Feast and Relics of St. Tryphon the Great Martyr and Holy Unmercenary Healer

As I mentioned before, our main church of the Holy Unmercenary Healers has a side chapel dedicated to St. Tryphon and St. Athanasius the Athonite, which we have been working to renovate. To celebrate St. Tryphon, therefore, on Feb. 1, I arranged to borrow some relics of the saint from the Holy Monastery of St. Dionysius of Olympus, which has a large collection of holy relics.

It is fitting that our parish's founders selected St. Tryphon for a side chapel, since he is numbered among the Church's 20 Unmercenary Healers.

Three dedicated women from the village prepared flower decorations to adorn the relics and the saints' icons (see above).

On Friday night, Jan. 31, we celebrated festal vespers for the saint. The side chapel, of course, is quite small, and since it was cold, we actually celebrated Vespers and Liturgy in our main church, but we left the side chapel open for the faithful to venerate. My hope is to liturgize in that chapel for the feast of St. Athanasius the Athonite on July 5.

I was joined for the celebration by my friends Fr. Stavros and Fr. George.

The relics were placed on a decorated table in the middle of the church.

A photo of the relics from the balcony in the back of the church.

With Fr. George and Fr. Stavros.

Fr. Stavros read a homily at Vespers about the life and miracles of St. Tryphon.

A faithful family with several family members named Tryphon offered the artoklasia.

Here we are processing with an icon of the saint.

Blessing the bread, wine, and oil at the artoklasia.

On Saturday morning, we celebrated Orthros, Liturgy, and the Blessing of the Waters for the first of the month. Then on Saturday evening we prayed the paraklisis to St. Tryphon along with Vespers.

On Sunday, the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord and Savior at the Temple, we brought the relics to our chapel of the Dormition, where we celebrate all the feasts of the Panagia.

Finally, after Liturgy on Sunday, a parishioner and friend of mine drove me and the relics back to the monastery. May we have the prayers of St. Tryphon, St. Paraskevi, St. Haralambos, and St. Kosmas!