Orthodox saints and name days on April 19

Name days on April 19

Ioannis, Giannis, Yiannis, John

Saints and feasts of April 19

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  John of the Ladder

  Venerable, Ιωάννης της Κλίμακος

  St. John of the Ladder gave his whole life to Mount Sinai, entering the monastery there in his youth, living long years as a hermit in the desert nearby, and at last serving as abbot of the holy mountain of Moses. From the depths of his experience he wrote The Ladder of Divine Ascent, a guide of thirty steps by which the soul climbs from renunciation of the world to the summit of faith, hope, and love.

  Name days: Ioannis, Giannis, Yiannis, John

• Paphnutius of Jerusalem

  Hierarch, Παφνούτιος ο Ιεροσολυμίτης

  Paphnutius is commemorated in the synaxaria as a hieromartyr of Jerusalem who suffered many torments and was put to death for Christ. The details of his life have not been preserved.

• Theodore of Perge and those with him

  Saint, Θεόδωρος ο εν Πέργη

  Theodore was a young soldier of Perge in Pamphylia who refused to sacrifice to the idols and was cruelly tortured in the second century. The pagan priest Dioscorus, seeing his endurance, believed in Christ and was burned; the soldiers Socrates and Dionysius who guarded him likewise confessed and were speared.

• Agathangelos of Esphigmenou

  Martyr, Αγαθάγγελος ο Εσφιγμενίτης

  Agathangelos was born Athanasios in Thrace and, working as a sailor, was pressed into accepting Islam by the Turks. Repenting, he fled to Mount Athos and became a monk at Esphigmenou, where he prepared himself to confess the faith he had denied.

• George of Pisidia

  Hierarch, Γεώργιος Επίσκοπος Πισιδίας

  George was a monk who became Bishop of Antioch in Pisidia in the ninth century. When the emperor Leo the Armenian renewed the iconoclast persecution, George refused to reject the holy icons.

• Tryphon of Constantinople

  Hierarch, Τρύφων Πατριάρχης Κωνσταντινουπόλεως

  Tryphon was a monk chosen Patriarch of Constantinople in the tenth century, to hold the throne until the emperor's young son Theophylact came of age. He governed the Church with piety and simplicity.

• Symeon of Philotheou

  Venerable, Συμεών ο Μονοχίτων

  Symeon was abbot of the Philotheou Monastery on Mount Athos in the sixteenth century. Leaving the Holy Mountain, he travelled barefoot and in a single tunic through Thessaly, Euboea and the mainland preaching repentance, and founded the Monastery of Flamouri on Mount Pelion.