Three Holy Hierarchs

Description

Every year, on January 30, the Christian Church jointly honors the three Great Fathers and Ecumenical Teachers, Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom. In Greece they are honored as patrons of education and letters.The feast of the Three Hierarchs was introduced to the church in the middle of the 11th century by the scholar and metropolitan of Euchaito John Mavropodas (1000-1070), during the reign of Emperor Constantine IX of Monomachus (1000-1055).The purpose of the Blackfoot was to present these three prominent figures of Christianity as the ultimate champions of the trinitarian doctrine and to put an end to the factionalism that plagued the body of the church as to which of the three hierarchs is the greatest.It is characteristic that at that time a large number of priests and believers were divided into three groups: the Johnites, the Gregorites and the Royalists.The feast of the Three Hierarchs, apart from its ecclesiastical character, also has an educational aspect for us.It is considered as the feast of Greek letters, since the Three Hierarchs contributed to the development of Christian teaching, in conjunction with the development of ancient Greek letters.The educational character of the feast of the Three Hierarchs was established on August 9, 1841 by the academic council of the Othoneian University (now the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) and was first celebrated on January 30, 1842. In the following years, the celebration was extended to all levels of education.