Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Monday of the Third Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Acts of the Apostles [§ 17]. In those days:

6 ⁸Stephen, full of faith and of power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people. ⁹But there rose up some of those from the synagogue which is called that of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of those from Cilicia and Asia, disputing with Stephen. ¹⁰And they were not able to stand against the wisdom and the spirit by which he was speaking. ¹¹Then they suborned men, who said, “We have heard him speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God.” ¹²And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes. And having set upon him, they seized him, and brought him to the sanhedrin. ¹³And they set up false witnesses, saying, “This man ceaseth not speaking blasphemous words against this holy place and the law; ¹⁴“for we have heard him saying that this Jesus the Nazaræan shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which Moses delivered to us.” ¹⁵And having looked intently upon him, all those sitting in the sanhedrin saw his face as though it were a face of an angel.

7 ¹Then the high priest said, “Are then these things so?” ²And he began saying, “Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, ³“and said to him, ‘Get thee out from thy land and from thy kindred, and come here into a land which I shall show thee [cf. Gen. 12:1].’ ⁴“Then after he went out from the land of the Chaldæans, he dwelt in Haran. And from that place, after his father died, He removed him into this land in which ye now dwell. ⁵“And He did not give him an inheritance in it, not even the breadth of a footstep. And yet He promised to give it to him for a possession, and his seed after him, though he had no child.... ⁴⁷“But Solomon built Him a house. ⁴⁸“But the Most High dwelleth not in temples made by hand, even as the prophet saith, ⁴⁹“‘The heaven is a throne to Me, and the earth a footstool of My feet; what manner of house will ye build Me,’ saith the Lord, ‘or what is the place of My rest [cf. Is. 66:1]? ⁵⁰“‘My hand did make all these things, did it not [cf. Is. 66:2]?’ ⁵¹“O stiff-necked and uncircumcised in the heart and in the ears, ye always fall in a direction contrary to the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, also do ye. ⁵²“Which of the prophets have your fathers not persecuted? And they slew those who announced beforehand about the coming of the righteous One, of Whom now ye have become betrayers and murderers, ⁵³“ye who received the law by the disposition of angels, and guarded it not.” ⁵⁴And when they heard these things their hearts were sawn asunder, and they were gnashing their teeth at him. ⁵⁵But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed intently into the heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right of God; ⁵⁶and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens having been opened and the Son of Man standing on the right of God.” ⁵⁷And they cried out with a loud voice, and they held their ears together, and rushed upon him with one accord. ⁵⁸And they cast him outside of the city and began stoning him. And the witnesses themselves laid aside their garments at the feet of a young man who was called Saul. ⁵⁹And they kept on stoning Stephen as he called upon the Lord and said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” ⁶⁰And having knelt down, he cried with a loud voice, “Lord, do not make this sin stand against them.” And having said this, he fell asleep.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 13]. At that time:

4 ⁴⁶There was a certain king’s officer whose son was sick in Capernaum. ⁴⁷After this one heard that Jesus had come out of Judæa into Galilee, he went off to Him, and was entreating Him that He would come down and heal His son, for he was about to die. ⁴⁸Then Jesus said to him, “Unless ye see signs and wonders, in no wise will ye believe.” ⁴⁹The king’s officer saith to Him, “Sir, come down before my little child die.” ⁵⁰Jesus saith to him, “Go thy way; thy son liveth.” And the man believed the word which Jesus said to him, and started on his way. ⁵¹But already, as he was going down, his slaves met him and brought tidings, saying, “Thy child liveth.” ⁵²Then he learned from them the hour in which he got better. And they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” ⁵³So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, “Thy son liveth.” And he himself believed, and his whole house. ⁵⁴Again, this second sign Jesus did, having come out of Judæa into Galilee.

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of Hieromartyr Basil, Bishop of Amasea, and our father among the saints, Stephen, Bishop of Perm.

Epistle

For St. Stephen:

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Hebrews [§ 318]. Brethren:

7 ²⁶Such a High Priest was fitting for us: holy, guileless, undefiled, Who hath been separated from the sinners and hath become higher than the heavens, ²⁷Who hath no need daily, even as the high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, then for those of the people; for this He did once for all after He offered up Himself. ²⁸For the law appointeth men high priests who have weakness; but the word of the oath, which is after the law, appointeth the Son, Who hath been perfected forever.

8 ¹Now in reference to the things being spoken of, the chief point is: We have such a High Priest, Who sat down on the right of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, ²a Liturgist of the holies and of the tabernacle, the true one, which the Lord pitched, and not man.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ 24]. The Lord said:

7 ²⁴“Everyone who heareth these words of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him to a prudent man who built his house upon the rock. ²⁵“And the rain came down, and the rivers rose, and the winds blew, and fell upon that house; and yet it fell not, for it had been founded upon the rock. ²⁶“And everyone who heareth these words of Mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened to a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. ²⁷“And the rain came down, and the rivers rose, and the winds blew, and struck against that house; and it fell. And the fall of it was great.”

²⁸And it came to pass, when Jesus had brought these words to an end, the crowds were astonished at His teaching, ²⁹for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

8 ¹And after He came down from the mountain, great crowds followed Him. ²And behold, a leper came and was making obeisance to Him, saying, “Lord, if Thou art willing, Thou art able to cleanse me.” ³And Jesus stretched forth His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be thou cleansed.” And straightway his leprosy was cleansed. ⁴And Jesus saith to him, “See that thou tell no one; but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift which Moses commanded, for a testimony to them.”

