4 March 2023 (MIA)

Macedonian Orthodox Church Calendar

The Holy Apostles Archippus, Philemon and Apphia

Archippus was one of the Seventy. The Apostle Paul mentions him in his Epistles to the Colossians (4:17) and to Philemon (2), calling him his fellow-soldier in the battle. The Christians’ gathering-place for prayer in the town of Colossae was in the house of Philemon. The Apostle Paul, writing to Philemon, calls this `the Church in thy house’. This was in the time when the apostles were consecrating their disciples to the episcopate – some to permanent sees and others as missionaries, travelling to various places. Philemon was one of these latter. Apphia, Philemon’s wife, remained to serve the house-church with fasting. At the time of a feast of the pagan goddess Artemis, all the faithful in Colossae were, as was their custom, gathered at prayer in the house of Philemon. The pagans came to hear of this gathering, rushed in on them and seized all the Christians. They flogged Archippus, Philemon and Apphia as their lead-ers, then buried them up to the waist in the ground and stoned them. Philemon and Apphia died of this, but they took Archippus out of the hole barely alive and left him for the children to play with. They took knives and stabbed him all over, and thus this fellow-soldier of Paul’s in the battle made a good end of his earthly road.

Catholic Calendar

St. Casimir of Poland

Patron saint of Poland and Lithuania. He was born in 1458 or 1460, the third of thirteen children of King Casimir IV and Elizabeth of Austria, daughter of Albert II of Habsburg. He was born on October 3, 1460, in the royal palace at Krakow, Poland. The young prince was trained in spirituality and displayed holiness at an early age. When Casimir IV ordered Casimir to lead an army against King Matthias I Corvinus of Hungary in 1471, he refused. Casimir believed an attempt to seize the Hungarian throne was unjust and refused to take part in it. He was confined to the castle of Dzoki as punishment, and there he refused as well to marry, as his father commanded. When his father was away from Poland from 1479-1483, Casimir served as regent of the nation. Casimir died of consumption on March 4 while visiting Grodno, Lithuania. Buried at Vilnius, Lithuania, his tomb became famed for miracles, and he was canonised in 1522 by Pope Adrian VI. Casimir is also patron of the Knights of St. John and is invoked against enemies of Poland and the faith.