Holy Confessor Priest Dumitru Stăniloae; Hieromartyr Hierotheus, bishop of Athens; 19th Sunday after Pentecost

Orthodox Calendar October 4 Holy Confessor Priest Dumitru Stăniloae Saint Dumitru Stăniloae was born on November 16, 1903, in the village of Vlădeni, Brașov County, as the youngest son of the devout Christians Ieremia and Reveca. His mother, a priest’s niece, had a deep desire for her youngest son to become a servant of God, particularly after she had a dream in which she was sewing a set of priestly vestments.

Dumitru loved church services and reading the Holy Scriptures from a young age. He attended the village primary school and, with great effort, later studied at the Andrei Șaguna High School in Brașov. He then studied at the Faculty of Theology in Cernăuți with the support of Metropolitan Nicolae Bălan of Transylvania, who subsequently sent him to Athens to learn Greek and complete his theological training.

In 1929, he became a lecturer at the Andreian Theological Academy in Sibiu, teaching many students. A year later, Dumitru married Maria Mihu, with whom he founded a beautiful Christian family and had three children. Their first two children died at a young age, causing the parents great sorrow. The young theologian was ordained a deacon in 1931 and, a year…