselm

St. Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury and Confessor APRIL 21, A.D. 1109 IF the Norman conquerors stripped the English nation of its liberty, and many temporal advantages, it must be owned that by their valor they raised the reputation of its arms, and deprived their own country of its greatest men, both in church and state, with whom they adorned this kingdom: of which this great doctor, and his master, Lanfranc, are instances. St. Anselm was born of noble parents, at Aoust, in Piedmont, about the year 1033. His pious mother took care to give him an early tincture of piety, and the impressions her instructions made upon him were as lasting as his life. At the age of fifteen, desirous of serving God in the monastic state, he petitioned an abbot to admit him into his house: but was refused out of apprehension of his father’s displeasure. Neglecting, during the course of his studies, to cultivate the divine seed in his heart, he lost this inclination, and, his mother being dead, he fell into tepidity; and, without being sensible of the fatal tendency of vanity and pleasure, began to walk in the broad way of the world: so dangerous a thing is it to neglect the inspirations of grace! The saint, in his genuine meditations, expresses the deepest sentiments of compunction for these disorders, which his perfect spirit of penance exceedingly exaggerated to him, and which, like another David, he never ceased most bitterly to bewail to the end of his days.

Islamic Calendar

Ramadan Bayram

Islamic believers all across the world celebrate Ramadan Bayram, the end of the holy month of fasting. Ramadan was established as a Holy Month for Muslims after the Quran was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad in 610 AD on the occasion known as Laylat al-Qadr, frequently translated as “the Night of Power.” Observance of Ramadan is mandated in the Quran.