Hello,

I have always been interested in reading the lives of the saints. Being Roman Catholic, I have mostly just read about "Catholic" saints and only from the West after the schism. I was wondering, is there some book like Butler's Lives of the Saints for Orthodox and/or Eastern Catholic saints? Or even a website that lists many of these saints with a short bio. In my readings, I'll see references to various saints I've never heard of, and I'll be interested to know more about them.

Also, I saw where the EP recently canonized some new saints. What is the process in the Orthodox Churches for canonizing a saint? Can any Patriarch do it, or just the EP?

I'll take the first part of your question. For a good website with bios of various Eastern Saints try the Prologue of Ohrid:

http://www.westsrbdio.org/prolog/prolog.htm

Any Church can declate someone a saint. There is no central institution like the Papacy which is solely responsible for canonisations. For example, when the Church of Bulgaria declared +Patriarch Eftimi a Saint, he was recognised as such by all the local Orthodox Churches...the veneration may not extend beyond Bulgaria, but S. Eftimi is a saint of the Orthodox Church. The same process applied to the Western Church as well but sometime in the Middle Ages, Rome reserved the right to be the only authority to do so. In part, this was because quite a few local venerations were springing up around Western Europe, often not for traiditional saintly reasons....for example, a case in England of a 10year old boy called William of Norwich [I think...] who was meant to have been sacrificed by the Jews in some unspeakable ritual (we all know that this was part of the horrible "Blood rumour" that was popular at the time)...

I can see the arguement for Rome - to a degree - but I wonder why Eastern Catholic Saints need to be approved by the Pope to be included in the General Catholic list of Saints...surely the relevant Episcopal Authority in the respective Church is mature enough to do so? In this, I am reminded of our perennial favourite saint here, Photius...and the view of some that he has no place in the lists of saints....


Anton

Francis, also there are several versions of the Synaxarion which give a brief life of the saints for that day throughout the year. This is used in some monasteries and parishes at the Hours.

You could also check out the OCA website at the following for daily readings about saints' lives.

http://www.oca.org/pages/orth_chri/Feasts-and-Saints/Feasts_Saints.html

Francis,

There are two books that I would recommend on Eastern saints. The first is "Golden Book of Eastern Saints" by Donald Attwater, which was first published in 1938. Since it came out in the 1930's, your best bet to find a copy is through the library of a Catholic seminary, college or university, or, if your interested in purchasing a copy, try one of the online used book websites.
Here is the list of Eastern Saints contained within the book:
St. Basil the Great
St. Gregory the Enlightener
St. Hilarion
St. Malchus
St. Pulcheria
St. Theodore the Studion
St. Athanasius the Athonite
St. John and St. Euththymios
St. Nelios the Younger
SS. Vladimir, Olga, Boris and Gleb, Antony, Theodosius
St. Sava
St. Josaphat
SS. Sharbel, Rafka al-Rayes, and Nematalla al-Hardini
Blessed Gomidas (Armenian Catholic martyr)
Blessed Gabra Michael (Ethiopian Catholic martyr)

plus:

The Venerable Mekhitar(founder of the Armenian Catholic order Mekhitarist fathers)

Matthew Gregory Nekkar (Syrian catholic martyr)

The second book, "The Saints of the East" is also by Donald Attwater, and is a 1963 revised version of the "Golden Book of Eastern Saints".

Both books I highly recommend are worth reading.

I hope this helps.

P.S. Saint Sergius of Radonezh, a post-schism Russian Orthodox saint, is listed in Butler's Lives of the Saints.

The Memorial Feast of Blessed Nicholas Charnetsky and Companions, Ukrainian Martyrs, is being observed next Sunday, June 27th. Brief biographic information is available at:

http://www.papalvisit.org.ua/eng/gcc_bio.php

also see:

http://www.papalvisit.org.ua/eng/saints.php

Oh yes, I am looking forward to celebrating their feastday this Sunday!

Slight correction:
There is one non-Ukrainian martyr among the "Companions": Blessed Leonid Feodorov, a Russian Byzantine Catholic and the first exarch of the Russian Byzantine Catholic Church.

My only disappointment from the beatification of June 27th, 2001, is that Blessed Leonid was not beatified separately from the Ukrainian martyrs as Blessed Theodore Romzha was. There was though a full-length icon of Blessed Leonid that was displayed during the Divine Liturgy of Beatification.

Below is an interesting icon of the martyrs. Does any one know where I can get a print?

[Linked Image]

Holy martyrs of Ukraine and Russia, pray for us!