Christian feast day: James the Just (Eastern Orthodox Church)

James the Just, or a variation of James, brother of the Lord, was, according to the New Testament, a brother of Jesus. He was the first Jewish bishop of Jerusalem. Traditionally, it is believed he was martyred either in 62 AD by being stoned to death on the order of High Priest Ananus ben Ananus, or in 69 AD by being thrown off the pinnacle of the Temple by scribes and Pharisees and then clubbed to death. James, Joses, Simon, and Judas are mentioned as the brothers of Jesus as well as two or more unnamed sisters.

The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, and also called the Greek Orthodox Church or simply the Orthodox Church, is one of the three major doctrinal and jurisdictional groups of Christianity, with approximately 230 million baptised members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops via local synods. The church has no central doctrinal or governmental authority analogous to the pope of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is recognised by them as primus inter pares, a title held by the patriarch of Rome prior to 1054. As one of the oldest surviving religious institutions in the world, the Eastern Orthodox Church has played an especially prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Since 2018, there has been an ongoing schism between Constantinople and Moscow, with the two not in full communion with each other.