On April 3rd (March 21st by the old calendar) the Church commemorates the holy martyr Saint James the Confessor.

From an early age St. James the Confessor aspired to a life of ascetic labor and thus became a monastic. Subsequently he even attained the rank of bishop. During the reign of the iconoclast Emperor Constantine Copronimus (741-775 A.D.), St. James was pressure to renounce the worship of icons. But he did not submit to this pressure and was consequently subjected to persecution, banishment and numerous tortures invented for him by his persecutors. Amid such suffering he gave up his holy soul to God.