Today the Orthodox honor the memory of Anthony the Roman, the Novgorod miracle worker.
The saint was born in Rome in 1067 in Rome in the house of wealthy Orthodox parents, and was raised by them in piety.
Orphaned, Anthony gave part of his inheritance to the poor, and put the other in a barrel and threw it into the sea. He accepted monasticism.
When the persecution of Orthodoxy began, Anthony went to live on a seaside rock, where he spent one year in fasting and prayer.
A terrible storm tore off the stone on which the Monk Anthony was, and carried him into the sea. On the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, the stone stopped at Novgorod on the banks of the Volkhov River. Here the monk founded a monastery in honor of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, and the next year the fishermen caught a barrel with the inheritance of the Monk Anthony. With this money, lands were bought for the monastery.
The Monk Anthony constantly took care that the monastery would help the poor, orphans and widows. Saint Anthony died on August 3, 1147.
Folk omens on August 16:
today we learned from the weather what the winter will be like: the wind is cold – the winter is frosty, if it is warm, the winter will be mild and snowy;
it was believed that a girl born on this day would have a “masculine” character.