The Lives of the Saints

[Katie]

I am interested in learning about the lives of the saints and I was wondering what are some good books to read. I know there are some books about one particular saint and some collections of the saints, but I was curious as to the best way read about their lives. Thanks!

Kd

[Fr John Wehling]

Katie,

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

There are several ways to approach this, as you mention. A good way to become familiar with many saints is to read the lives of the saints each day that are commemorated that day. This takes a few minutes each day, as the collections of their lives usually contain brief entries (not always, though). If you have the money you can buy a work such as St Nicholai of Zica's "Prologue." Or, if money is an issue, you can read the lives of the saints of the day online. A good source if your Church is on the Revised Julian (aka "New")Calendar is here (http://www.oca.org/pages/orth_chri/Feasts-and-Saints/church_year.html). Or, if you go the OCA.org homepage there is a link to the saints of the day.

(By the way, if your church is "Old" calendar you can still use the OCA site, you just have to calculate the date change in your head.)

Hope this helps,
Fr John

[Justin]

I don't know whether you have other Orthodox around you, but one nice thing is to read the short types of Lives that Fr. John mentioned. Reading a few pages a day with, for instance, your spouse can be two times as edifying as if you had read them alone. Not that there's anything wrong with reading by yourself http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gif If you're looking for lengthier stuff, there are a number of good books (on people such as Fr. Arseny, St. Nektarios, Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco, and so forth, most of which would be carried by online Orthodox book stores that you can buy from; for example, Light-N-Life (http://www.light-n-life.com).)

Or, if you wanted to read about the Lives of the Saints written by ancient Church Fathers you could try looking online, at sites such as CCEL (http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/). Blessed Jerome (http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-06/TOC.htm), Saint Athanasius (http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-04/Npnf2-04-38.htm#P3636_1501897), and the works of many other Fathers speak of the Lives of the Saints at such sites. Or, you could buy better edited versions of these documents through Orthodox book stores (or even regular book stores).

[Basil Shannon]

Katie,

I really enjoy reading The Great Lives of the Saints published by {chrysostompress.org,Chrysosotom Press}. So far they have only published the daily readings for 6 months of the year, September - February. They include enough information to be inspiring without being overwhelming. One thing I dislike is reading one paragraph summaries of saint's lives, which you sometimes see. This collection has at least a couple pages on most saints, sometimes more, along with homilies and reading for all the feast days.

[M.C. Steenberg]

I really enjoy reading The Great Lives of the Saints published by Chrysosotom Press.

Dear Basil and Katie,

You may also wish to spend some time with The Synaxarion - The Lives of the Saints of the Orthodox Church, translated from the Greek by Hieromonk Makarios of Simonas Petras on the Holy Mountain, and rendered in English by various translators in the UK. The series is published by the press of the Convent of Ormylia, a metochion of Simonas Petras, and should be readily available. The whole of the year is not yet complete; but vol. III (January and February) and vol. IV (March and April) were recently published, so the current months are available.

The volumes are quite handsome, with brown covers, beautiful print in black and red, and many icons -- both black-and-white and some plates in colour.

INXC, Matthew