Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Friday of the Fourth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Acts of the Apostles [§ 27]. In those days:

10 ⁴⁴While Peter still spoke these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those hearing the word. ⁴⁵And the faithful who were of the circumcision were amazed, as many as came with Peter, because also upon the Gentiles was poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit. ⁴⁶For they were hearing them speaking with tongues and magnifying God. Peter then answered, ⁴⁷“No one is able to forbid the water, is he, so that these should not be baptized who received the Holy Spirit even as we?” ⁴⁸And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then they asked him to tarry some days.

11 ¹And the apostles and the brethren who were in Judæa heard that the Gentiles also received the word of God. ²And when Peter went up to Jerusalem, they who were of the circumcision were taking issue with him, ³saying, “Thou wentest to men having uncircumcision, and thou didst eat with them.” ⁴But Peter, having made a beginning, was expounding the matter to them in order, saying, ⁵“I was in the city of Joppa praying; and I saw in a state of ecstasy a vision, a certain vessel descending as a great sheet being let down by four corners from out of the heaven—and it came even to me— ⁶“into which, after I looked intently, I was considering, and saw the quadrupeds of the earth, and the beasts, and the creeping things, and the birds of the heaven. ⁷“And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise up, Peter, slay and eat.’ ⁸“But I said, ‘Not at all, Lord; for never did anything common or unclean enter into my mouth.’ ⁹“And a voice answered me for the second time out of the heaven, ‘What God cleansed, cease thou making common.’ ¹⁰“And this took place thrice; and all were drawn up again into the heaven.”

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 30]. The Lord said to the Jews who had come to Him:

8 ²¹“I am going away, and ye shall seek Me, and shall die in your sin. Where I am going, ye are not able to come.” ²²Then the Jews were saying, “He will not kill Himself, will He, because He saith, ‘Where I am going, ye are not able to come’?” ²³And He said to them, “Ye are from beneath; I am from above. Ye are of this world; I am not of this world. ²⁴“I said therefore to you that ye shall die in your sins; for if ye do not come to believe that I am, ye shall die in your sins.” ²⁵Then they were saying to Him, “Thou, Who art Thou?” And Jesus said to them, “Altogether that which even I am saying to you. ²⁶“I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but the One Who sendeth Me is true; and what I heard from Him, these things I speak to the world.” ²⁷They knew not that He was speaking to them of the Father. ²⁸Then Jesus said to them, “Whenever ye lift up the Son of Man, then ye shall know that I am, and I do nothing of Myself; but even as the Father taught Me, these things I speak. ²⁹“And the One Who sent Me is with Me. The Father did not leave Me alone, for I always do the things pleasing to Him.” ³⁰As He spoke these things, many believed in Him.

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.