Consultative Meeting with the Metropolitans of the Lebanese Archdiocese

Read the full article here

Swedish Ambassador to Lebanon and Syria Received at the Patriarchate.

Read the full article here

Patriarch John X Meets Patriarch Bechara Al-Rahi

Read the full article here

Divine Liturgy at the Patriarchal Monastery Our Lady of Balamand

Read the full article here

لقاء مع مبعوث جامعة الدول العربيّة حسام زكي.

Read the full article here

Patriarch's Homilies

Homily of Patriarch JOHN X New Year’s 2025

In Your name, Jesus, we begin the New Year. Witnessing Your love and drawing strength from Your stillness, we gaze upon the world from this land where we are rooted, just as Your cross was firmly planted on Calvary. We have shared the story of our love for You, O Dayspring from the East, from our land—the land of light rising from the East. We have told this story, and we will continue to tell it to our children and to the world. We have shared it from beneath this Cross and the apse of this holy Church, and in our hearts, the fragrance of this saying spreads: “God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved.” He is blessed forever.

The Antioch Patriarchate Index 2025

Weekly Feasts & Saints

Archdioceses

01-24Martyr Xenia of Rome

fifth century

> Press here

01-25St Gregory the Theologian the Archbishop of Constantinople

(329/390)

01-26

01-27

01-28Saint Ephraim the Syrian

01-29

01-29Removal of the Relics of Ignatius the God-bearer

01-30Synaxis of the Ecumenical Teachers and Hierarchs: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom & their Mothers

01-31Cyrus & John the Unmercenaries

Fourth Century

These Saints lived during the years of Diocletian. Saint Cyrus was from Alexandria, and Saint John was from Edessa of Mesopotamia. Because of the persecution of that time, Cyrus fled to the Gulf of Arabia, where there was a small community of monks. John, who was a soldier, heard of Cyrus' fame and came to join him. Henceforth, they passed their life working every virtue, and healing every illness and disease freely by the grace of Christ; hence their title of "Unmercenaries."

They heard that a certain woman, named Athanasia, had been apprehended together with her three daughters, Theodora, Theoctiste, and Eudoxia, and taken to the tribunal for their confession of the Faith. Fearing lest the tender young maidens be terrified by the torments and renounce Christ, they went to strengthen them in their contest in martyrdom; therefore they too were seized.

After Cyrus and John and those sacred women had been greatly tormented, all were beheaded in the year 292. Their tomb became a renowned shrine in Egypt, and a place of universal pilgrimage.

It was found in the area of the modern day resort near Alexandria named Abu Kyr.