In the West we are familiar with the standard “Litany of the Saints“. Litanies invoking the saints have their origin in Patristic forms. Invoking saints in litanies goes back to AD 270 with St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (d. ca. 270) (Basil, Ep. lxiii; Socrates, VI, viii, Sozomen, VIII, vii) and St. Basil the Great (d. 379). Invocation of the saints are also found in the “Litania Septiformis” of St. Gregory the Great.