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Saint Mamant had as his parents Theodotus and Rufina, noble citizens of the Paphlagian city of Gangra, who were captured for confessing Christ and sent to the prison of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Theodotus died in prison, and his wife, out of grief for her husband, gave birth to a male child prematurely and died in childbirth. A certain pious citizen Amnia, with the permission of the authorities, buried the bodies of the dead, and took the child with her to raise. The boy did not speak until he was five years old, and then the first word he uttered was mamma (mamma - mother, nurse); That's why they called him Mamant. The teacher took care to teach him to read and write. After the death of his teacher, he still attended school and, as a descendant of a noble family, attracted the attention of the authorities, and also because he was a Christian and taught his peers the holy faith. Therefore, at the age of fifteen, he was taken by the ruler of Caesarea and sent to Egi to the emperor Aurelian (in 272), who, however, after interrogation, released him. Mamant retired to a deserted mountain near Caesarea, took up shepherding, and carried his cheeses to Caesarea for distribution to the poor. When the city governor found out about this, he sent soldiers to seize him, tortured him for his firmness in faith, and finally brought him out to be torn to pieces by beasts; here a certain idol priest cut open his womb and thus caused his death (in 275). Under Basil the Great, his memory was celebrated on September 1, but subsequently on September 2, perhaps on the occasion of the consecration of a church in his honor in Constantinople, under Emperor Leo the Great. Saint John the Faster, Patriarch of Constantinople John, while still in the rank of deacon of the Church of Constantinople, was so famous for his exploits that the name of the faster became his distinctive name. Elected patriarch, he wanted to flee from a high appointment, but was held back by a vision. Having ascended the throne in 585, he did not abandon his fasting life and acquired generosity towards the poor. When he died (595), Emperor Mauritius found with him only a wooden bed, a linen shirt and old clothes. Of the works remaining after him, the books on repentance and the essay on confession deserve special attention, i.e. instructions on how to confess. Celebration of the Kaluga Icon of the Virgin Mary The Kaluga Icon of the Mother of God appeared in 1748, during the reign of Empress Elisaveta Petrovna, in the village of Tinkovo, seven miles from Kaluga, in the house of boyar Khitrov. Two girls, Khitrov’s servants, went up to the attic of his house, where old things lay. One of them, Evdokia, frivolous and impudent, laughed at everyone and said a lot of obscene things; the other tried to keep her from doing this. While sorting out her things, the latter found a scroll of harsh linen and, unfolding it, saw a picturesque image of a reverent and tender face, like a nun reading her rule from a book. The girl was touched by the image and, pointing at the abbess’s face (that’s what she called the found image), she began to denounce her friend’s impudent words with great force. But Evdokia spat on the image and said: “That’s how much I fear and respect your abbess.” But at that same moment she was suddenly struck and fell unconscious: her arms and legs writhed; She fell into a state of relaxation and lost her sight and language. The frightened friend immediately informed the master about everything, and Evdokia was found barely breathing, with foam on her lips, and was immediately carried to bed, expecting her death. That night, the Mother of God appeared to Evdokia’s parents in a dream and said: “Your daughter, with her impudent act in the face depicted on the canvas, insulted not the nun, but Me, because this image, desecrated by her, is My image, through which, according to the will of My Son and God, I will intercede for your city and its inhabitants. In the morning, announce this to the priests, and having prayed with them before the desecrated icon of My, sprinkle the paralytic with the water flowing from under the church, and your daughter will be healed.” The next morning, as soon as the prayer service was performed, the sick woman was healed and since then she has corrected her life. After the miraculous signs revealed by St. icons, the boyar did not dare to keep the icon in his house, and it was transferred with due honor to the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, in Kaluga, where it remains to this day, and the exact copy of it is in Kaluga, in the cathedral. In addition to the benefits to private individuals, the residents of Kaluga owe the salvation of their city to the revealed icon. In 1771, a pestilence raged in Kaluga; Residents of the city asked Archimandrite Nikodim of the Lavrentiev Monastery to bring the miraculous icon of the Mother of God from the village of Kaluzhka and walk around the city with it in a procession of the cross. The pious desire of the citizens was fulfilled. After fasting and prayer, they raised the miraculous icon, and for three days they walked around the city, begging the Intercessor of Christians to intercede with Her Son for mercy on people who had sinned. Diligent prayer did not remain without fruit: the destructive power of the ulcer immediately weakened. In memory of this miraculous deliverance of the city from the ulcer, it was established annually on September 2 to go around the city in a procession with the miraculous Kaluga Icon of the Mother of God.