Forefather Forefather Abel

Abel was the second son of Adam and Eve, a shepherd, brother to the farmer Cain. According to Genesis 4:1–8, Abel offered God the firstborn of his flock, and God regarded his offering with favor, while rejecting Cain's. Out of envy and anger, Cain killed Abel in the field — the first murder in human history, making Cain the first fratricide.

Abel's blood, crying out to God from the ground (Gen. 4:10), is understood in the New Testament (Heb. 12:24) as a foreshadowing of Christ's redemptive blood. The Apostle calls Abel the first righteous man attested by faith (Heb. 11:4), and Christ Himself names him first among the persecuted righteous. In Orthodox iconography Abel appears in the forefathers' tier of the iconostasis, alongside Adam, Seth, Enoch, and other pre-Flood patriarchs. He has no individual fixed feast day; he is commemorated together with all the forefathers on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, two weeks before the Nativity of Christ.