Apolytikion (Dismissal) of the feast.

In giving birth thou didst preserve thy virginity; in thy dormition thou didst not forsake the world, O Theotokos. Thou wast translated (metastasis) unto life, since thou art the Mother of Life, and by thine intercessions does thou redeem our souls from death.

We know people who can walk in the midst of noise and the crowds of Athens, who can walk through Omonoia Square (center of Athens, Greece) and the most central streets of the capital with their mind undistracted, free, surrendered to unceasing prayer. This means that the prayer has brought about in their souls the Divine attraction of Christ, the sacred magnetism of Heaven and Heavenly life.

As for the abominable pagan priests and the ineffective doctors, they clung to their disbelief. They went to the emperor and said, "We adjure you by the immortal gods, O emperor, do not let this fellow Pantaleon live another hour longer. Let him begone lest he should eradicate our religion; for the Christians will grow strong against us."

Panteleimon, the glorious Great-Martyr, flourished during the years of emperor Galerius Maximian. Panteleimon hailed from the city of Nicomedia. He was born there circa 284 A.D. He was the son of a pagan physician, named Efstorgios. His mother, named Evoulee, came from Christian lineage. As much as Efstorgios depended on the idols to affect cures, so much was Evoulee's love and eagerness heightened toward the Orthodox Faith. She brought up their child, whom they named Panteleimon (meaning "a lion in all"), not only with what was necessary for the body but more so with what was needful for the soul.

Mother Paraskeve was thirty years old when the pagan emperor of Old Rome was Antoninus Pius (138-161 A.D.). The holy nun preached to both the Greek pagans and the Jews, bringing ma to the knowledge of God. However, in one city, where she proclaimed the Gospel, certain Jews were inimical towards the Christians. When they beheld the Christian community growing, they became antagonistic and outraged at her missionary activities.

A Christian, at any rate, an Orthodox Christian, views repentance as a dynamic act of responsibility to God, but also to other people. It is not pining away in narcissistic self-reflection, even while employing self-knowledge and self-examination. Sin itself is a relational act - a break in the "I-Thou" relationship, it concerns my relationship with another person. When the Prodigal son "came to himself" in the Gospel Parable (Luke 15), he did so in relation to his father: "I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you" (V. 18).