Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

The Holy and Great Sunday of Pascha

Epistle

The Reading is from the Acts of the Apostles [§ 1].

1 ¹The first account indeed I made for myself concerning all which, O Theophilos, Jesus began both to do and teach, ²until the day in which He was taken up, after He gave command to the apostles whom He chose for Himself through the Holy Spirit, ³to whom also He presented Himself alive after He had suffered by many proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking the things concerning the kingdom of God. ⁴And being assembled together with them, He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “ye heard of Me; ⁵“for John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days after these.” ⁶Indeed therefore, after they came together, they kept on questioning, saying, “Lord, dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” ⁷And He said to them, “It is not yours to know times or seasons which the Father Himself put in His own authority. ⁸“But ye shall receive power, after the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses to Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa and Samaria, and unto the ends of the earth.”

Gospel

In the Liturgy

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 1].

1 ¹In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. ²This One was in the beginning with God. ³All things came into being through Him, and without Him not even one thing came into being that hath come to be. ⁴In Him was life, and the Life was the light of men. ⁵And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness overcame it not.

⁶There came to be a man who was sent forth from God, whose name was John. ⁷This same came for a witness, in order that he might bear witness concerning the Light, that all might believe through Him. ⁸He was not that One, the Light, but was sent that he might bear witness concerning the Light. ⁹That was the true Light, which giveth light to every man coming into the world. ¹⁰He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and the world knew Him not. ¹¹He came to His own, and His own received Him not. ¹²But as many as received Him, to them He gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: ¹³who were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. ¹⁴And the Logos became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of an only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. ¹⁵John beareth witness concerning Him, and hath cried out, saying, “This One was He of Whom I said, ‘The One Who cometh after me hath come to be before me, for He was before me.’” ¹⁶And of His fullness we all received, and grace for grace; ¹⁷for the law was given through Moses, but the grace and the truth came to be by Jesus Christ.

In Vespers

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 65].

20 ¹⁹When it was evening on that day, the first of the week—and the doors were closed where the disciples were gathered together for fear of the Jews—Jesus came and stood in the midst, and saith to them, “Peace be to you.” ²⁰And after He said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then were the disciples glad, after they saw the Lord. ²¹Then Jesus said to them again, “Peace be to you; even as the Father hath sent Me forth, I also send you.” ²²And after He said this, He breathed on them, and saith to them, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit: ²³“if ye forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven to them; if ye retain the sins of any, they are retained.” ²⁴But Thomas, one of the twelve, who is called Didymos, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵The other disciples therefore were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I should see in His hands the mark of the nails, and put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into His side, in no wise will I believe.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the holy Martyr Crescens in Myra of Lycia, and the holy Apostles Aristarchos, Pudens, and Trophimos of the Seventy (commemorated on Gk. calendar on the 14th of April), and the Martyrs Vasilissa and Anastasia of Rome, disciples of the Apostles Peter and Paul.

No readings given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

April 28th – Civil Calendar
April 15th – Church Calendar

1. The Holy Apostles Aristarchus, Pudens and Trophimus.

These were all numbered among the Seventy. Aristarchus was Bishop of Apameia in Syria. The Apostle Paul mentions him several times (Acts 19:29; Col. 4:10; Philem. v.24). He was seized in Ephesus, together with Gaius, by a mob that had risen up against Paul. The apostle wrote to the Colossians: ‘Aristarchus my fellow-prisoner saluteth you,’ and in the Epistle to Philemon, Paul calls Aristarchus ‘my fellow-laborer,’ together with Mark, Demas and Luke. Pudens was an eminent Roman citizen. The Apostle Paul mentions him once (II Tim. 4:21). Pudens’ house was first the refuge of the chief apostles and was then turned into a church dedicated to the Good Shepherd. Trophimus was an Asian (Acts 20:4), and accompanied St. Paul on his journeys. In one place, Paul writes: ‘Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick’ (II Tim. 4:21). During Nero’s persecution, when the Apostle Paul was beheaded, these glorious martyrs were also beheaded.

2. The Holy Martyr Savvas the Goth.

There was a brutal persecution of Christians on the part of the Goths. A Gothic prince came to the village where this devout Savvas lived, and asked the villagers if there were any Christians there. They answered him on their honor that there were none. Then Savvas stood before the prince and the people, and said: ‘Let no one swear an oath on my behalf. I am a Christian.’ The prince, seeing this poor wretch, let him go in peace, saying: ‘This one can do neither harm nor good.’ The next year, just at Pascha, a priest, Sansal, came to the village and celebrated Pascha with Savvas. The pagans, coming to hear of this, descended suddenly on Savvas’ house and began to belabor the men of God without mercy, then, having dragged Savvas naked through thorns, bound them both to trees and tried to force them to eat meat offered to idols. But the men of God, remembering the apostle’s words, would not touch the unclean, diabolical sacrifices. The prince finally sentenced Savvas to death and handed him over to the soldiers. Savvas went to the place of execution full of joy, praising God. Recognising in him a good man, the soldiers sought to set him free on the way, but Savvas was greatly distressed by this and told the soldiers that they were in duty bound to carry out the prince’s command. Then the soldiers brought him to a river, tied a rock round his neck and threw him into the water. His body was cast up onto the bank. Later the Greek commander Ionnios Soranos, in the time of the Emperor Valens, found Savvas’ body during a war with the Goths and took it to Cappadocia. St. Savvas suffered in 372, at the age of 31.

3. The Holy Martyrs Vasilissa and Anastasia.

Two devout Roman women, they gathered the bodies of the apostles’ disciples for burial during Nero’s persecutions. They were arrested for this and imprisoned, and after prolonged torture in which their breasts were cut off and their tongues cut out, they were beheaded.

FOR CONSIDERATION

St. Gregory of Sinai writes on meditation: ‘We reckon that there are eight main subjects for meditation: first, God, unseen and invisible, without beginning and uncreated, the first Cause of all that is, threefold and one in His divine being; second, the order and state of the angelic powers; third, the structure of visible things; fourth, the incarnation of the Logos; fifth, the general resurrection; sixth, the dreadful Second Coming of the Lord; seventh, eternal torment; eighth, the kingdom of heaven. The first four have already been revealed and belong to the past. The last four have not yet been revealed and belong to the future, although these four are able to be considered by those who, with the help of the grace they have received, acquire a truly pure mind. He who approaches this labor (meditation) without the light of grace, let him know that he is building fantasies, not meditation.’ So writes the great and discerning Gregory of Sinai, whose knowledge came from experience.

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.