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The Holy and Great Sunday of Pascha
The commemoration of the holy Apostle Nathanael, and our holy father among the saints, Theodore the Sykeote, Bishop of Anastasioupolis.
No Fasting.
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.”
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.”
No reading given.
The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ 43]. The Lord said to His disciples:
11 27“All things were delivered to Me by My Father. And no one doth fully know the Son, except the Father; nor doth anyone fully know the Father, except the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son is willing to reveal Him. 28“Come to Me, all ye who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. 29“Take up My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble in heart; and ye shall find rest to your souls. 30“For My yoke is good and My burden is light.”
May 5th — Civil Calendar April 22nd — Church Calendar
1. Our Holy Father Theodore the Sykeote.
His birthplace was the village of Sykeon in Galatia, because of which he was named ‘the Sykeote’. While still a ten-year-old boy, Theodore gave himself to strict fasting and all-night vigils under the eye of an elder, Stephen, who lived in his house. His mother, Maria, was a rich widow and intended her son to devote himself to a soldier’s calling. But St George appeared to her in her sleep and told her that Theodore was destined for the service, not of an earthly king, but of the King of heaven. St George also appeared to Theodore many times, either to instruct him or to save him from some danger in which the evil demons had placed him. He also had several visions of the most holy Mother of God. Theodore’s asceticism exceeded in its severity the asceticism of all the other ascetics of his time. He tormented his body in hunger and thirst and iron girdles and standing all night in prayer. All this—only to link his soul in love to God and to achieve total mastery over his body. The merciful Lord’s love responded to Theodore’s love. He gave him great power over evil spirits and over all the ills and pains of men. He became known on all sides as a miraculous healer. For his great purity and devotion, he was chosen against his wishes as Bishop of Anastasioupolis. He spent eleven years in episcopal service, and then begged God to release him from this service in order to devote himself again to his beloved asceticism. After that, he returned to his monastery, where, in old age, he gave his soul to the Lord for whose sake he had undergone so much voluntary suffering. He died at the beginning of the reign of the Emperor Heraclius, in about 613.
2. The Holy Martyr Leonidas.
The father of Origen, he suffered for Christ in Alexandria in 202. First, by imperial decree, all his goods were confiscated and then he was condemned to death. Origen wrote to his father in prison: ‘Father, do not worry about us, and do not flee from martyrdom on our account.’
3. Our Holy Father, the Monk Vitalis.
In the time of Patriarch John the Merciful, a young monk appeared, who, as soon as he arrived, compiled a list of all the prostitutes in Alexandria. His way of asceticism was exceptional and singular. During the day he hired himself out for the heaviest work, and at night he went into the brothels, gave the money he had earned to some prostitute and shut himself in her room with her for the whole night. As soon as he had shut the door, Vitalis begged the woman to lie down and sleep, while he spent the entire night in a corner of the room in prayer to God for that sinner. So he kept the sinner from sinning even for one night. The second night he would go to another, the third to another, and so on in order until he had gone through them all, then he went back to the one with whom he had started. By his counsel, many of these sinners left their foul calling; some married, others went to a monastery and others began some honest work for payment. All these women were forbidden by Vitalis to say why he came to them. As a result, he became a scandal to the whole of Alexandria. People reviled him in the streets, spat on him and buffeted him. But he bore it all patiently, revealing his good works to the Lord but concealing them from men. When he died, all became known about him. There began to be many miraculous healings over his grave; people came from various places, bringing their sick to it. Spat on by men, he was and is glorified by the all-seeing God.
FOR CONSIDERATION
At the time of the Council of Nicaea, various quarrelsome clerics wrote accusations against one another and gave them to the Emperor. The Emperor Constantine took all these accusations, and without opening them, burned them in a brazier and said to the astonished bystanders: ‘If I were, with my own eyes, to see a bishop or priest or monk in some sinful act, I would cover him with my clothing, so that no-one should see him in his sin.’ Thus the great Christian Emperor put the scandalmongers to shame and shut their mouths. Our Faith forbids us to spy on the sins of others, and calls us to be merciless judges of ourselves. A sick man in hospital is occupied with his own sickness and has neither the desire nor the time to examine the other sick people and sneer at their illnesses. Are not we all, in this world, like sick men in hospital? And is it not common sense to occupy ourselves with our own sicknesses and not with another’s? Do not let anyone think that he will be healed of his sickness in this world. This world is the hospital and the place of healing, but in the other world there are no hospitals: there is either a king’s court or a prison.
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.
