Feast Days of Saints
A martyr's death day kept as a birthday — born, the church says, into heaven
Feast days are the annual liturgical commemorations of saints and martyrs, usually kept on the date of their death, understood as their "heavenly birthday." The practice appears early, as in the Martyrdom of Polycarp and fourth-century martyr calendars. The traditions differ in emphasis: Catholic, Orthodox, and Oriental calendars are densely filled with such feasts, Anglican and Lutheran calendars keep fewer, and most Reformed and Free churches reject them.
How it traveled
- The Church History of EusebiusCaesarea · c. 339 CEexplains
- The LettersCaesarea (Cappadocia) · c. 379 CEapplies
Key passages(20)
Each passage is tagged by what it does with the idea: explains it, applies it in practice, redefines it with a new meaning, or challenges it. Relevance shows how directly the passage is about this idea.
The Letters · Basil of Caesarea
Letter CLXXVI. Placed in 374. To Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium. An invitation to feast of St. Eupsychius, with a request to arrive three days before the actual day of the festival, which was obse
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The Church History of Eusebius · Eusebius of Caesarea
This shows that the martyrs were highly venerated even at this early date, as was indeed most natural, and as is acknowledged by the writers themselves just below. But it does not show that the Christ
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The Church History of Eusebius · Eusebius of Caesarea
“The glorious struggles of the most blessed martyrs, for the honor of Christ the Lord and of our God, are celebrated by perpetual services and an annual solemnity, that while our faithful people know
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The Epistles of Cyprian. · Cyprian
Epistle XXXVI. To the Clergy, Bidding Them Show Every Kindness to the Confessors in Prison. Argument.—He Exhorts His Clergy that Every Kindness and Care Should Be Exercised Towards the Confessors, a
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The Confessions · Augustine of Hippo
Chapter II.—She, on the Prohibition of Ambrose, Abstains from Honouring the Memory of the Martyrs. 2. When, therefore, my mother had at one time—as was her custom in Africa—brought to the oratories b
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The Book of Pastoral Rule, and Selected Epistles, of Gregory the Great · Pope Gregory the Great
The clergy who had been married before ordination were not required to put away their wives. Can. Apostol. V. expressly forbids their doing so under pain of excommunication. The 3rd Nicene Canon, whic
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The Canons of the Councils of Ancyra, Gangra, Neocæsarea, Antioch and Laodicea, which Canons were Accepted and Received by the Ecumenical Synods · The Ecumenical Councils
This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian’s Decretum, Pars I., Dist. xxx., c. vij. Canon XIX. If any of the ascetics, without bodily necessity, shall behave with insolence and disreg
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The Letters · Basil of Caesarea
Letter CCLII. Placed in 376. To the bishops of the Pontic Diocese. In the title the word διοίκησις is used in its oldest ecclesiastical sense of a patriarchal jurisdiction commensurate with the civ
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Homilies on Second Corinthians · John Chrysostom
[5.] ‘Yes,’ one replies; ‘I have; for when he lived he wrought many and great achievements; for he subdued both nations and cities, and in many wars and battles he conquered, and erected trophies.’ I
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On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus · Ambrose of Milan
1. In the former book I indulged my longing to some extent, lest too sharp remedies applied to a burning wound might rather increase than assuage the pain. And as at the same time I often addressed my
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The Book of Pastoral Rule, and Selected Epistles, of Gregory the Great · Pope Gregory the Great
As to the presbyter about whom thy Fraternity has consulted us through the representation of the bearer of these presents, know that after his lapse he cannot by any means remain in, or be restored to
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The Canons of the Councils of Ancyra, Gangra, Neocæsarea, Antioch and Laodicea, which Canons were Accepted and Received by the Ecumenical Synods · The Ecumenical Councils
Fasting Communion, an example of special pleading and disingenuousness rarely equalled even in controversial theological literature. A brief but crushing refutation of the position taken by that write
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The Canons of the Synods of Sardica, Carthage, Constantinople, and Carthage Under St. Cyprian, Which Canons Were Received by the Council in Trullo and Ratified by II. Nice · The Ecumenical Councils
That no bishops or clerics are to hold feasts in churches, unless perchance they are forced thereto by the necessity of hospitality as they pass by. The people, too, as far as possible, are to be proh
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The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret · Theodoret of Cyrus
Carried away from Jerusalem by Chosroes II. in 614, it was recovered, says the legend, by Heraclius in 628. The feast of the “Exaltation of the Cross” on Sept. 14th, combines the Commemoration of the
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Letter XXXI. To Eustochium. Jerome writes to thank Eustochium for some presents sent to him by her on the festival of St. Peter. He also moralizes on the mystical meaning of the articles sent. The le
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Letters of St. Augustin · Augustine of Hippo
9. Lest, however, any slight should seem to be put by us on those who, before our time, either tolerated or did not dare to put down such manifest excesses of an undisciplined multitude, I explained t
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The Letters · Basil of Caesarea
Letter CCXXXII. Placed in 376. Maran, Vit. Bas. xxxv., thinks that this letter is to be placed either in the last days of 375, if the Nativity was celebrated on December 25, or in the beginning of 37
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The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret · Theodoret of Cyrus
XXVI. Festal. The fountains of the Lord’s kindness are ever gushing forth with good things for them that believe; but some further good is conveyed by the celebrations which preserve the memory of th
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The Canons of the Synods of Sardica, Carthage, Constantinople, and Carthage Under St. Cyprian, Which Canons Were Received by the Council in Trullo and Ratified by II. Nice · The Ecumenical Councils
This is Canon iv. of the Synod of Carthage, Aug. 15 (or 16), a.d. 401. Johnson. Bishop Beveridge and Tilius’s edition of these canons, in Greek and Latin, number the two preceding canons as I have d
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The Canons of the Synods of Sardica, Carthage, Constantinople, and Carthage Under St. Cyprian, Which Canons Were Received by the Council in Trullo and Ratified by II. Nice · The Ecumenical Councils
Since in the former council it was decreed, as your unanimity remembers as well as I do, that those who as children were baptized by the Donatists, and not yet being able to know the pernicious charac
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