Forefather Methuselah

IMPORTANT CORRECTION: the previously listed date ("January 6") does not correspond to any genuine Orthodox commemoration of the forefathers and appears to have been mistakenly borrowed from a Western calendar or confused with a different feast; it has been removed. The Orthodox Church has no independent fixed feast date for Methuselah — he is commemorated only jointly with all the Old Testament forefathers (Adam, Seth, Enosh, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah) on the movable Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, two weeks before the Nativity of Christ.

According to the Book of Genesis (5:21-27), Methuselah was the son of Enoch, father of Lamech, and grandfather of Noah, of the line of Seth. He lived 969 years — the longest lifespan recorded anywhere in the Bible.

Jewish tradition, also cited by Orthodox commentators, links his death to the very year of the Flood — a seven-day mourning period for him, according to this tradition, delayed the Flood's onset. A later folk-etymological tradition (reflected in some reference literature) connects his name with "sending away death," from which some devotional literature attributes to him a gift of healing the terminally ill through prayer — but this is a later tradition, not a biblical or strictly ecclesiastical testimony, which is honestly noted here.