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This is a great post, and a great icon! I read the life of St. Agatha from the Synaxarion this morning. What an incredible martyr... The daily reading of the lives of the saints is one of the most important things we can do for our spiritual life, and we now have so many available to us in English. The Prologue of Ochrid is our long-standing family standard. We now have more erratic schedules, preventing regular family reading, but through the years, the Prologue was daily reading with the children. It was recently republished in two volumes (Jan - June, July - Dec).

The publication of St. Dmitri of Rostov's Great Lives of Saints -- all 12 volumes, has progressed from September through February.

But perhaps the most marvelous development has been the publication of the Greek Great Synaxarion. Four volumes (Sept/Oct, Nov/Dec, Jan/Feb, Mar/Apr) have been published, but unfortunately the translator has passed away -- we can only hope that the translators who finished the last volume for him will continue the work.

It is, interestingly, being translated not from the Greek, but from a French translation, but it doesn't seem to have hurt the quality of the work at all: it resonates deeply.

The Prologue is accessible because its lives are relatively short, and is restricted to 3 saints a day, give or take a little. St. Dimitri of Rostov is a huge 12 volume work, but the main difference is that each life is very long -- compiling virtually everything written about each saint from differnt sources, but only has 2 or 3 saints a day. I find St. Dimitri to be my favorite reading for the Great Feasts and Feasts which commemorate events, because there is so much detailed information. For lives of saints, they can sometimes be hard to get through, because there is a lot of repetitive commentary. Not great family reading, in general.

The Greek Great Synaxarion has lives that are in general much more detailed than those in the Prologue, but shorter than in St. Dimitri, but the best thing is that it has many lives for each day -- not just the first few in the commemoration list.

Last year, I had the Synaxarion, and my wife had St. Dimitri -- this year, it has been reversed, and she has possession of the Synaxarion, and I'm reading the Prologue and reading at St. Dimitri (it's hard to read an entire life each day -- quite long). But occasionally I sneak it away from her...

At a former parish, our priest would read the entries from the Prologue each Sunday after Liturgy. Another practice that is traditional is to read the Prologue in church at Vespers, which is a great time to do it, since Vespers contains so much hymnology about the saint of the day. I think that reading it before Vespers would be ideal, since the stichera sung about the saint would come to life. I've usually read the life before going to Vespers, but most people don't have that opportunity, and doing it publically would be beneficial.

Most people don't know that liturgical readings are appointed in the Orthodox Typikon (the main "instruction book" on how to put the services together.) For instance, the Prologue is appointed before Vespers, the Explanation of the following day's Epistle from St. Theophylact is appointed to be read after Vespers, the Explanation of the day's Gospel from St. Theophylact is appointed to be read after the Psalter readings at Matins, the Synaxarion (a briefer version) is appointed to be read after the 6th Ode of the Canon at Matins, etc... During Great Lent, the readings appointed are even more numerous and extensive, with an emphasis on St. John Climacus (see Kolokotronis' home page.)

Amongst the Russians, this has been completely lost, although the reading of the Prologue at or after Liturgy is making an appearance in Russian churches and Serbian churches (the modern compilation and revision of the Prologue was done by St. Nikolai (Velimirovich) of Zhicha). The Greeks in Greece have maintained the tradition of reading a short Synaxarion entry at Matins/Orthros -- I think the Greeks do it here in America, too -- Kolokotronis will know. The Russian Old Believers have maintained the most liturgical readings of patristic sermons, commentaries, and lives... Of course, much of this material has never been translated. The translational project of the Explanation St. Theophylact has only progressed from Matthew through Luke. St. John may not come out for a year or two, and the epistles, welll.... I just hope they come out in my lifetime!

All of the appointed readings can only be done in a monastic setting, but I believe that the recovery of doing a few short traditional readings would be very healthy for our parish lives.