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Today, 5 January, is the feast of ... * Telesphorus, pope and martyr (c. 136) - seventh bishop of Rome; according to the *Liber Pontificalis*, he decreed that the Mass of Christmas should be celebrated at midnight * Apollinaris, virgin (?) - Egyptian woman who dressed as a man to live a religious life in the desert; but while she was there, her sister, who had been possessed by the devil, was sent to her for a cure * Syncletica, virgin (c. 400) - a rich heiress of Alexandria, she gave away her fortune to live in an old tomb by a church; from here, she would preach to women * Simeon the Stylite (459) - after almost killing himself with his bizarre self- mortifications, he took up living on successively taller pillars for the last 37 years of his life; the final pillar was about 20 metres high, with a platform about two metres wide on top * Convoyon, abbot (868) - founder of the abbey of Saint Saviour at Redon, Brittany * Dorotheus the Younger, abbot (eleventh century) - also known as Dorotheus of Khiliokomos, from the name of the monastery he built on a mountain near Amisos following the command of a mysterious stranger * Gerlac (c. 1170) - lived as a hermit for seven years in the trunk of a tree near Valkenburg (Netherlands); monks of a nearby monastery did not like his way of life, and appealed to have Gerlac live in community; Gerlac was permitted to continue to live in solitude, but when the monks were called to him while he was dying, they refused to give him viaticum (which instead was given by a strange old man, unknown to all who were present) -- a peculiar and interesting incident ******************** George Ferzoco University of Leicester