Today, on Monday (14.4.2025) the wonderful form of Pagalo Joseph is projected, because he according to the Fathers of our Church is a protagonist and image of Christ and, at the same time, we remember the teaching event of the dry fig from the Lord that happened according to the Holy Epiphany.
According to the calendar, the memory of St. Aristarchus Apostolos, Agia Thomaidos Martyr, Saint Savva of the New in Kalymnos is honored.
The names that celebrate today, according to the calendar, are:
- Aristarchus
- Thomais, Thomaida, Thomai
- Savvas, Savas, Savvoulis, Savvoula, Savoula, Savouli *
- Beetle
St. Martyr Thomais
St. Martyr Thomais was born and lived in Alexandria and was distinguished for her piety and spiritual education. From an early age she had been indulged in the works of charity and mercy, accompanying her mother. This ministry continued to exercise even when she was married.
The saint had a always blessed family. She was associated with her husband with true and unobtrusive love. But their peaceful coexistence was coated by the inventor of the evil, the devil and wanted to separate them, and even tragically.
Once that Thomaida was alone at home, because her husband was missing in jobs, she was unethical attack by her husband’s father, that is, her father -in -law, who was dominated by the demon of prostitution and enslaved to the passion of adolescence, wanted to have a love affair.
The saint, who always had alive in her memory the sense of the ubiquitous presence of God and lived with purity and prudence, resisted with stability and boldness. He tried to convince him that this should not be done, because it is contrary to the will of God, which was a way of life and a source of inspiration for it. But blinded by passion, he insisted on threatening her with death. St. Thomais continued to resist and preferred death to enslavement in the state of sin and the power of death. Because exit in a martyred way from the present short life for the glory of God is not death, but a transition from death to life. It is a victory for life over death.
The unhappy stabbed her deadly and after this tragic incident lost his light and returned home like a loser. In this situation he was found by some neighbors who were looking for his son, and handed him over to the authorities to be tried. While Thomaida, as Saint Nicodemus the Mount Athos writes, “received a crown witness for prudence”.
The Head of the Skete of Alexandria, a monk Daniel, as soon as he was informed of the martyred end of Thomaidus, immediately descended to the city with some monks and received the sacred relic of the saint. He carried it with reverence to the Skete and buried it with honors at the Fathers’ Cemetery.
Then the following miraculous happened. A monk, who was fought by the demon of prostitution and had suffered for a long time, prayed at the place where the witness’s relic was buried, asking for her help. And after he had his body with oil from the candle burning in her grave, she was rid of the temptation and peacefully. But at times other faithful, monks and lay people, who were tortured by carnal temptations, prayed to the saint and with her embassies reinforced in their struggle or even free from passion.