4 February 2025 (MIA)

Macedonian Orthodox Church Calendar

The Holy Apostle Timothy

One of the Seventy, he was born in Lystra of Lycaonia of a Greek father and a Jewish mother. His mother and grandmother were praised by the Apostle Paul for their sincere faith. He met the great Apostle for the first time in Lystra, and was the only witness of Paul’s healing of the man lame from birth. Later, Timothy was an almost constant travelling-companion of Paul’s, visiting Achaia, Macedonia, Italy and Spain with him. A great zealot for the Faith, a superb preacher and of a gentle spirit, Timothy contributed greatly to the spreading and establishing of the Christian faith. Paul called him his own son in the faith. After Paul’s martyrdom, Timothy had St John the Evangelist as his teacher. But when the Emperor Domitian exiled John from Ephesus to the island of Patmos, Timothy remained in Ephesus as bishop. At the time of an idolatrous feast called Katagogium, the pagans, resentful of the Christians, made a merciless, masked attack on Timothy and killed him, in about the year 93. His honored relics were later taken to Constantinople and buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles by the graves of St Luke the Evangelist and St Andrew the First-Called.

Catholic Calendar

St. John de Brito

Born on 1st March 1647 in Lisbon, Portugal in noble family. Son of the governor of Brazil. Became Jesuit at the age of 15. Against the strenuous objections of his family, he volunteered for the missions in India in 1673. There he studied the complex Indian caste system, and found that most converts belonged to the lowest caste. He realized that for Christianity to have a lasting influence in India, higher caste members must also convert. He established himself as an Indian ascetic, a Pandara Swami, lived as they lived, dressed in saffron cloak and turban, and held retreats in the wilderness in southern India where interested Indians could visit him. In time he was accepted as a Swami, his reputation grew, and he converted as many as 10,000. Among them was a prince whom he told to give up his wives. His success in converting Indians to Christianity brought the ire of the Brahmins, the highest Indian caste, and they decided to kill him. John and his catechists were imprisoned, tortured, and ordered to leave the country. When he refused, the rajah ordered John executed. Died dismembered and beheaded in 1694 in Oreiour, India.