Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Friday of the Twelfth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Second Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ 184]. Brethren:

7 ¹⁰The sorrow in accordance with God worketh out repentance to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world worketh out death. ¹¹For behold this very thing, that for you to be sorrowed according to God, how much earnestness it worked out in you, yea, what readiness to make a defense, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what yearning, yea, what zeal, yea, what vindication! In all things ye commended yourselves to be clear in the matter. ¹²Then, even if I wrote to you, it was not on account of him who did wrong, nor on account of him who was wronged, but in order that your earnestness, which is on our behalf, might be made manifest to you before the face of God. ¹³On this account we have been comforted. And in your comfort, we rejoiced rather more abundantly for the joy of Titus, because his spirit hath been refreshed by all of you. ¹⁴For if I have boasted anything to him concerning you, I was not put to shame; but as we spoke all things to you in truth, so also our boasting, which was before Titus, came to be a truth. ¹⁵And the affection from his inward parts is more abundant toward you, as he remembereth the obedience of you all, how with fear and trembling ye received him. ¹⁶I rejoice that in everything I am of good courage concerning you.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Mark [§ 9]. At that time:

2 ¹⁸The disciples of John and those of the Pharisees were fasting. And they come and say to Jesus, “Why do the disciples of John and those of the Pharisees fast, but Thy disciples fast not?” ¹⁹And Jesus said to them, “The sons of the bridechamber are not able to fast while the bridegroom is with them, are they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they are not able to fast. ²⁰“But days will come, whenever the bridegroom shall have been taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. ²¹“And no one seweth a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise that new patch which filleth it taketh away from the old, and a worse tear taketh place. ²²“And no one putteth new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine doth burst the wineskins, and the wine is poured out, and the wineskins will be destroyed; but new wine must be put into new wineskins.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of Hieromartyr Eftychios, disciple of St. John the Theologian.

No readings given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

September 6th – Civil Calendar
August 24th – Church Calendar

1. The Hieromartyr Eftyches.

One of the lesser apostles, born in Sebastopol, he was a disciple and friend of the Apostles John the Theologian and Paul. Although he was not included in the Seventy, he was called an apostle by virtue of having been a disciple of the great apostles, and because he showed true apostolic zeal in the service of the Gospel. Consecrated as a missionary bishop, St. Eftyches travelled widely, having an angel as a companion, and he also received heavenly bread from an angel while in prison. When his body was flayed with serrated iron rods, his blood ran down mingled with a sweet myrrh. He was thrown into the flames and before wild beasts, and was finally beheaded with the sword in Sebastopol.

2. The Holy Martyr Tation.

Born in Mantinaeas near Claudioupolis in Bithynia, he suffered under Diocletian. After harsh torture, he was buried alive and thus gave his holy soul into God’s hands.

3. The Holy Martyr Syra.

A kinswoman of St. Golinduc (July 12th), she was a Persian, the daughter of an eminent priest of fire-worship. Brought up in paganism, the maiden Syra heard of Christ from some godly Christian woman, and her little heart became inflamed with love for the Lord. In a time of sickness, while still unbaptized, she begged dust from the church of the Christian priest, but he refused to give it to her in her unbaptized state. Then she, with great faith, touched the priest’s garments and was healed. This miraculous healing confirmed her yet more fully in the Christian Faith. Her soulless father put her to harsh torture, during which she received encouragement and support from heavenly visions. Cruelly strangled with a cord and then drowned, in 558 at the age of eighteen, in the time of the Persian King Chozroes I, this holy maiden thus gloriously finished her earthly course and entered into the heavenly community of the angels.

4. Our Holy Father Arseny of Komel.

Born in Moscow of noble parents, he received the monastic schema as a young man in the community of St. Sergius of Radonezh. A model monk, he was chosen as abbot, but he yearned for a life of prayerful solitude and withdrew to the forest of Komel, where he lived in asceticism till his death, fighting courageously with great diabolical temptations. He entered into rest in the Lord in 1550.

5. St. George Limniotes (“of the Lake”).

A confessor and a great ascetic of Olympus, he suffered in about 216, at the age of ninety-five.

In the Greek Great Synaxarion, St. Dionysius, Archbishop of Aegina, who died in 1624, is also commemorated (translation of his relics). Many miracles have been wrought over his relics.

FOR CONSIDERATION

If you ask many people why they do not go to church, they usually reply: ‘I haven’t got time; I must work.’ Look at these people, who only work and never go to church, devoting themselves only to their work, and compare them with people who set aside time both for work and for prayer, and you will soon be convinced that these latter are different. They are better-off, and which is more important, more contented. It is told of two neighbors who were tailors that they were very different in their work and in their prayer, in their possessions and in their contentment. One of them had a large family and the other was single. The first had the habit of going to church each morning, and the lone one never went to church. The first not only worked less, but was a less skilled workman than the other, but he had all he needed and the other was in straitened circumstances. The latter asked the former how it was that he had everything although he worked less. The prayerful man replied that he went to church every day, and found some gold on the way. He invited his neighbor to go with him to pray, promising that they would share the gold that they found. His neighbor began going regularly to church, and they both soon became one in their abundance and their contentment. They found no gold on the road, but the gold of God’s blessing increased the abundance of these true men of prayer. To those who ‘seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,’ God will add the increase of all that is necessary to them for their bodily life.

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.