27 December
AT Ephesus, the birthday of St. John, apostle and evangelist, who, after writing his gospel, and after enduring exile and writing the divine Apocalypse, lived till the time of the emperor Trajan, and founded and governed the churches of all Asia. Worn out with age, he died in the sixty-eighth year after the passion of our Lord, and was buried near Ephesus.—At Alexandria, St. Maximus, bishop, who became a renowned and distinguished confessor of the faith.—At Constantinople, the holy confessors Theodore and Theophanes, brothers, who were brought up from their childhood in the monastery of St. Sabbas. Afterwards, combating bravely for the worship of holy images against Leo the Armenian, they were scourged by his command and banished. After his death, they again firmly opposed the emperor Theophilus, who was imbued with the same impiety, and were scourged a second time and driven into exile, where Theodore expired in prison. Theophanes, after peace had at length been restored to the Church, was made bishop of Nicea and rested in the Lord.—In the same city, St. Niceras, virgin, who was renowned for sanctity, in the time of the emperor Arcadius.
And elsewhere many other holy martyrs, confessors and holy virgins.
Thanks be to God.