Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Friday of the Thirty-Fifth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Second General Epistle of Saint John [§ 75].

1 ¹The elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth, and not I only, but also those who have come to know the truth, ²for the sake of the truth which abideth in us and shall be with us forever: ³Grace, mercy, peace shall be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.

⁴I was gladdened greatly that I have found some of thy children walking in truth, even as we received a commandment from the Father. ⁵And I now request thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we be loving one another. ⁶And this is the love, that we be walking according to His commandments. This is the commandment, even as ye heard from the beginning, that ye be walking in it. ⁷For many deceivers entered into the world, those not confessing Jesus Christ coming in the flesh; this is the deceiver and the antichrist. ⁸Keep on looking to yourselves, in order that ye might not lose that which we wrought, but that ye might receive a full reward. ⁹Everyone who transgresseth and abideth not in the teaching of the Christ hath not God; the one abiding in the teaching of the Christ, this one also hath the Father and the Son. ¹⁰If anyone come to you and bring not this teaching, cease receiving him into the house and saying to him fare-thee-well; ¹¹for the one who saith to him fare-thee-well partaketh in his evil works.

¹²Having many things to write to you, I was not willing by means of paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and to speak face to face that our joy may be full. ¹³The children of thine elect sister greet thee. Amen.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Mark [§ 68]. At that time:

15 ²⁰The soldiers took Jesus; and they lead Him out in order that they might crucify Him....

²²And they bring Him to a place, Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, Place of a Skull.... ²⁵And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him.... ³³And the sixth hour having come to pass, there came to be a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. ³⁴And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eloi, Eloi, lima sabachthani?” which is, being interpreted, “My God, My God, why didst Thou forsake Me [cf. Ps. 21(22):1]?” ³⁵And some of those standing by, having heard that, were saying, “Behold, He calleth Elias.” ³⁶And one of them ran and filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and was attempting to give Him to drink, saying, “Let be; let us see if Elias is coming to take Him down.” ³⁷And Jesus let out a loud cry, and gave up the spirit. ³⁸And the veil of the temple was torn into two from top to bottom. ³⁹Now after the centurion who stood opposite Him saw that He thus cried out and gave up the spirit, he said, “Truly this Man was God’s Son.” ⁴⁰And there were also women looking on from afar off, among whom was also Mary Magdalene, and Mary the Mother of Iakovos the younger and of Joses, and Salome— ⁴¹who also, when He was in Galilee, were following Him and ministering to Him—and many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem.

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the holy Martyrs Pamphilos the presbyter, Valens the deacon, Paul, Selevkos, Porphyrios, Julian, Theodoulos, Elias, Jeremias, Esaias, Samuel, and Daniel, at Cæsarea in Palestine.

No readings given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

March 1st – Civil Calendar: Non-Leap Year
February 29th – Civil Calendar: Leap Year
February 16th – Church Calendar

1. The Twelve Holy Martyrs who suffered in the reign of the Emperor Diocletian.

The first of these, Pamphilos, was priest in the church at Caesarea in Palestine; a learned and devout man, he corrected the mistakes of various copiers in the text of the New Testament. He himself copied this saving Book and gave it to any who desired it. The second was a deacon, Valens (Valentine), old in years and white with wisdom. He was a great expert in the holy Scriptures, knowing them by heart. The third was Paul, a respected and eminent man, who had on a previous occasion been cast into the fire for the sake of Christ. With them were five Egyptians, brothers both in blood and soul, who were returning to their native land from serving a sentence in the mines of Cilicia. As they reached the gate of the town of Caesarea they said that they were Christians, and were therefore brought to trial. When asked their names, they replied: ‘We have cast away the pagan names given us by our mother, and are called Elias, Isaias, Jeremias, Samuel and Daniel.’ When asked where they were from, they replied: ‘From Jerusalem that is above.’ They were all beheaded, and a young man called Porphyrios, who had searched for their bodies to give them burial, suffered soon afterwards. Him they burned. An officer, Seleucus, who had come up to the martyrs and embraced them before the sword descended on their heads, was also burned, and an old man, Theodulus, a servant of the Roman judge, who had embraced one of the martyrs while they were under escort. Lastly Julian, who had kissed the dead bodies of the martyrs and honored them, followed them in death. So they exchanged the small for the great, the tawdry for the precious and death for immortality, and went to the Lord in 308.

2. St. Maruthas.

Bishop of the town of Tagrith in Mesopotamia, he was famed for his faith and goodness. Maruthas calmed the wrath of the Persian King Yazdgird (Yezdegeherd) against the Christians, begged from him the relics of the 400 martyrs in Persia and founded a town, Martyropolis, where he placed these holy relics. He finished his earthly course in this town in 422 and went to the Lord.

3. St. Flavian.

He was Patriarch of Constantinople after St. Proklos, in 446, and was a contemporary of Pope Leo. He battled firmly against Eftyches and Dioscoros, but did not live to see the triumph of Orthodoxy at the Fourth Council, for, before that, he was so mercilessly thrashed and trampled on at a heretical council in Ephesus that he died there. He was a faithful soldier of Christ and a courageous defender and confessor of the Orthodox Faith. He entered into rest in 449.

4. Our Holy Father the Martyr Romanos.

Romanos was a simple and illiterate villager from Karpenesion. Learning of the heroism and the glory of the martyrs of Christ, the young Romanos yearned for martyrdom himself. He went to Thessalonica, where he began to extol the Christian Faith in the streets, and to call Mohammed a writer of fables. The Turks tortured him terribly, then handed him over to a galley-captain. Christians rescued him from the galley and sent him to the Holy Mountain, where Romanos became a monk under the famous Elder Akakios. But he still yearned for martyrdom for the sake of Christ. With the blessing of his elder, he went to Constantinople, pretended to be a fool and began to lead a dog about the streets. When asked why, Romanos replied that he fed that dog as Christians fed Turks. The Turks threw him into a dry well, where he lived without bread for forty days. They then took him out and executed him. Light streamed from his body for three days, after which an Englishman took it to England. But a monk soaked a towel in his blood, and that towel is kept to this day in the monastery of Docheiariou. This glorious soldier of Christ suffered in 1694.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Only with the greatest struggle and sacrifice is the chaff of heresy separated from the wheat of Orthodox truth. Heretics have always made use of the lowest means and the meanest people in the undermining of Orthodoxy. Archimandrite Eftyches of Constantinople and Patriarch Dioscoros of Alexandria, who held the heretical teaching that in Christ there are not two natures—a divine and a human—but one, had for their friend at the imperial court the base eunuch Chrysaphios. The Empress Evdokia was secretly allied with them. Patriarch Flavian fearlessly defended Orthodoxy like a lion, being helped in this by the emperor’s sister, St. Pulcheria. The eunuch produced the foulest slanders against Patriarch Flavian for the Emperor Theodosios, in order to make the emperor drive him from his throne and replace him with the heretic Eftyches. When neither he nor others succeeded, the heretics decided to kill Flavian. At a pirate council in Ephesus, they so beat and ill-treated him that on the third day St. Flavian gave his soul to God. And what happened in the end? At the Fourth Ecumenical Council, Eftyches and Dioscoros were anathematized. The eunuch, driven from court in shame, lost his life. The Empress Evdokia was exiled from Constantinople to Palestine. Flavian and Pulcheria were proclaimed saints and the Orthodox Faith was triumphantly confirmed.

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.