I know, I’ve been missing for an awfully long time. I’ll be surprised if anyone still comes here. But I have an excuse! My MacBook’s screen went black. We weren’t sure it was worth it to fix, so I went without it for several weeks, but then we decided to go ahead and fix it. Now it works just like new! I have a hard time sitting down and writing up posts and updates these days, but it is my intention to update at least once a week or so.

For now, I’ll leave you with the stories of two saints I read about this morning. Before morning prayers, I try to always read the lives of the saints for the day, either from the Horologian or the Daily Lives, Miracles, and Wisdome of the Saints (a very helpful little book by godmother has given me two different years (it’s different every year). Here are the two from the Horologian for today:

Saint Eutyches was a disciple of Saint John the Theologian [the author of the Gospel of St. John] and a fellow labourer of the holy Apostle Paul. He preached the Gospel in many places, pulled down the idols’ temples, and suffered imprisonments and many torments at the hands of the idolaters. He finally reposed in peace in deep old age in his native city of Sebastia, near Tarsus.

Our holy Father Cosmas was from the town of Mega Dendron of Aetolia. At the age of twenty, he went to study at the school of the Monastery of Vatopedi on the Holy Mountain [the monastic republic off of Greece]. Later, he came to the Athonite Monastery of Philotheou where he was tonsured [a monk]. With the blessing of this abbot, he departed for Constantinople where he learned the art of rhetoric, and thereafter, he began to preach throughout all the regions of northern Greece, the Ionian Islands, but especially in Albania, for the Christian people there were in great ignorance because of the oppression and cruelty of the Moslems. Finally, in 1776, after having greatly strengthened and enlightened the faithful, working many signs and wonders all the while, he was falsely accused by the leaders of the Jewish people and was executed by strangulation by the Moslem Turks in Albania.

I find it interesting that St. Cosmas was martyred in Albania the year we signed the Declaration of Independence. Albania became the world’s most militant atheist state, and when Archbishop Anastasios arrived after the collapse of communism, the Church, long underground, had nearly collapsed. He has followed in St. Cosmas’ footsteps and assisted in the miraculous resurrection of the Church of Albania.