St. John Damascene was the great defender of the veneration of images against the iconoclasts, the destroyers of statues and pictures of the saints. He was a learned theologian and carefully gathered together and transmitted to us the teaching of the Greek Fathers and is thus one of the most trustworthy witnesses to oriental tradition.…

A native of Capistrano, St. John became a Franciscan and was one of the great organizers of the struggle against the Mohammedans in the 15th century, when they threatened to overrun the whole of Europe. Mohammed II had taken Constantinople and was already marching against Belgrade, when Pope Callixtus III called St. John Capistran to…

St. Gundleus was the eldest son to the king of the Dimetians in South-Wales. After the death of his father, though the eldest son, he divided the kingdom with his six brothers who nevertheless respected and obeyed him as if he had been their sovereign. He married Gladusa and was father of St. Canoc and…

Born in 525 in Palestine, St. John obtained at a very young age the surname Scholastic. At age sixteen he renounced all the advantages which the world promised him to dedicate himself to God in a religious state. He retired to Mount Sinai which from the time of the disciples of St. Antony and St.…

In a long Christian persecution, King Varanes caused St. Benjamin to be beaten and imprisoned. He had lain a year in the dungeon when an ambassador from the emperor obtained his enlargement on condition he should never speak to any of the courtiers about religion. Benjamin declared that he could not detain the truth in…