2 February 2025 (MIA)

Macedonian Orthodox Church Calendar

Venerable Euthymius the Great

Born in the Armenian town of Melitene near the River Euphrates in 377, of noble and eminent parents, he was their only son. His mother Dionysia had prayed for a child, and had a heavenly vision concerning his birth. He lived in asceticism from his youth, at first in the vicinity of his town, but then, after a visit to Jerusalem at the age of 29, in the Wilderness of Pharan, between Jerusalem and Jericho. He filled his days and nights with prayer and meditation, contemplation and physical toil. On love, he said: “As salt is to bread, so is love to the other virtues.” He entered into rest in the year 473.

Catholic Calendar

The Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple

In everyday modern life we are hardly aware that on February 2nd we celebrate an ancient feast, common to the Church of both East and West. Its immediate reference is to the event when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem forty days after his birth to perform the prescribed sacrifice of purification. Forty days after Christ was born he was presented to God in the Jerusalem Temple according to the Mosaic Law. At this time as well his mother Mary underwent the ritual purification and offered the sacrifices as prescribed in the Law. A reading from the book of the prophet Malachi regarding this book says: “Thus says the Lord God – See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.”