The Cave-Tomb of Saint Juvenal, the First Patriarch of Jerusalem

By Fr. Elias Makos

On July 2nd, the Church honors the memory of the first Patriarch of Jerusalem, Juvenal.

The Cave-Tomb of Saint Juvenal in Jerusalem is preserved within the Monastery of Saint Onouphrios in the area of Siloam.

Gradually the Bishopric of Jerusalem, which was founded on the day of Pentecost with the Bishop James the Apostle, developed into a pan-Christian place of pilgrimage, and it became the Metropolis of the Three Palestines (beginning of the 5th century).

Saint Leontios, Patriarch of Jerusalem (+ 1190)

St. Leontios of Jerusalem (Feast Day - May 14)

 Verses

Breathing like a Lion O Leontios,
You overcame Satan like a small gnat.

Saint Leontios came from Tiberiopolis in Phrygia, and was born to wealthy and pious parents around the second half of the 12th century AD. When his father died, after leaving his hometown and studying under a pious priest, he came to the Monastery of Ptelidi, where he became a monk. Later he went to Constantinople and became associated with the Metropolitan of Tiberias, to whom he submitted. After following his elder, who was returning to his Diocese, he sailed with him to Patmos, to worship at the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian. He then started his journey to Cyprus, but the will of God led him back to Patmos. There, with the spiritual guidance of the abbot of the monastery, Theoktestos, a man experienced in spiritual matters, he became a model of brotherly love and humility. When the abbot Theoktestos died, Leontios was elected his successor by a unanimous decision of the monks.

Patriarch Irenaios of Jerusalem on the Miracle of the Holy Light of Jerusalem

In 2019, Patriarch Irenaios of Jerusalem, who served as Patriarch from 2000 till his dismissal in 2005, was asked about the authenticity of the miracle of the Holy Light in light of the allegations of some who serve under Patriarch Theophilos III that it is a hoax, to which he replied:

"I do not know what others say, I do not know if they said it or how they said it, what I know is what I experienced as many times as God required me to perform the Service of the Holy Light. I entered the Holy Sepulcher, I prayed on my knees holding the bundles of candles that, like the oil lamp, lit by themselves. I never looked into 'how' or 'why', but I experienced the event and the miracle of the Resurrection of the Lord with fear of God and awe like all the old and contemporary genuine Fathers of the Holy Sepulchre and every faithful Orthodox Christian."

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

 

 

Interview With Patriarch Diodoros I of Jerusalem on the Miracle of the Holy Light

Interview with His Beatitude Patriarch Diodorus I on the
Miracle of the Holy Fire

 

By Niels Christian Hvidt

His Beatitude Patriarch Diodorus I was born in 1923. He first came to Jerusalem in 1938 and assisted the Miracle of the Holy Fire ever since. In 1981 he was elected Patriarch and was thus the key witness to the Holy Fire 19 times until his death in December 2000, as the Greek-Orthodox patriarchs always enter the little tomb chapel where the flame first occurs. I spoke with him at the Orthodox Easter, 2000.

"Your Beatitude, what actually occurs when you enter the tomb on Holy Saturday during the ceremony of the Holy Fire?"

Saint Maximus III, Patriarch of Jerusalem

St. Maximus of Jerusalem (Feast Day - May 9)

According to Sozomen, Saint Maximus was a confessor of the persecution against Christians by the Emperor Diocletian, and was condemned to work in the mines, after having first deprived him of his right eye, and the use of his left leg.

Maximus was so popular among the people for his good character and for being a confessor that when Saint Macarius the Bishop of Jerusalem attempted to appoint him as Bishop of Lydda (also known as Diospolis) the populace insisted upon his retention in Jerusalem. Upon Macarius' death Maximus became Bishop of Jerusalem in 333, and was present in 335 at the first Synod of Tyre, and signed that synod's condemnation of Saint Athanasius, which he later realized he was deceived into doing.

Saint Zacharias, Patriarch of Jerusalem (+ 632)

St. Zacharias of Jerusalem (Feast Day - February 21)

Verses

Blessed are you and your death Zacharias,

Zacharias the president of blessed land.

Saint Zacharias had been keeper of the sacred vessels (skevophylax) of the Church of Constantinople before he became Patriarch of Jerusalem in 609. In the year 614 on the 20th of May the Persian emperor Chosroes fell upon Jerusalem, looted it, stole the True Cross of the Lord, and led many Christians into captivity, including Saint Zacharias. Of the captured Christians as many as 90,000 perished.

