Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Movable Calendar (Paschalion)

Friday of the Third Week of the Great Fast

There is No Divine Liturgy This Day Because of the Great Fast.

No readings given.

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of our holy father, Theophylactos, Bishop of Nicomedia.

No readings given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

March 21st – Civil Calendar
March 8th – Church Calendar

1. St. Theophylact, Bishop of Nikomedia.

When the emperor’s chief counselor, Tarasios, was, while still a layman, chosen as Patriarch of Constantinople, many were then given the monastic schema by him. These were laymen, friends and admirers of Tarasios, among whom was Theophylact. Tarasios sent him as bishop to Nikomedia. As a bishop, he was a good pastor to his flock and showed a rare compassion towards the poor and wretched. After the death of St. Tarasios, Nikephoros succeeded to the patriarchal throne in Constantinople, and shortly after that, Leo the Armenian came to the imperial throne. The latter was an iconoclast, and as such, stirred up a veritable storm in the Church of Christ. Although the iconoclast heresy had been proscribed by the Seventh Ecumenical Council, this emperor restored it and tried to displace Orthodoxy. St. Theophylact withstood the emperor to his face, and when the latter would not retract, said to him: ‘O king, great destruction will come upon you, and you will not find anyone to deliver you from it.’ For speaking thus St. Theophylact was, at the emperor’s command, deposed from his seat and sent into exile, where he spent thirty years enduring many difficulties and insults and where he finally gave his soul to the Lord in about 845.

2. The Hieromartyr Theodoretus.

The Emperor Constantine built a cathedral in Antioch, and adorned it with great beauty. The people named this church ‘the golden church,’ because of the exterior and interior gold-work and because of the amount of gold and silver plate in the church. The emperor also gave this church vast lands for the support of the clergy, whose number was considerable. The custodian of these vessels and all the precious things in the church was the priest Theodoretus, a man of great faith and rare devotion. When Julian the Apostate came to the throne, he denied Christ although he was baptized, and launched a persecution of Christians. His uncle, also called Julian, came to Antioch and plundered the golden church, brought Theodoretus, as the treasurer, to trial and put pressure on him to deny Christ. Theodoretus not only refused to deny Christ, but he also scolded the Emperor Julian for having fallen back from the true Faith and turned back to idol-worship as a dog to vomit. When the evil judge, out of capriciousness, urinated in the golden church, Theodoretus prophesied a terrible death for him, which soon overtook him. Theodoretus was beheaded with an axe for the sake of Christ, and the judge, Julian, felt pains in his abdomen from the time he had urinated in the church. His whole abdomen was rotted by worms and he vomited up his apostate soul in the most terrible torments. Also Felix, an assistant of his, in fulfillment of Theodoretus’ prophecy, died of a hemorrhage from the mouth immediately after the righteous man had been beheaded. St. Theodoretus was beheaded in 362 and went to the glorious kingdom of Christ the King.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Have more confidence in God than in your mother; confess everything to Him, and He will not betray you; receive all His commandments as good, and He will not deceive you. For insofar as you have confidence in God, so far will you be cautious towards your enemies, towards the world, the flesh and the devil. St. Ephraim the Syrian expressed all this better: ‘In receiving God’s commandments, have simplicity, but in the rejection of hostile plots, have cunning (the dove and the serpent).’

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.