His Grace Timotei of Prahova, Assistant Bishop to the Archdiocese of Bucharest, celebrated the Divine Liturgy at Radu Vodă Monastery in Bucharest, as informs Deacon Alexandru Vlad-Mîndru, servant at St. Pious Daniel the Hermit Parish in Bucharest.
In the homily delivred His Grace showed the history and the meaning of the feast, also called Saint Theodore Saturday.
“This Saturday, the first Saturday of Great Lent, was established in the 4th century when Eudoxius was Archbishop of Constantinople and Julian the Apostate reigned over the Roman Empire. This emperor tried to restore paganism by bringing back the worship of idols within the Empire. He wasn’t successful because Emperor Constantine issued the Milan decree in 313, which granted full religious freedom to the Church. Thus, during short reign, 361 – 363, Emperor Julian the Apostate ordered that every product in the Imperial market place of Constantinople, to be sprinkled with the blood of the animals offered to the idols. In this way, the emperor wanted to make Christians who fasted the first days of Lent unclean. Saint Theodore, celebrated this day in Orthodox calendar, showed himself in Eudoxius’ dream ordered him to offer only cooked wheat (with honey) to those who had not bowed before the idols and still remained faithful to The True God, so that they should not buy anything at the Imperial market places. In memory of this occurrence of the appearance of St. Theodore the Recruite in the dream of the Archbishop of Constantinople and his command, it was established that on the first Saturday of Great Lent to eat kolyva”.
