In the first ages, during the night before every feast, a vigil was kept. In the evening the faithful assembled in the place or church where the feast was to be celebrated and prepared themselves by prayers, readings from Holy Writ (now the Offices of Vespers and Matins), and sometimes also by hearing a sermon.

First woman; wife of Adam.

Sometimes called Aristus. Martyr, died about 107.

In the New Testament this word, in its substantive form, occurs only three times: Acts, xxi, 8; Eph., iv, 11; II Tim., iv, 5. It seems to indicate not so much an order in the early ecclesiastical hierarchy as a function.

Almost from the beginning the new Evangelical Church was split, first into two communions, the Lutheran and the Reformed, then into a multitude of sects.

An association of Protestants belonging to various denominations founded in 1846.

Liturgical books containing those portions of the Gospels which are read during Mass or in the public offices of the Church.

Short article on this important fourth-century author of ascetical writings.

Church historian. (536-594)

Patriarch of Constantinople, b. about 512, in Phrygia; d. Easter Day, 5 April, 582.

Melchite Patriarch of Alexandria, author of a history of the world, b. 876, at Fustat (Cairo); d. 11 May, 940.

The successor of Pope Felix I. Eutychianus died in 283.

Eutychianism and Monophysitism are usually identified as a single heresy. But as some Monophysites condemned Eutyches, the name Eutychians is given by some writers only to those in Armenia.

An heresiarch of the fifth century.

Spanish bishop; d. about 610.

Called "the Great," abbot in Palestine, d. 473.

From Greek eu, well, and thanatos, death, easy, painless death.

A deacon of Alexandria and later Bishop of Sulca.

Daughter of St. Paula. Monastic, spoke Latin and Greek, read Hebrew, the recipient of a famous letter from St. Jerome. She died in 419 or 420.

Anti-Arian bishop of Antioch, died in exile, probably in 360.

Born about 300; died about 377. He was one of the chief founders of monasticism in Asia Minor, and for a long time was an intimate friend of St. Basil.

A distinguished anatomist of the Renaissance period.

Second-century Roman martyrs.