The Feast of Saint Sophia and her daughters, Faith, Hope, and Love will be celebrated by the Church of St. Sophia, which is located on the street Ivan Franka, 121, A; the Church of the Martyrs of Faith, Hope, Love and their mother Sophia of the UGCC, located on the street Vira Nadiya Lyubovi Street, 10 (Faith, Hope, and Love Street, 10) and the Church of St. Sophia – the Wisdom of God, which is located at vul. Kozelnytska, 4.
Read also: Newly built church of Faith, Hope, Love and their mother Sophia was consecrated in Lviv (Ukrainian)
Sophia and her daughters, Faith, Hope and Love, were early Christian martyrs who lived in Rome in the second century AD.
Sophia was a devout Christian, she named her daughters after the main Christian virtues: Faith, Hope, and Love, and raised them by instilling faith. Sophia is Greek for «wisdom.»
Emperor Hadrian wanted Sophia and her children to renounce Christianity and offer sacrifices to pagan gods. However, they remained steadfast. The eldest, Vira (Faith), was 12 at the time, Nadezhda (Hope) was 10, and Lyubov (Love) was only 9.
The enraged emperor ordered the children to be tortured, and forced their mother Sophia to watch her daughters suffer. Sophia buried them, and she spent three days praying at the grave. On the third day she died there.
In the world of western Christianity, this feast is celebrated on 17 September, while eastern Christians mark it on 30 September. Greek Catholicism, although Orthodox, or Byzantine, in style, ritual, and calendar, has been in union with the Roman Catholic Church since 1596. While eastern Orthodoxy is the majority religion of Ukraine, Greek Catholicism predominates in Lviv and the surrounding region of Ukrainian Galicia.
Its holidays are on the Julian calendar--created by Julius Caesar, which means that its holidays are generally thirteen days after those in the West. Ukraine, whether Orthodox or Greek Catholic, celebrates Christmas on January 7, which creates a time-traveling effect. Because Easter is determined in the East and West by a complex lunisolar calendar, it can occur up to a month apart between East and West.
Saint Sophia Cathedral, Kyiv: By Rbrechko – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0
The spiritual heart of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, is the 11th-century cathedral named for St Sophia. Because of disputing claims to the monument, among various Orthodox branches and Greek Catholics, the church is today a secular museum, with occasional religious events--much like the much older Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, used to be until Turkish President Erdogan decreed it shall only be a mosque.
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