Always a Spiritual Focus, First

September 6^th, 2026

Dearest Parish Families,

An Understanding Of Name-Days. As this season is one filled with the celebrations of some major Saints of our Orthodox Church (and, thus, occasions of “Name” days), and as our own parish has just celebrated August 29^th in honour of our Patron Saint John the Baptist, it would be a good time now to take a moment and reflect upon what exactly these occasions mean.

            What exactly are we celebrating when we have namedays? Perhaps surprisingly, we aren’t celebrating our nameday or the saint’s name or his birthday. What we are celebrating is his death—the day on which he died.

            In order to really understand our custom of namedays, we must first realise this point: In the Orthodox Church, much of our theology is absolutely founded upon how we perceive death, and how we respond to God’s revelation to us of death’s reality. With the occasions of namedays, we are—consciously or unconsciously—remembering the “deathday” of the saint.

            Does this sound strange to you? Yet it isn’t merely the saint’s name we are commemorating, but moreso the memory of the saint on the day of his death and union with God in Heaven. And on this occasion, we are especially reminded that this is the attitude we should all have toward death: it isn’t loss of life. It is entry into Life eternal, presenting our metanoia and life in the presence of the Lord. From this perspective, there is much we can learn about our Orthodox faith—during the course of our lives.

 What’s In A Name

            With Namedays, we must remember this: To be named after a saint is a responsibility. Every time your name is called out by someone, every time you speak your own name to anyone, you are essentially reaffirming your baptismal commitment as a Christian. Think about it. What else is it you are doing?

            You see, our whole theology of life after death—the reality of it—is tied together with our approach to our Saints and Holy Fathers. Because the Saints have united with God in their deaths, they are still alive unto Christ. This is why we still receive today so many accounts of saints miraculously appearing to people in guidance and intercession. Therefore, we may have an actual, living relationship with the particular saint we are named after.

            So, we cannot see our very names as merely a coincidence. We cannot merely name a child to honour, say, a grandparent or a family friend. But we may name that child after a saint to honour the child itself. (There are no real honours we can possibly give to a saint that God has not already bestowed upon him, better than us.) When we baptise and name a child, we enter that child into a relationship with—and a responsibility to—that saint. Upon your death, you will also be met by your patron saint who will ask you, “What did you do with my name in your life? How did you treat it? What honour or dishonour did you bring to it? How Orthodox did you keep my name?”

           How Will You Answer?

            And how will you be able to answer these questions? Because much of God’s judgement of you will depend upon your ability to respond to these points.

           Patron Saints

            When a child is named, that saint becomes the child’s patron saint. This is one of the stabilities of the Orthodox Church. This is the first link forged. And this is why we must be very careful not to fall victim to modern “fads” for names, or to saddle any child with a non-Christian, pagan or classical name.

            It is up to the child, and up to each one of us, to develop a private relationship with our own patron saint. To ask in prayer for his spiritual guidance. To intercede for us on our behalf before the merciful presence of God. It is this spiritual relationship which becomes more important to us in our lives than do that of our own physical parents and friends. For many Christians don’t celebrate their birthdays. They have no real meaning. What we do celebrate is our Christianity, symbolised in our relationship with our patron saint on the day of his death. Our nameday. We recognise and speak to that moment, that relationship. In prayer with God, our monologue becomes dialogue. In prayer with our patron saint, monologue becomes dialogue. In prayer itself, monologue becomes dialogue.

 The Twenty-First Century

            In our modern society, the custom of namedays has become trivialised to that of a social ritual. It is a sad reality. Not many people anymore really understand the depth of meaning in a nameday. For some people, it can be a temptation to become just another reason for a party. We lose the chance to let the occasion change our lives for the better. Or even to re-examine our lives in a Christian perspective.

            I have another book I wish to recommend to you: Saint Arsenios the Cappadocian. This book talks about a community’s episode with the abuse of namedays, and how the parish priest used to deal with the problem. Here is a part of what the book details:

             I heard younger Farasians saying: “Hatsefentis was a Saint. May we have his blessing . . . .But the blessed Father was also very eccentric. At baptisms, he didn’t listen to the desires of the parents or the godfather, but went ahead and baptized the child with whatever name he wanted . . . .He wouldn’t allow the godfather to name the child after a great Saint whose nameday is celebrated.

