The Church commemorates the former chief tax-collector at Jericho, Zacchaeus the Apostle, who was one of Jesus’s seventy disciples after his public repentance.
The Church also commemorates Hieromartyr Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch, Martyrs Acindinus, Antoninus, Victor, Caesar and others. We also celebrate the memory of Venerable Saints Athanasius of Meteora († 1383), and Ioasaph, as well as Venerable Theodore “Trichinas.”
St. Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch, began to follow an ascetic life from an early age and went to Mount Sinai in the early 6th century. He left the hermitages of Sinai and traveled to Antioch.
When the Bishop of Antioch, Domnos, reposed in the Lord, the clergymen and the people elected him as the new Bishop of Antioch (AD 559). Under the excuse that he allegedly squandered church property, Emperor Justin exiled him in 570 to Jerusalem, where he remained until 593. He then returned to the throne and reposed in the Lord in 599.
Saint Athanasius, the founder of the Monastery of Meteora, was born in Patras in 1305. He was born to a wealthy and prominent family. However, he lost his father at a very young age and, therefore, it was his uncle who raised him.
After the occupation of his homeland by the Turks, he went to Thessaloniki and then to Mount Athos, where he met the ascetics Gregory of Sinai the Hesychast, Isidore of Thessaloniki, and other venerable men. They initiated him into asceticism.
After visiting many places and meeting ascetics, he ended up in Stagoi, Kalambaka. He settled on a rock with two other disciples of his where he built a church. That rock was named Meteoro.
Thanks to his reputation, many ascetics met him and helped him build a monastery dedicated to the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ. There, he led a monastic life, being devoted to the Lord, and lived the rest of his life, teaching the younger brothers of the monastery. He reposed in the Lord in 1383, at the age of 78.
Source: Church of Cyprus