Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash

                In the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition, there is a special service to celebrate three different Hierarchs on one day.  Each of the three are celebrated on their own separate day and they also are celebrated together on one day.  How did this happen?

Disputes and dissension erupted because people were arguing about which of the three men were the greatest.   The three men appeared together in a dream to a Bishop showing him that they three are equal.  They instructed the Bishop to write a service that would honor all three so as to quench the quarreling.  On January 30^th, each year this service continues to be celebrated as it has since around 1100 A.D.

                Could it be that because God knew the Christian church would divide and split against His will for us that this feast of “The Three Hierarchs” as it has become known is also meant to guide our three major Christian experiences: Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant to be honored as three separate individual groups; that we see ourselves as equal with the other two and that we three are to be celebrated as one?