            This is true. However, many smaller truths are hidden within broader truths.

            Father himself baptized children with only the names of Saints whose namedays were not celebrated, having in mind to curtail the many parties which had proliferated from these namedays. For this reason, he preferred to give names which were not widely celebrated (such as Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Averkio, Jordan, etc.) and, in this fashion, cut off the nameday celebrations that invariably resulted in serious drunken episodes. His specific reason was because all the men carried weapons. Thus, in effect, all the Farasians were forced to each gather in his home after a Divine Liturgy, and on holidays, because they no longer had large nameday parties to carouse to.

            After resting a little, the older ones would gather at Father Arsenios’ house, next to his private chambers. Father would narrate the life of the Saint of that particular day, parables of the Gospel, or narrations from the Old Testament concerning Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, etc., which he recited like stories and, in this manner, the lessons were better imprinted on people’s minds.

            . . . .However, the most wise Father Arsenios found even this . . .responding to his therapy. Farasa had ceased nameday parties with their ensuing incidents and, slowly, peace took hold, along with love and harmony.

            Even the aggressiveness of the young he had utilised to burst out in the struggle against the Turks. The Holy Father said many times to the aggressive youngsters, “Let your aggression burst out on the Tsetes [Turkish guerrillas] so they won’t trample our village.”

            And, in fact, this happened amongst the young men.

            When the guerrillas came, my father told me, “Many aggressive young men ran to wage war and such. You would think they were going to a snowball fight, and I couldn’t hold them back.”

            Think then of what harm the Turks would do to enter Farasa and find the citizens returning drunk from parties, cut and divided between themselves by their own misunderstandings. It would be a chance to finish them and to disgrace Farasa. Because the Turks alone could never devour the Greeks if the Greeks were not themselves devouring each other already.

            Consequently, Father did well in that he baptized only those names that were not celebrated and listened not even to the godfather. Unfortunately, Father’s wisdom led others to imagine this as his eccentricity.

            Aside from the male names he gave (which had all the spiritual depth as we have seen), he did something similar with the feminine names. Among other names, he gave the names of places: Jerusalem, Gethsemane, etc. As well as Athens (not the normal name Athena). Father did this also with the purpose that the Greeks who lived in the depths of Cappadocia would not forget the capital of their mother Greece.

 from the book, Saint Arsenios of Cappadocia.

An account of a Greek Orthodox Community living in Farasa, Asia Minor [Turkey] in the 1920’s, before the national expulsion.

Open Eyes and Minds

            With this subject now brought to your full awareness, spend some time thinking seriously about your own name, your own patron saint, and your own relationship with him or her and God. Keep the Saint’s questions (as described previously) in your mind. Ask them of yourself. Think of how you are able to answer them. And remember that, if you don’t have a prayerful relationship with your namesake, you should ask yourself why. If you ever feel your prayers to God don’t get answered, perhaps it is because you don’t live a life that allows God’s spirituality to reach you.

            These are things you need to ask. Not only for yourselves, but for your children (if you have them) and for your friends. The custom of namedays touches upon many, important aspects of our Christian faith. Not just on how we attend Church and look at the icons, but on how we live our lives in Christian practice. So, in this season of the Church and in this new beginning of a new year, celebrate your nameday with this new understanding of Namedays. Give silent prayer of thankfulness for your life. Converse with yourself, your soul, your saint, your priest, and your Church. Answer the questions and work to improve and live the answers.

            Happy Nameday.

Faithfully, Father Samaras

3^rd Morning Gospel Lesson

On September 6, we remember the extraordinary miracle of Archangel Michael in Colossae, Phrygia; the contest of the holy martyrs Evdoxios, Zeno, Romulos and Makarios; 1,104 soldiers along with Saint Calodota died by the sword; Saints Faustos the presbyter, Makarios, Andrew and the monks Bibos, Kyriakos, Dionysios, Andronicos, and the holy women Andropelagia and Thecla; and also Theoctistos a skipper, and another Kyriakos a plebian, died by the sword. This day coincided with the consecration of the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos at Deuteros in the Church of the Holy Peace.