11 May 2023 (MIA)

Macedonian Orthodox Church Calendar

The Holy Apostles Jason and Sosipater, and the Virgin Cercyra

The first two were among the Seventy Apostles, and the last was the daughter of the king of the island of Corfu. The Apostle Paul mentions Jason and Sosipater (Rom. 16:21), and calls them his kinsmen. Jason was born in Tarsus, as was the Apostle Paul himself, and Sosipater in Achaea. The first was nominated by the apostles as Bishop of Tarsus and the second as Bishop of Iconium. Travelling and preaching the Gospel, these two apostles came to the island of Corfu, where they succeeded in building a church dedicated to St Stephen the Protomartyr and in bringing some unbelievers to the Church. The king of the island threw them into prison, where there were seven robbers already imprisoned. The apostles brought all seven of them to the Christian faith, making wolves into lambs. The king commanded that these seven be put to death in boiling pitch, and they thus received the wreath of martyr-dom. When, after this, the king was in process of questioning the apostles, his daughter Cercyra, looking through a window, saw the torture of these men of God and, discovering the reason for it, pro-claimed herself a Christian and gave all her jewels away to the poor. The king was filled with wrath against his daughter and shut her up in a separate prison, then, failing to turn her from Christ, ordered that the prison be burned down. The prison burned to the ground, but the maiden remained alive. Seeing this wonder, many of the people were baptised. The furious king ordered that his daughter be bound to a tree and killed with arrows. Those who had come to believe in Christ fled from the terrible king to a nearby island and hid themselves. The king set off in a boat to arrest them, but his boat overturned in the sea and thus the unrighteous perished, as Pharaoh aforetime. The new king accepted the Christian faith and was bap-tised, receiving the name Sebastian. Jason and Sosipater freely preached the Gospel and strengthened the Church of God in Corfu to great old age, and there finished their earthly course and went to the courts of the Lord.

Catholic Calendar

St. Ignatius of Laconi

Son of a poor farmer with seven kids, Ignatius grew up in hard poverty, working the fields. At age 17, he became very ill, and promised to be a Franciscan if he was spared. When he was cured, his father convinced him to wait. At age 20 Ignatius was almost killed when he lost control of his horse; suddenly the horse stopped, and trotted on quietly. Ignatius was convinced God had saved his life, and he decided to follow his religious vocation at once. He joined the Capuchin monastery of Saint Benedict at Buoncammino as a lay brother, taking his vows in 1722. Born in 1701 at Laconi, Died in 1781of natural causes.