The Hieromartyr Zenobius and his sister Zenobia.

01

From the Prologue

From the town of Aegae in Cilicia, they inherited the true Faith and great material wealth from their parents. Inflamed with zeal for the Faith, they, with great love, gave away their riches to the poor. Because they were so open-handed, God shielded these hands from every evil intent by men or demons. The merciful hands of Zenobius, which gave to the poor, were endowed by God with the gift of wonderworking, so that Zenobius was able to heal the sick of every sort of infirmity simply by the touch of his hand, and he was made Bishop of Aegae. At a time of persecution, the judge Licius seized him and said: 'I offer you the two: life and death - life if you bow down to the gods, and death if you do not.' Holy Zenobius replied: 'Life without Christ is not life, but death; and death for Christ's sake is not death, but life.' When Zenobius was put to harsh torture, his sister presented herself before the judge and said: 'I also want to drink this cup of suffering and be crowned with that wreath.' After torture by fire and in boiling pitch, they were both beheaded with the sword in about 285, and thus brother and sister entered into the immortal Kingdom of Christ the King.

NAME:The Holy Apostles Cleopas, Tertius, Mark, Justus and Artemas.

They were of the Seventy. The risen Lord appeared to Cleopas on the road to Emmaus (Lk. 24:13-33). Tertius wrote down Paul's Epistle to the Romans for him (Rom. 16:22), and died a martyr as Bishop of Iconium, after the Apostle Sosipater (Nov. 10th). St Mark (or John, see Acts 12:12) was the son of the devout Mary in whose house the apostles and the early Christians found shelter, and the nephew of Barnabas. He was bishop in the Samaritan town of Apollonia. Justus was a son of Joseph the Betrothed. Together with Matthias, he was selected for the lot to be cast to replace Judas the betrayer, but was not chosen (Acts 1:23-26). As bishop in Eleutheropolis, he suffered for the Gospel. St Artemas was bishop in Lystra in Lycaonia, and died peacefully.

NAME:The Holy King Milutin.

The son of Uros I and Queen Helena and brother of Dragutin, he fought fiercely to defend his faith and his people. He fought against Michael Palaeologus because the latter had accepted union with Rome and was putting pressure on the whole Balkan people and the monks of Athos to accept the Pope. He fought against Shishman, King of Bulgaria, and Nogai, King of the Tartars, to defend his country from them. All his wars were successful, for he prayed constantly to God and put himself in His hands. He built more than forty churches, both in his own land (Treskavac, Gracanica, St George in Nagorid, the Holy Mother of God in Skoplje, Banjska and so forth) and in Salonica, Sophia, Constantinople, Jerusalem and on the Holy Mountain. He entered into rest in the Lord on October 29th, 1320, and his body was soon seen to be uncorrupt and wonderworking. It is still preserved in that state today in the Church of the Holy King in Sophia.

NAME:Author's note: Milutin was married twice, not four times as his detractors would have it; first to Elisabeth, a Hungarian princess, and then to Simonida, a princess of Byzantium.

From The Prologue From Ochrid by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich
©1985 Lazarica Press, Birmingham UK