Photios: Name Day and Patron Saint

The Pantocrator, “the Almighty, Ruler of all,” is the oldest and most central image of Orthodox iconography: Christ raising His right hand and holding the Gospel in His left, as He looks down from the dome of every Orthodox church. The letters IC XC are the first and last letters of “Jesus Christ” in Greek; with NIKA they proclaim “Jesus Christ conquers,” the confession stamped on prosphora, crosses and medallions. In Russia the beloved Zvenigorod Saviour, from the early fifteenth-century Deesis tier traditionally linked with St Andrei Rublev, was found near Zvenigorod in 1918 and is now in the Tretyakov Gallery; its gentle, searching gaze has made it one of the most loved faces of Christ in the world. Orthodox Christians keep an icon of the Saviour in the place of honor in every home, pray before it morning and evening, and make the sign of the Cross over a bridegroom with it on his wedding day. Through His icon the faithful turn to the Lord Himself, asking for mercy, healing and the salvation of their souls.

What the faithful pray for

• mercy and forgiveness of sins (the Jesus Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me)
• salvation of the soul
• healing of body and soul, as King Abgar of Edessa was healed through the Holy Face
• the protection of the home, where the icon of the Saviour holds the place of honor in the icon corner
• strength to keep the Gospel commandments
• victory over sin and temptation (IC XC NIKA: Jesus Christ conquers)
• the enlightenment of the mind by the uncreated Light of Tabor
• a bridegroom on his wedding day (the Saviour icon of the wedding pair)
• a peaceful Christian end and a good defense at the Last Judgment

Protection

• from the power of the devil and every evil
• from despair, for Christ has conquered death
• the household that keeps His icon
• from sickness of body and soul

Miracles

• King Abgar of Edessa, stricken with leprosy, received a cloth on which the Lord had imprinted His face after washing it; pressing it to his face, Abgar was healed. (source)
• On Mount Tabor the Lord shone with Divine Light before Peter, James and John, revealing the glory granted to those who unite the mind with God in prayer. (source)
• In 944 the Image Not-Made-by-Hands was solemnly carried from Edessa to Constantinople, an event the Church still keeps as a feast. (source)

Read the life of Theophany

St Photini is the Samaritan woman who met Christ at Jacob’s well, as the Gospel of John tells. He asked her for a drink and spoke to her of the living water; she recognised Him as the Messiah and ran to bring her whole town to hear Him. The Church knows her as Photini, and in Russian as Svetlana. In the reign of Nero she preached the Gospel boldly in Carthage with her younger son Joses, while her elder son Victor, a Roman army commander, also confessed Christ. She went with her sons and her five sisters to Rome, where they were imprisoned and tortured. Placed at the imperial court, Photini brought Nero’s daughter Domnina and her servants to faith. When she refused to offer sacrifice to idols, she was thrown into a well, and there she gave her soul to God around the year 66, with her sons and sisters dying as martyrs too. The Church keeps her memory on 20 March (2 April on the Old Calendar); the Greek Church keeps her on 26 February. Her head is kept at Grigoriou Monastery on Mount Athos, and many healings of eye disease were reported at the churches built in her honour in Constantinople. The faithful ask her prayers to come to the light of Christ and to speak of Him without fear.

What the faithful pray for

• repentance and a new beginning in Christ
• courage to tell others about Christ
• those who suffer from diseases of the eyes
• families, that they may come to faith together
• women who preach the Gospel by their lives