"So you are a king? Jesus answered, 'You say that I am a king...for this I was born...to bear witness to the truth... 'Pilate said, 'What is truth?'...But Jesus gave no answer" (John 18:37; 19:7).

Mary (Mariam), the Theotokos and the child of God, whose nativity the Church commemorates on September 8th, was born of her aged parents Joachim and Anna. Saint Andrew of Crete (660-740 A.D.) chants, "O Bride of the Father, immaculate Mother of the Son, and holy and resplendent temple of the Holy Spirit; O most chaste of all creation, most suitable to His ultimate purpose, on this account the universe was created, and by thy birth was the eternal will of the Creator fulfilled."

Father of Saint John the Baptist and Forerunner, he was the son of Barachias, of the Tribe of Aaron, a high priest in descent from Abia, and held the eighth degree of service in the Temple in Jerusalem. His wife Elizabeth was sister to Saint Anna, the mother of the Holy Mother of God. In the reign of King Herod, the child-slayer, Zacharias was serving one day in the Temple in Jerusalem. An Angel of God appeared to him in the altar, and Zacharias was afraid.

"Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will?

In Phrygia, not far from the city of Hieropolis, in a place called Cheretopos, there was a church named for the Archangel Michael, built over a miraculous spring.

This church was built by a certain inhabitant of the city of Laodicia in gratitude to God for healing his mute daughter. The holy Chief Commander Michael appeared to this man in a dream and revealed to him that his daughter would receive the gift of speech after drinking from the water of the spring. The girl actually did receive healing and began to speak.

Vasilissa, the Saint, lived as a Christian when Alexander was governor of Nikomedia in Bithynia of Asia Minor, at the time when there was a persecution against the Christians (303-305 A.D.). When the maiden was nine years old, approaching ten, and resplendent in the bloom of girlhood, she was arrested with other Christians and made to stand before the governor of Bithynia. When the lass was questioned concerning piety, she confessed Christ Who gave her "a mouth of wisdom" (Luke 21:15) well beyond her years.