Old Style Date: July 12. On this day, the Orthodox Church commemorates the holy martyrs Proclus and Hilary, who suffered for their faith in the 2nd century. Proclus was the first to be arrested. The governor Maximus tried to force and torture him into renouncing Christ, but the martyr remained faithful to his beliefs. Moreover, he predicted to Maximus that he himself would soon be forced to believe in the one God. Proclus was tied to the governor's chariot and made to run behind it; exhausted on the way, the martyr prayed for the Lord to stop the chariot. And so it happened. No effort could move the chariot until Maximus signed a charter confessing Christ. However, the humiliated governor took revenge on Proclus — he ordered him to be tied to a pole and shot with arrows. The soldiers who received this order urged the martyr to submit and save his life, but he refused and asked the soldiers to carry out what they had been commanded. On the way to the execution site, the procession was met by Proclus's nephew, Hilary. He embraced his uncle and also declared himself a Christian. The soldiers arrested him as well. At the trial, he defended his faith with the same courage as Proclus and, after many tortures, was sentenced to death. Christians buried the holy relatives in the same grave. In Russia, Proclus was called the Mourner because from this day large dews began to fall. "On Proclus, the field is soaked with dew," the peasants said, hurrying to harvest before it spoiled from the high humidity. They also needed to hurry with haymaking, for "Proclus's dew — rots the hay." By Proclus's day, they had to "dry the hay in swaths and stack it in piles." At the same time, the dew that fell on Proclus's day was considered healing. It was advised to collect the dew in the morning, wash with it, and wipe the eyes. It was said that such a procedure improved vision, made the face beautiful, and the mind calm. Healers considered the dew collected on this day the best remedy for insomnia. People endowed Proclus's dew with mystical properties — they believed it "washed away" curses and the evil eye. The dew was also used to predict the weather for the near future. Heavy dew and fog in the morning foretold clear days. If there was no dew on Proclus's day, neither in the meadow nor in the lowlands, it was a sure sign of approaching bad weather. Name Days on this Day Arsenius, Veronica, Gabriel, John, Maria, Michael, Theodore