Similarly corresponding to feasts of the second class in the West is a group which is divided into greater and lesser. The greater feasts of this group are marked liturgically by the singing of a canon of the Virgin in addition to the canon proper to the feast. The lesser are marked by the singing in the service of what is known as Polyeleos, a name given to Psalms cxxxiv, cxxxv (Pss. cxxxv, cxxxvi in the enumeration of the English Prayer Book).
The greater feasts of the middle class are: (1) the common festival of the three Doctors of the Church [Chrysostom, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen], Jan. 30; (2) St George, martyr, April 23; (3) St John the Evangelist, May 8; (4) the Translation of the image of Christ, made without hands, from Edessa, Aug. 16; (5) the Migration of St John the Evangelist, Sept. 26. This festival is based on the ancient legend that St John did not die, but was translated; (6) St Sabbas, the Sanctified [Abbot of Palestine, who died A.D. 531], Dec. 5; (7) St Nicholas of Myra, the wonder-worker, Dec. 6.
The lesser feasts of the middle class include: (1) St Anthony, hermit, Jan. 17; (2) the forty Martyrs [of Sebaste, under Licinius], March 9; (3) St Constantine and St Helena, May 21; (4) St Cosmas and St Damian, the unmercenary physicians, July 1; (5) St Elias, the prophet, July 20; (6) St Demetrius, Great Martyr [of Thessalonica, under Diocletian], Oct. 26; (7) Synaxis of the Archangel, St Michael, Nov. 8; (8) St Andrew the Apostle, Nov. 30.
There is a third class subdivided into (a) festivals with the great doxology, and (b) festivals without the great doxology[170]. Festivals of the third class are very numerous, but they are festivals rather of the service-books than of actual life, upon which they leave little or no impression. The number of festivals kept by the Greeks and observed either by a complete or a partial cessation from trade and servile labour far surpasses the festivals so observed in any of the countries of Western Christendom.
The Russian Kalendar corresponds largely to the Byzantine; but there are, as might be expected, not a few commemorations of persons, events, and of miraculous icons, peculiar to Russia.
A few explanatory observations may here be added: (1) The Eastern Kalendars contrast in a striking way with the Western in the prominence given to commemorations of the saints and heroes of the Old Testament. All the prophets and many of the righteous men of Hebrew history have their days. And the service-books contain a common of Prophets as well as a common of Apostles, etc.
(2) Honorary epithets are freely bestowed upon the various saints without any very precise significance. Thus ‘God-bearing’ (theophorus), which is a natural epithet in the case of Ignatius, as being used of himself in his writings, is bestowed on various distinguished ascetics, as Anthony, Euthymius, Sabbas, Onuphrius.
(3) The ground for the distinction between ‘Martyrs’ and ‘Great Martyrs’ is not apparent. ‘Hieromartyrs’ are martyrs who were bishops or priests; ‘Hosiomartyrs’ are martyrs who were living as religious. Thekla, as well as Stephen, is ‘Protomartyr.’
(4) The word ‘Apostle’ is not confined to the twelve. The seventy disciples whom the Lord sent forth are the ‘Seventy Apostles,’ among whom were reckoned many of the persons named in the salutations of St Paul’s Epistles. And the word is also applied to certain companions or acquaintances of St Paul, as e.g. Ananias of Damascus, Agabus, Titus, etc. ‘Equal to the Apostles’ (Isapostolos) is applied (a) to very early saints, e.g. Abercius of Hierapolis, Mary Magdalene, Junia, Thekla, etc.; and (b) to great princes who were distinguished for their services to the Church, as Constantine and Helena.
‘Wonder-worker’ (thaumaturgos) is used of various saints famous for their miracles, as e.g. Charilampes (Feb. 10), Spiridion (Dec. 12), Gregory, bishop of Neocaesarea in Pontus (Nov. 17), the Saint Elizabeth (April 24), of uncertain date, who never washed her body with water, and others.