Saint John the Baptist, known in the Orthodoxy as The Forerunner of Christ, was a Jewish itinerant preacher in the early first century AD who is revered as a significant religious figure in Christianity, Islam, and other faiths. He is called a prophet by all of these traditions and is honored as a saint in many Christian traditions. The Orthodox faithful believe that John was the last of the Old Testament prophets, thus serving as a bridge between that period of revelation and the New Covenant. They also teach that, following his death, John descended into Hades and there once more preached that Jesus the Messiah was coming, so he was the Forerunner of Christ in death as he had been in life. Eastern Orthodox churches will often have an icon of St. John the Baptist in a place of honor on the iconostasis, frequently mentioned during the Divine Services. Every Tuesday throughout the year is dedicated to his memory.
Saint Paul the Confessor (†c. 350), was the sixth bishop of Constantinople, elected first in 337 AD. Paul became involved in the Arian controversy which drew in the Emperor of the West, Constans, and his counterpart in the East, his brother Constantius II. Paul was installed and deposed three times from the See of Constantinople between 337 and 351. He was murdered by strangulation during his third and final exile in Cappadocia. His feast day is on November 6.
Saint Boniface of Tarsus was a Christian martyr who was executed in the year 307 at Tarsus, where he had gone from Rome in order to bring back holy relics of the martyrs requested by his mistress Aglaida. Finding upon arrival at Tarsus that the authorities were torturing Christians, he openly declared himself to be a Christian. His own body constituted the relics that were brought back to Aglaida, who in turn also became a Christian. The Orthodox Church celebrates both of them on 19 December as the "Martyr Boniface at Tarsus in Cilicia and Righteous Aglaida of Rome".
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