Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Saturday of the Thirty-Sixth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ 164].

15 ⁵⁸Brethren, keep on becoming firm, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not empty in the Lord.

16 ¹Now concerning the collection which is for the saints, even as I ordered the churches of Galatia, so also do ye. ²Every first day of the week let each of you by himself be laying in store whatsoever he may be prospered in, that collections may not then take place whenever I should come. ³And whenever I arrive, whomsoever ye shall approve, these will I send with epistles to carry your gift of bounty to Jerusalem.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke [§ 19]. At that time:

5 ¹⁷Jesus was teaching, and there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every village of Galilee, and Judæa, and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was present to heal them. ¹⁸And behold, there were men carrying upon a couch a man who was paralyzed. And they were seeking to bring him in and to lay him before Him. ¹⁹And after they did not find by what manner they might bring him in on account of the crowd, they went up on the housetop, and let him down with the small couch through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. ²⁰And having seen their faith, He said to him, “Man, thy sins have been forgiven thee.” ²¹And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, “Who is this Who speaketh blasphemies? Who is able to forgive sins, except God alone?” ²²But Jesus, having fully known their reasonings, answered and said to them, “Why do ye reason in your hearts? ²³“Which is easier, to say, ‘Thy sins have been forgiven thee,’ or to say, ‘Arise and be walking’? ²⁴“But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath authority on the earth to forgive sins”—He said to the one who was paralyzed, “I say to thee, arise, and take up thy small couch, and go to thy house.” ²⁵And immediately he stood up before them, and took up that upon which he was lying, and departed to his house, glorifying God. ²⁶And astonishment seized all, and they began glorifying God and were filled with fear, saying, “We have seen paradoxical things today.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

20. The commemoration of our venerable and God-bearing Father Efthymios the Great.

Epistle

The Reading is from the Second Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§§ 176, 177]. Brethren:

4 ⁶It is God Who said, “Let there be light [cf. Gen. 1:3]” to shine out of darkness, Who shined in our hearts, for the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

⁷But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the preeminence of the power may be of God, and not from us. ⁸In every way we are afflicted, but not straitened; we are at a loss, but not utterly at a loss; ⁹persecuted, but not abandoned; cast down, but not destroyed— ¹⁰always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. ¹¹For we, the living, are always being delivered to death on account of Jesus, that also the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. ¹²So that indeed death energizeth itself in us, but life in you. ¹³But having the same spirit of faith, according to that which hath been written: “I believed, wherefore I spoke [Ps. 115(116):1(10)],” we also believe, and therefore speak, ¹⁴knowing that the One Who raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also through Jesus, and shall present us with you. ¹⁵For all things are for your sakes, that the grace, which abounded through the majority, might cause the giving of thanks to abound more to the glory of God.

for Sl. usage, see [Heb. 13:17-21].

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke [§ 24]. At that time:

6 ¹⁷Jesus stood upon a level place. And there was a crowd of His disciples, and a great multitude of the people from all of Judæa and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him, and to be healed of their diseases— ¹⁸even those who were troubled by unclean spirits; and they were cured. ¹⁹And all the crowd was seeking to touch Him, for power was coming forth from Him and healing all. ²⁰And He lifted up His eyes to His disciples, and began to say:
   “Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
   ²¹“Blessed are ye who hunger now, for ye shall be filled.
Blessed are ye who weep now, for ye shall laugh.
   ²²“Blessed are ye whenever men hate you, and whenever they separate you, and reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man.
   ²³“Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in the heavens.”

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

February 2nd – Civil Calendar
January 20th – Church Calendar

1. Our Holy Father Efthymios the Great.

He was born in the Armenian town of Melitene near the River Euphrates in 377, the only son of noble and eminent parents. His mother, Dionysia, had prayed for a child, and had a heavenly vision concerning his birth. He lived in asceticism from his youth, at first in the vicinity of his town, but then, after a visit to Jerusalem at the age of 29, in the Wilderness of Pharan, between Jerusalem and Jericho. He filled his days and nights with prayer and meditation, contemplation and physical toil. Many disciples gathered round him, such as Kyriakos the Hermit, Sava the Sanctified, Theoktistos and others. He was, by God’s gift, a great worker of wonders: he drove out demons, healed grave illnesses, brought forth water in the desert, multiplied bread and prophesied. He taught his monks the love of hardship, saying: ‘If you eat bread that comes not from your own labors, that means that you eat the labor of another’. When one of the younger brethren desired to fast more than others, he forbade him and ordered him to come to the common table, so that he should not become proud through his too-great fasting. He also said that it is not good for a monk to move from place to place, for, he said: ‘A tree that is frequently transplanted does not bear fruit.’ Whoever desires to do good can do it in the place where he is. On love, he said: ‘As salt is to bread, so is love to the other virtues.’ He went off into the desert in the first week of the Great Fast and remained there in silence and meditation on God until before Pascha. During his lifetime, a great monastery grew up near his cave, which was for centuries as full of monks as a hive of bees. His last command was that there should be loving hospitality to guests in the monastery, and that its gate should never be closed. He entered into rest at the age of 97. Patriarch Anastasios of Jerusalem was at his funeral. The patriarch waited the entire day while a great mass of people gave the saint the last kiss, and only in the evening was he able to finish the funeral. On the seventh day after his death, Efthymios appeared to his disciple, Domitian, in light and joy. St. Efthymios was a true ‘son of light’. He entered into rest in the year 473.

2. The Holy Martyrs Innas, Nirras and Pinnas.

They are thought to be the first Slav martyrs recorded in history and they lived to a great age in Scythia, being disciples of the holy Apostle Andrew. They suffered for the Faith near Varna at the hands of their pagan neighbors from the other side of the Danube. Bound and left on the ice, they froze to death and entered into rest in the Lord.

FOR CONSIDERATION

The saints of the Church were compassionate towards human weakness and fiercely unyielding and unsubmissive with regard to the confession of the truths of the Faith. St. Nicholas of Myra struck Arius with his hand at the First Ecumenical Council. St. Anthony left his desert and went to Alexandria publicly to denounce Arius. St. Efthymios, under great pressure from the Empress Evdokia and the false Patriarch Theodosios, and being unable further to fight with arguments, left his monastery and hid in the desert, an example followed by monks thereafter. Efthymios remained in the desert until the false patriarch had been dethroned and Orthodoxy confirmed. And when agitation was spread in Jerusalem in the emperor’s name against the Fourth Ecumenical Council which had taken place in Chalcedon, and when the entire population was going in terror of the heretics, then St. Theodosios the Great, already burdened with years, came as the fearless soldier of Christ he was to Jerusalem, went into one of the great churches, mounted the steps, and gesticulating with his arms, said to the people: ‘If a man does not revere the Four Ecumenical Councils as he does the Four Gospels, let him be anathema (accursed)!’ All his hearers were deeply impressed by these words, and none of the heretics dared speak against him.

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.