This Day in the Life of the Church

August 2, 2023

The 6^th-century basilica of St. Vitale in Ravenna is an impressive reminder of when this city served as the Byzantine administrative capital in Central Italy

When Italy Was Byzantine

Pope John V passed away on this day in 686. He was a papal legate at the Sixth Ecumenical Council, which condemned monophylitsm in Constantinople in 680. Following his election by the Christian population of Rome in 685, John became the first pope after Italy had been reintegrated into the Eastern Roman Empire, which had begun during the reign of Emperor Justinian (482–565). The period that began with his reign received the name of the ‘Byzantine Papacy’; the next ten popes following John V came from the East of the Empire. 

Synaxis of Russian Emigre Saints in France

St. Mother Maria (Skobtsova) and the synaxis of Russian émigré saints of France. Nun Maria’s podvig in France resembles that of St. John in China. There, she looked after destitute Russian refugees. Mother Maria died in Ravensbrück concentration camp in March of 1945. The Nazis murdered other members of her circle in France at different times: Elias Fondaminsky in 1942, Priest Dimitry Klepenine and George Skobstov in 1944. Today, we also celebrate the memory of the righteous priest Aleksei Medvedkov (+1934), who selflessly ministered to Russian refugees in Ugine. His remains were discovered to be incorrupt. The Ecumenical Patriarchate canonized all of them in 2004. The Russian Orthodox Church has yet to canonize any of them.

Read Types of Religious Lives by Mother Mary

Copyright 2023 Andrei Psarev.

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