The Feast of the Three Holy Fathers, Great Hierarchs and Ecumenical Teachers Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom is an annual commemoration of Our Holy Orthodox Church on which we honor the unwavering faith and spiritual brilliance of three Saints who offered the entirety of their lives and abilities in the service of God and mankind. As selfless Archbishops and pastors they led the faithful in worship and ministry. As loving teachers they offered guidance in the path to holiness. As divinely-inspired theologians they used their intellectual skills to confront error and defend the Truth. As holy men they lived in a manner that showed to all the grace and blessings of communion with God.

Before the festival of Pascha (Easter), there has developed a long preparatory season of repentance and fasting, extending in present Orthodox usage over ten weeks. First, come twenty-two days (four successive Sundays) or preliminary observance; then six weeks or forty (40) days of the Holy and Great Lent; and finally Holy and Great Week. Balancing the seven weeks of Lent and Holy and Great Week, there follows after Pascha a corresponding season of fifty (50) days of Thanksgiving, concluding with Pentecost.

Over 400 hymns composed by Saint Ephraim still exist. Granted that some have been lost, Saint Ephraim's productivity is not in doubt. The Church historian Sozomen credits Saint Ephraim with having written over 3,000,000 (three million) lines. Saint Ephraim combines in his writing a threefold heritage: he draws on the models and methods of early Rabbinic Judaism, he engages skillfully with Greek science and philosophy, and he delights in the Mesopotamian/Persian tradition of mystery symbolism.

Saint Ephraim the Syrian was a Syrian deacon and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century. He is venerated by Christians throughout the world, and especially laity among Orthodox Christians, as a Saint.

Saint Gregory the Theologian was born in November of a Greek father (who later became a Christian and a bishop) and a Christian mother, he studied in Athens before his baptism with Saint Basil the Great and Julian the Apostate. He often foretold to Julian that he would be an apostate and persecutor of the Church, and so it came to pass. Saint Gregory was especially influenced by his mother, Nonna. He was baptized when he had completed his studies. Saint Basil consecrated him bishop of Sasima, and the Emperor Theodosius quickly called him to the vacant Archiepiscopal throne of Constantinople

The fear of God, sustained by the consciousness of a sinful life, leads both to repentance for past sins, and to the avoidance, by self-control, of future ones. "Repentance is a second grace" [after Baptism], says Saint Isaac the Syrian, "and is born in the heart from faith and fear." "Repentance is the renewal of Baptism," writes Saint John Climacus, "...the cleansing of the conscience."