The Romiosini of 1821 and the Great Powers (6 of 11)

...continued from part five.

19. Greek Television Promotes the Russian Plan

Indeed, every week Greek television presents a forged movie of Papadiamantis' The Gypsy Girl, which depicts Greeks before the Fall of Constantinople in Peloponnesos as seemingly being enslaved in Romiosini.(13) In order for people to not become indignant by this, the Romans are called Byzantines. Therefore, Greek television teaches our children through this movie that Greeks were enslaved in Constantinople and that the Hagia Sophia of Justinian the Great was a church of the enemies of the Greeks.

Saint John II, Patriarch of Jerusalem (+ 417)

St. John of Jerusalem (Feast Day - March 30);
Greek miniature depicts the Church of Holy Zion

Verses

The president of the perceptible throne of Zion,
Departed for the Zion which is invisible.

Our Holy Father John was born around 356 and succeeded Saint Cyril as Patriarch of Jerusalem in 387. Many scholars today ascribe to him the five Mystagogical Catecheses traditionally ascribed to his predecessor Cyril.

On September 15, 394 Patriarch John officiated in the Consecration of the Church of Holy Zion: the homily pronounced by John was preserved in Armenian and not published until 1973.

In 415, he took part in the translation of the relics of Saint Stephen the Protomartyr from his tomb in the village of Kafargamala to Jerusalem in cooperation with Bishops Eusthonos of Sebaste and Eleutheros of Jericho.

Saint Juvenal, Patriarch of Jerusalem (+ 458)

St. Juvenal of Jerusalem (Feast Day - July 2)

Verses

The memory of Juvenal I celebrate,
Whose divine memory Palestine carries.

Saint Juvenal , Patriarch of Jerusalem, occupied the throne of the Holy City during the years 420-458. During this period great luminaries of the Church enlightened the world: Saints Euthymios the Great (Jan. 20), Symeon the Stylite (Sept. 1), Gerasimos of Jordan (Mar. 4), and many others. In 451, on the see of Jerusalem being recognized as a Patriarchate by the Synod of Chalcedon, he became the first Patriarch of Jerusalem, though Cyril of Alexandria and Pope Leo I opposed the separation of Jerusalem from Caesarea and Antioch.

Saint Sophronios of Jerusalem Resource Page

St. Sophronios of Jerusalem (Feast Day - March 11)

Verses

Hastening to keep the law to the letter,

Sophronios has been raised up as a horn to the heavens.

On the eleventh wise Sophronios was placed in the grave.

 

LIFE 

 

Synaxarion of Saint Sophronios, Patriarch of Jerusalem 

 

Saint Sophronios of Jerusalem as a Model for our Lives 

 

March: Day 11: Teaching 1: Saint Sophronios, Patriarch of Jerusalem

 

The Marvelous Life of Patriarch Sophronius I: His Company of Saints, and the Fall of Byzantine Jerusalem 

 

The Discovery of the Relics of the Holy Unmercenaries Cyrus and John 

 

Saint David the Dendrite of Thessaloniki

 

Chapel of Saint Sophronios of Jerusalem in Leros

 

 

WRITINGS 

 

Encomium on the Conception of Saint John the Baptist (St. Sophronios of Jerusalem) 

 

The Theophany Prayer of St. Sophronios of Jerusalem 

 

St. Sophronius of Jerusalem's Candlemas Sermon 

 

The Lives of the Four Evangelists (St. Sophronios of Jerusalem) 

 

Life of our Holy Mother Mary of Egypt (St. Sophronios of Jerusalem) 

 

Miracles 1 - 4 of Saints Cyrus and John as Recorded by Saint Sophronios of Jerusalem 

 

Miracles of Saints Cyrus and John for Theodora Who Had an Eye Disease and for her Husband Christodoros Who Was Shipwrecked 

 

A Miracle of Saints Cyrus and John for Theopompos Who Was Demon Possessed 

 

A Miracle of Saints Cyrus and John for the Physician Gesios

 

A Miracle of Saints Cyrus and John for Kosmiana Who Had a Back Injury

 

Synaxis of All the Martyred Saints from Protomartyr Stephen Up to the Present

This commemoration is celebrated on the 21st of January according to the Typikon of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The Synaxis took place at the Church of Saint Stephen in Jerusalem, which was founded by Empress Aelia Eudocia circa 460 AD, wife of Emperor Theodosius II.

