That grace is a real and substantial thing given by God to His creation is verified by several important passages of Holy Scripture. First, the Acts of the Apostles relate how many miraculously healings occurred through Saint Paul, "so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them" (Acts 19:12).

Saint Dionysius the Areopagite was born of noble parents who were pagans and was reared in the most glorious city of Athens, Greece. He began the study of Greek wisdom in his childhood, and such as his success therein, that by the age of twenty-five he had surpassed all his peers in his knowledge of philosophy. Nevertheless, he then departed to the city named Heliopolis, in the land of Egypt, where learned teachers had lived since antiquity, that he might perfect his knowledge.

"But Jesus said, 'Somebody touched Me, for I perceive power going out from Me" (Luke 8:46).

As the Apostle Peter was preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ to Cornelius and the relatives and friends he had gathered together, they received the Gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:44). Even as the Apostle explained that the Logos/Word of God had become flesh to open all flesh to the life and power of God, these Gentiles seekers were filled with Divine grace through the Descent of the Holy Spirit.

Kyriakos, our holy Father, was born at Corinth in the Peloponnesus, Greece, in the year 448 A.D. during the reign of the holy Emperor Theodosius. His father, John, was a priest in Corinth. His mother's name was Evdoxia, and it was her uncle, Peter, then Bishop of Corinth, that had ordained him to the Office of Reader (Anagnostis). The blessed Kyriakos would constantly read the Holy Scripture and marveled how, from the very beginning, God, in His Divine Providence, created everything for the salvation of man, and how He glorified His Righteous ones and the Prophets of old. Indeed, he was utterly amazed, yet he had confidence in every word of the Holy Gospel.

Our Venerable Father Chariton was born in the city of Iconium in Asia Minor, where he was reared in the ways and standards of God. When he reached manhood, he became famous for his piety and achieved prominence in that city. In those days, the pagan Roman emperor Aurelian (270-276 A.D.) reigned in Rome. In the beginning, he did not persecute the Christians nor prevent them from worshiping the True God, even though he, himself, was an idolater. Later, though, incited by the demons that he worshiped, he raised a terrible persecution against the Christians by dispatching godless decrees to all the provinces, requiring the governors to coerce the Christians--by any means possible--to return to the worship of the idols. Those that refused to submit to his orders were to be tortured and suffer a painful death.