Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Movable Calendar (Paschalion)

Friday of the Fifth 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 the holy Martyr Basil the presbyter of Ankyra.

No readings given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

April 4th – Civil Calendar
March 22nd – Church Calendar

1. The Hieromartyr Basil, Priest of Ankyra.

Under the Emperor Constantius there was much suffering at the hands of the Arians. At that time, Basil became known as a staunch defender of Orthodoxy and a true shepherd of his flock in Ankyra. When, after Constantius, Julian the Apostate came to the throne and began to persecute the Christians, Basil openly denounced this new wickedness and encouraged his people in the Faith. For this he was thrown into prison. When the Emperor Julian came to Ankyra, Basil was brought before him and he began to urge Basil to abandon the Christian Faith, promising him honors and wealth. Then Basil answered him: ‘I believe in my Christ, Whom you have denied and Who gave you this earthly kingdom, but He will shortly take this from you. How can you have no shame before the altar under which you were saved from death as an eight-year-old child when they sought to kill you? Therefore He will soon take this earthly kingdom from you, and your body shall not be buried when you have spewed forth your soul in bitter torments.’ Julian was furious and ordered that a strip of skin be torn from his body every day. And his torturers carried this out for seven days. When Basil was brought out again before the emperor, he tore a strip of his own flesh off and threw it into Julian’s face, shouting: ‘Take this and eat it, Julian, if such food is sweet to you, but Christ is life for me!’ This occurrence was noised in the town, and the emperor left Ankyra in secret out of shame and went to Antioch. And they continued to torture Basil with red-hot irons until he surrendered his soul to his Lord for Whom he had suffered so much. This was in the year 363.

2. St. Drosida.

The daughter of the Emperor Trajan, she was seized with five other women when they were gathering the bodies of the martyrs who had suffered for Christ by night, and was for this cruelly mutilated by the emperor. The five women were terribly tortured and at last thrown into molten copper, where they surrendered their souls to their Lord. But Drosida remained under strict imperial guard. However, she escaped from the court and after eight days she gave her soul into God’s hands.

3. Our Holy Father, the Martyr Efthymios (Euthymius).

He was born in the village of Dimitsana in the Peloponnese. As a boy, he lived as a Christian, but later he went to Romania and there gave himself over to great debauchery. In this debasement, the evil spirit led him to embrace Islam. No sooner had he done so than he began to repent bitterly. He returned to the Christian Faith and became a monk on the Holy Mountain. After several years spent in strict fasting and prayer, he made up his mind to die for Christ. With the blessing of his spiritual father, he went to Constantinople, where he somehow succeeded in gaining access to the grand vizier. He began to make the sign of the Cross in front of him, to praise Christ and to denounce Mohammed. After long-drawn-out torture, he was condemned to death and was slain on March 22nd, 1814, on Palm Sunday. Many miraculous healings of the sick were wrought through his relics. His precious head is in the Russian monastery of St. Panteleimon on the Holy Mountain. Thus this twenty-year-old youth first died to Christ and then died for Christ.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Even in His agony on the Cross, the Lord Jesus did not condemn sinners, but held up before His Father forgiveness for their sins, saying: ‘they know not what they do!’ Let us judge no man, that we be not condemned. For no one is certain that he will not, before his death, commit that very sin for which he has condemned his brother. St. Anastasios of Sinai teaches: ‘If you see someone sinning, do not condemn him, for you do not know how he will finish his life. That thief crucified with Christ was a murderer, and Judas was an apostle of Christ’s, but the thief entered Paradise and Judas went to perdition. If you see someone sin, you do not know his good works. For many sin in public and repent in private, and we see their sin but do not know of their repentance. Therefore, my brethren, let us condemn no man, that we be not condemned.’

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.