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

May 9th – Civil Calendar
April 26th – Church Calendar

1. The Hieromartyr Basil, Bishop of Amaseia.

Licinius, the brother-in-law of the Emperor Constantine, whose sister he had married, dissembled before the great emperor, saying that he was a Christian. When he received authority over the whole of the East, he began, at first secretly but then publicly, to persecute the Christians and to uphold idolatry. His wife grieved greatly over this, but could not turn her husband back from this dishonor. Giving himself over to idolatry, Licinius gave himself over to all the passions, and especially to brutality towards women. Through this fall into such an impure passion, he desired to deflower the maiden Glaphyra, who was in waiting at the imperial court. She complained to the empress, who sent her away from the court at Nikomedia secretly to the coast of Pontus. The maiden got as far as the town of Amaseia, and was there warmly received by the bishop, Basil, and the other Christians. Glaphyra was very joyful that God had preserved her virginity, and wrote of this to the empress. And the empress rejoiced and sent her money for the Church in Amaseia. But one letter of Glaphyra’s, on its way to the empress, fell into the hands of an imperial eunuch, who showed it to Emperor Licinius. Discovering where Glaphyra was to be found, he immediately sent orders that she and the bishop be brought to Nikomedia. In the meantime, Glaphyra died, and the soldiers brought only Basil, in bonds. After torture and imprisonment, this blessed man was beheaded and thrown into the sea, in the year 322. His priests, with the help of an angel of God, found his body near the town of Synope, took it out of the water with the aid of fishing nets and carried it to Amaseia, where they gave it burial in the church which he had built by his labors. The Emperor Constantine raised an army against Licinius, overcame him, arrested him and sent him into exile in Gaul, where he ended his God-hating days.

2. St. Janik of Devič.

He was a Serb from Zeta. As a young man, overcome with love for Christ, he left his home and went off to the region of the Ibar, to the mouth of the Black River, to a narrow cave in which, according to tradition, St. Peter of Koriša had lived in asceticism before him. But when his fame began to spread among the people, he fled to Drnica and hid himself in the thick forest of Devič. St. Janik spent years there in solitude, silence and prayer. According to tradition, the Serbian Prince George (Đurađ) Branković brought his mad daughter to him, and the saint healed her. In gratitude, George built a monastery in that place known today by the name of Devič. Here are kept Janik’s holy and wonder-working relics. In this monastery there lived a famous and godly nun, Ephemia, better known in the Kosovo region as Blessed Stojna. She entered into rest in the Lord in 1895.

3. St. Stefan (Stephen) of Perm.

A Russian by birth, he gave himself from his youth to prayer and pondering on God, and as a young man went to Rostov, where he became a monk in the monastery of St. Gregory the Theologian. Learning about the land of Perm, all overgrown with the weeds of paganism, Stefan conceived the desire to be a missionary in that land. He immediately set about learning the language, and when he had become proficient, compiled an alphabet and translated the service books. With the blessing of the Metropolitan of Moscow, he, as a priest, set off on his apostolic labors and began with apostolic zeal to preach the Gospel in the thick darkness of Permian paganism. Baptising a number of souls, he labored to build in Perm a church dedicated to the Annunciation. And, when the Church in Perm grew larger, he was consecrated as its bishop. Enduring all toil, pain, evil and humiliation, he succeeded in dispersing the darkness among the pagan Permians and in illumining them with the light of Christ. He returned once in old age to Moscow, and there went to the Lord in 1396.

FOR CONSIDERATION

The saints are alive, and their God-given power is not diminished by time. St. Janik of Devič performs miracles today as he did in his lifetime five hundred years ago. A man called Milos from Herzegovina was preparing to go to Jerusalem to venerate the saints. Just as he was ready to set off, St. Janik appeared to him in a dream and told him not to go to Jerusalem. ‘You’d do better,’ the saint explained, ‘to go to Devič and clean up my church there, and put it in order, than to go to Jerusalem.’ Milos obeyed and went to the neglected Devič, cleaned it up, put it in order and gave it new life. There he became a monk and remained to the end of his days.

At the time of the First World War and the Austrian occupation, an officer, a Hungarian, came to Devič with a detachment of soldiers. He took the abbot, Damascene, to the tomb of St. Janik and asked him what was under the slab. ‘A holy place,’ replied the abbot. ‘What sort of holy place?’—the officer smiled. ‘You’ve got things hidden under there!’ And he ordered the soldiers to break up the slab with pickaxes. But while they were finishing this, the officer was seized with pains all round the middle of his body. He lay down on a bed and died before the evening of the same day. The terrified soldiers left their work unfinished and fled from the monastery.

Daily Scripture Readings taken from The Orthodox New Testament, translated and published by Holy Apostles Convent, Buena Vista, Colorado, copyright © 2000, used with permission, all rights reserved.

Daily Prologue Readings taken from The Prologue of Ochrid, by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic, translated by Mother Maria, published by Lazarica Press, Birmingham, England, copyright © 1985, all rights reserved. Edited by Dormition Skete.