Invocation of Saints in every century, back to the days when the Christians wrote prayers to their martyrs over their tombs in the catacombs. As one example from a Greek Father we may quote St. Chrysostom's sermon on SS. Berenice and Prosdoce: "Not only on this their feast, but on other days too, let us cling to them, pray to them, beg them to be our patrons. For not only living, but also dead they have great favour with God, indeed even greater favour now that they are dead. For now they bear the marks (stigmata) of Christ; and by showing these marks there is nothing that they cannot obtain of the King."[1]
But the Byzantine Calendar contains some very astonishing names. It is well known that even far into the middle ages there was no regular process of canonization. Our present law, by which canonization takes place in Rome after a formal trial, was made by Urban VIII in 1634.[2] In earlier ages a sort of popular consent controlled by the bishop, who admitted the Saint's name to his local litany or martyrology, was enough. There are numberless instances of a person being honoured as a Saint in one place but not in another. It is therefore quite natural that the Byzantine Church should have her own Saints. She prayed first of all to those who belong to all Christendom, St. John the Baptist, the Apostles, St. Stephen, and so on; she also admitted to her Calendar some of the greatest Roman Saints, St. Laurence, St. Gregory the Great, St. Martin, &c., just as we pray to St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, St. John Damascene. And then she had her own local Saints. It is these who astonish us. Never did the kingdom of heaven suffer violence as at Constantinople. Almost every Emperor who did not persecute the Church (and many who did), almost every patriarch who was not a heretic (and some who were) becomes a Saint. St. Constantine (May 21st) was in his life perhaps hardly a model to be followed, but then he was baptized on his deathbed, and baptism removes all stain of sin and guilt of punishment, St. Theodosius I (January 17th) was at any rate a great
