Commemoration of the Miracle of Kollyva of Agios Theodoros of Tironos
It celebrates 43 days before Holy Easter.
Julian the transgressor, knowing that Christians are cleansed by fasting in the first week of holy Lent – that’s why we call it clean week – wanted to defile them. So he secretly ordered all the food in the market to be sprinkled with the blood of pagan sacrifices.
But with Divine energy, the martyr Theodoros appeared in the sleep of the then Archbishop of Constantinople Eudoxios and revealed the matter. He ordered that all the Christians be informed, not to buy any food from the market and to replace the food to boil wheat and eat the so-called kolyva, as they called them in Euchaita. Thus it happened and the purpose of the pagan emperor was thwarted. And on the Sabbath then, the pious people who had preserved themselves undefiled in the clean week, gave thanks to the martyr.
Since then around the middle of the 4th century, the Church commemorates this event every year to the glory of God and the honor of the martyr Saint Theodore of Tyrone.
You can read more about Saint Theodore of Tiron on February 17.