Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Wednesday of the Twenty-First Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Colossians [§ 251]. Brethren:

1 ¹⁸Christ is the head of the body, the Church, Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might come to hold first place. ¹⁹For all the fullness was pleased to dwell in Him; ²⁰and through Him to reconcile all things to Him, having made peace through the blood of His Cross, through Him, whether the things on the earth or the things in the heavens. ²¹And you, being once alienated and enemies in your mind, in wicked works, yet now did He reconcile ²²in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and blameless and without reproach before Him— ²³if indeed ye continue abiding in the faith, firmly founded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the Gospel which ye heard, and which was proclaimed in all the creation which is under the heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke [§ 61]. The Lord said to those Jews who had come to Him:

11 ⁴²“Woe to you, the Pharisees! For ye tithe the mint and the rue and every herb, and pass by the judgment and the love of God. These ye ought to have done, and not to keep on leaving aside those others. ⁴³“Woe to you, the Pharisees! For ye love the first seat in the synagogues and the greetings in the marketplaces. ⁴⁴“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are as the graves which are unseen, and the men who are walking over them do not know it.” ⁴⁵And answering, one of the doctors of the law saith to Him, “Teacher, when Thou sayest these things, Thou insultest us also.” ⁴⁶And He said, “Woe to you also, the doctors of the law! For ye burden men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the holy Apostles Stachys, Amplias, Urbanos, Narcissus, Apelles, and Aristoboulos of the Seventy.

No readings given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

November 13th – Civil Calendar
October 31st – Church Calendar

1. The Holy Apostles Stachys, Amplias, Urban, Narcissus, Apelles and Aristobulus.

They were of the Seventy. St. Stachys was a helper of St. Andrew the First-Called, who made him bishop of Byzantium. He built a church in Argyropolis, and governed his flock with faithfulness and zeal. After sixteen years as bishop, he entered peacefully into rest in the Lord. Amplias and Urban were also fellow-workers with St. Andrew, and were made bishop by him, Amplias in Lydda and Urban in Macedonia. They both died as martyrs for Christ the Lord. Narcissus was made Bishop of Athens by the Apostle Philip, and holy Apelles was Bishop of Heraklion in Trachis. Aristobulus, the brother of the Apostle Barnabas, preached the Christian Faith in Britain and died peacefully there. He is also commemorated on March 16th.

2. The Holy Martyr Epimachus.

Born in Egypt, he lived there in asceticism, and there finished his earthly course a martyr. In imitation of St. John the Baptist, he went off as a young man into the desert. In response to his great love for God, the Spirit of God instructed him in all truth, and with no other teacher, taught him how to live the ascetic life. Epimachus discovered how the pagans were torturing and slaughtering the Christians in Alexandria, so, all afire with zeal for the Faith, he went to the city and knocked down the idols. When the pagans began to torture him for this, he cried out: ‘Smite me, spit on me, put a crown of thorns on my head and a reed in my hand; give me gall to drink, crucify me and pierce me with a spear. The Lord endured all that, and I want to endure it!’ In the vast crowd that was watching the martyrdom of holy Epimachus, there was one woman with a blind eye. She wept bitterly on witnessing the soulless torture of the man of God, and when the torturers flayed his holy body, blood spurted from it and a drop fell on her eye. Suddenly she could see, and her blind eye became as whole as the other. Then the woman cried out: ‘Great is the God in Whom this sufferer believes!’ After that, St. Epimachus was beheaded and his soul entered into eternal joy, in about 250.

3. The Holy Martyr Nicholas of Chios.

A devout young man and a great zealot for the Christian Faith, Nicholas was born in the village of Karyes on the island of Chios. He was tortured and beheaded by the Turks in 1754, and gave his righteous soul into God’s hands.

4. Our Holy Fathers Spiridon and Nicodemus.

They were monks and prosphora-makers in the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev. Spiridon was illiterate, but he knew the whole Psalter by heart and worked miracles during his lifetime. He entered into rest in 1148.

FOR CONSIDERATION

‘He that taketh not his cross and followeth after Me is not worthy of Me’ (Matt. 10:38), says the Lord. Our holy father, the martyr Timothy of Esphigmenou (Oct. 29th) was at first a married man with two daughters. Later, as a monk, he resolved to suffer for Christ, and being already prepared for the road to suffering, asked his abbot’s blessing to return to his village of Kessana, to see his daughters and take leave of them. The abbot did not permit this, fearing that Timothy’s meeting with his daughters would soften him and turn him back from martyrdom for the Faith. But Timothy’s village lay on the way to Propontis, his destination. When he got to his village, he met one of his neighbors, chatted with him and sent greetings to his daughters through him. The neighbor urged him to turn back and see his daughters, and rest a little, but in vain; Timothy took his leave and hurriedly escaped, continuing on his way. His daughters, hearing from the neighbor about their father, hurried after him. And now a rare sight was seen: the daughters were hurrying to overtake and embrace their father, and the father was fleeing from his daughters in order not to sin against the abbot’s command. The daughters moved quickly, but he yet more quickly. The daughters hastened to embrace their father, and Timothy, fleeing from them, hastened to embrace death. The daughters became exhausted and turned back in despair, and the father slipped away. At the time of his death, Timothy asked his spiritual father, Germanos, to return to his village and tell his daughters of their father’s death by martyrdom. Germanos carried out the errand. The Turks beheaded Timothy and threw his body into a river, and Germanos managed to save only one of the martyr’s garments, which he took to Kessana. He found Timothy’s daughters and recounted to them the heroic death of their father, showing them the garment.

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.