"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.

The Holy Church of God celebrates on September 1st the Indiction. The Hebrews of old observed March as the beginning of the year, but for the Romans the beginning of the year was September, even though they previously observed the 1st of January. According to Archbishop Gregory of Taormina, when Julius Caesar defeated Anthony it was in the month of September. Being made exceedingly proud by this triumph he transferred the Roman custom of celebrating in January to September. "Indiction" is a Latin word meaning "to proclaim," which in The Great Synaxaristes is given the signification of orismos, that is, a decree or edict, which more specifically was a tax imposed by the emperor in order to meet the needs of the empire.

Saint John the Great Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord, was the son of the High Priest Zachariah and Elizabeth. On August 29th we remember the severing of his precious head, for which reason we keep this day as a strict fast day. Saint John Chrysostom urges us to give heed carefully: "Let us hearken therefore, as many as suffer ill, living in virtue, at the hands of wicked men. For then too God induced that even he in the wilderness, he in the leather girdle, in the garment of hair, the Prophet, the man greater than all the Prophets, who had no superior among those born of women, should actually be murdered, and that by an immodest damsel, and a corrupt harlot, and all in vindicating the laws of God. These things then let us consider, and bear all nobly, whatever we may suffer."