†) Confessor Saint Sofian of St Anthimos Monastery; Greatmartyr Euphemia the All-praised; Martyrs Melitina and Ludmilla

Orthodox Calendar, September 16 Confessor Saint Sofian of St Anthimos Monastery “Bucharest’s Spiritual Guide” was born in Bessarabia and was a first-grade student during primary and secondary schhol. He took the monastic vows at Dobrușa Monastery near the city of Soroca, when he was only 14 years old.

He crossed the Prut River to Romania after the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and later became abbot of Antim Monastery in Bucharest, the capital city of Romania.

After the Soviets brought the Communist regime to Romania, he was sentenced to hard labor along with the intellectuals and clerics of the Burning Bush cultural and spiritual group.

Two great gifts were evident: he painted churches and guided souls from the confessional chair. “All the admiration I had for the man. He didn’t really talk, he lived,” said another Romanian confessor, Fr. Arsenie Papacioc. “I place him in the elite of the elders of our age, now in heaven.”

The Holy Great Martyr Euphemia the All-Praised She was the daughter of Christians, the senator Philophronos and Theodosia. She suffered for Christ in the year 304 in the city of Chalcedon, on the banks of the Bosphorus opposite Constantinople.…