Our Holy Father Antony the Roman.

Commemorated August 3 in the Orthodox Christian Menaion

From the Prologue

He was born in Rome in 1086 of devout and affluent parents. At that time, the Roman Church broke away from the Eastern Church, and all who remained faithful to the Eastern Church were persecuted by the Roman clergy. Antony was among those persecuted. He gave away all his goods and became a monk. Standing on a rock in the sea, he lived in asceticism for fourteen months. The rock meanwhile parted from its base and, by a strange providence, floated through the water to Novgorod. In Novgorod, Archbishop Nikita received him with kindness and helped him to build a church to the holy Mother of God, later to become a monastery. Antony lived long as abbot of this monastery and, revealing great power by the grace of God through many miracles, died peacefully in 1148 and went to the courts of the Lord.

From The Prologue From Ochrid by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich
©1985 Lazarica Press, Birmingham UK