The Martyrs of Christ are the greatest resisters in the history of mankind. They resisted violence, authoritarianism and delusion with the power of their sacrificial love that gives life, and not by the power, or we should rather say weakness, of hatred which kills. The Holy Martyrs, free of the tyranny of the passions and demonic falsehood ("the idols of the nations are demons"), experienced the truth as reality in the person of the Word of God ("I am the Truth") and freedom as the subjugation of the flesh, or carnal mind, to the spirit. Because they experienced God's presence sensibly in the regeneration of their existence by the Holy Spirit, this is why they endured to the end without bending even to the most inhumane tortures. They sacrificed themselves, like Christ, that others may live, and did not sacrifice others that they may live. The various ideologies, as constructs of passionate people, are unable to offer life. Rather, they can even cause death, pain and suffering. In the name of a pharisaical or rather demonic justice they reduce human lives to better, as they claim, human societies, removing them from the elements which, in their opinion, prevent their progress. That is, they try with violence and killing to regenerate humanity and kill others that they may live.

Saints and Feasts for the Sunday After Christmas

Saints Joseph the Betrothed, James the Brother of God 

and David the Prophet

 

Sunday After the Nativity of Christ

 

Synaxarion for Joseph the Betrothed, James the Brother of God and David the Prophet

  

Sunday After Christmas: Epistle and Gospel Reading

 

Sunday After Christmas: Joseph the Betrothed, James the Adelphotheos and King David

 

The Sunday After the Nativity of Christ

 

Homily One on the Sunday After the Nativity of Christ (St. John of Kronstadt)

 

Homily Two on the Sunday After the Nativity of Christ (St. John of Kronstadt) 

 

Homily on the Sunday After the Nativity of Christ (Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov) 

  

Homily for the Sunday after Christmas (Archimandrite George Kapsanis) 

 

The Sunday After Christmas - Jesus Christ: The Eternal Victor 

 

 

Holy Prophet and King David

 

A Homily on the Repentance of King David 

 

In Orthodox Worship David is First and Middle and Last 

 

Abishag the Shunamite as an Image of the Wisdom of King David in his Old Age

 

 

Righteous Joseph the Betrothed 

 

Saint Joseph the Betrothed Resource Page 

 

 

Holy Apostle James the Brother of God

 

Apostle James the Brother of God Resource Page

Synaxarion of the Holy Apostle and First Bishop of Jerusalem James the Brother of God

St. James the Brother of God (Feast Day - October 23)

Verses

The brother was hurled to the condemning club,
By this the all-blessed one died being struck with a club.
On the twenty-third the good brother of God was struck with a club.

Saint James the Brother of God was the first Bishop of Jerusalem, having been ordained by the Lord Himself. He was also the first to write the Divine Liturgy, having been taught regarding it by the Master Christ Himself. This was later shortened by Basil the Great, and again that of Basil the Great was shortened by the divine Chrysostom due to the weakness of the listeners.

Apostle James the Brother of God Resource Page

St. James the Just and Brother of God (Feast Day - October 23)

Verses

The brother was hurled to the condemning club,
By this the all-blessed one died being struck with a club.
On the twenty-third the good brother of God was struck with a club.

Synaxarion of the Holy Apostle and First Bishop of Jerusalem James the Brother of God

Holy Apostle James, the Brother of God

The Martyrdom of James the Just, the Brother of God and First Bishop of Jerusalem 

 

On James the Just, the Brother of our Lord (St. Jerome)

 

The Martyrdom of the Apostle James the Just (George Synkellos)

Saint James the Brother of God as a Model for our Lives 

 

October: Day 23: Teaching 1: Holy Apostle James, the Brother of the Lord

 

Book of James (Complete NKJV Translation)

 

The Liturgy of Saint James: the Trojan Horse of "Liturgical Renewal" (1 of 7)

The Liturgy of Saint James: the Trojan Horse of "Liturgical Renewal" (2 of 7)

The Liturgy of Saint James: the Trojan Horse of "Liturgical Renewal" (3 of 7)

The Liturgy of Saint James: the Trojan Horse of "Liturgical Renewal" (4 of 7)

The Liturgy of Saint James: the Trojan Horse of "Liturgical Renewal" (5 of 7)

The Liturgy of Saint James: the Trojan Horse of "Liturgical Renewal" (6 of 7)

The Liturgy of Saint James: the Trojan Horse of "Liturgical Renewal" (7 of 7)

An Unforgettable Vigil for Saint James the Brother of God in Kefallonia