St. Juliana of Lazarevo
Juliana (Ulyana) Osorina (c. 1540-1604) was orphaned at six and raised first by her grandmother near Murom and then by an aunt.
With no church nearby, she fasted and prayed at home and sewed clothes for widows, orphans and the sick. At sixteen she married George Osorin and went to live in his village of Lazarevo, where she bore thirteen children, prayed through the nights, gave alms in secret, and in time of plague washed the sick with her own hands. When her husband would not let her enter a monastery, they lived as brother and sister.
In the great famine of 1601 she sold her livestock, clothes and dishes to feed the hungry, freed her servants so that they would not starve, and baked bread from orach and bark that the poor said was sweeter than any other. She reposed on January 2, 1604, and in 1614 her coffin was found full of fragrant myrrh. Her son Kallistrat (Druzhina) Osorin wrote her Life.
I myself sin before God all the time, and God bears with me. Why should I call them to account? They are people just as I am. Though God has given them into our service, their souls flourish more than ours.
Do not grieve too much, my children. Your father's death is a lesson and a warning to us sinners, that each of us, seeing it, may expect the same. Repent often, acquire every virtue, above all give alms as much as you are able, and keep a love without pretense among yourselves.
God requires spiritual prayer even from the sick.
I longed with all my heart for the angelic monastic habit, but I was not counted worthy of it because of my sins and my poverty, for I am an unworthy and wretched sinner. God has willed it so: glory to His righteous judgment.
Glory to God for all things! Into Your hands, O Lord, I commit my spirit. Amen.
Troparion · Tone 4
Illumined by divine grace, you have shown forth the radiance of your life even after death, pouring forth fragrant myrrh for the healing of all the sick who come with faith to your relics. O righteous mother Juliana, entreat Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Kontakion · Tone 8
Let all who are in troubles and sickness praise holy Juliana, our helper quick to hear, for she lived in the world in a way pleasing to God and showed boundless mercy to the poor; therefore, by God's providence, she received the grace of miracles.
Saints around January 2
Get the full library
130+ saints, in your pocket
Their Lives, sayings and prayers, A to Z and by feast, with search. The Church calendar, the holy icons, and the saying of the day on your Home Screen. All in Axios! for iPhone, iPad and Android.