Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Friday of the Third Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Acts of the Apostles [§ 21]. In those days:

8 ⁴⁰Philip was found in Azotos. And passing through, he preached the Gospel to all the cities till he came to Cæsarea.

9 ¹But Saul, still breathing in threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, ²and asked from him letters for himself to Damascus, to the synagogues, so that if he should find any being of the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. ³But as he was proceeding, it came to pass that he drew near to Damascus, and suddenly there flashed a light around him from the heaven. ⁴And he fell on the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” ⁵And he said, “Who art Thou, Lord?” And the Lord said, “I am Jesus Whom thou persecutest; ⁶“but rise up and enter into the city, and it shall be told thee what is needful for thee to do.” ⁷But the men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing, indeed, the voice, but seeing no one. ⁸And Saul was raised up from the ground; and when his eyes were opened he saw no one; but they led him by the hand, and brought him to Damascus. ⁹And he was three days not seeing, and neither ate nor drank.

¹⁰And there was a certain disciple in Damascus, by name Ananias; and the Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Behold, I am here, Lord.” ¹¹And the Lord said to him, “Arise and go to the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for a Tarsian, by name Saul; for behold, he prayeth. ¹²“And he saw in a vision a man, by name Ananias, who came in and laid his hand on him, so that he might recover his sight.” ¹³But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many concerning this man, how many bad things he did to Thy saints in Jerusalem. ¹⁴“And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all those who call upon Thy name.” ¹⁵But the Lord said to him, “Go thy way, for this one is a vessel of election to Me, to bear My name before the nations, and kings, and the sons of Israel. ¹⁶“For I will show him how much it is necessary for him to suffer for My name’s sake.” ¹⁷And Ananias went away and entered into the house. And having laid his hands upon him he said, “Saul, brother, the Lord, Jesus, Who appeared to thee in the way in which thou wast coming, hath sent me forth, in order that thou mightest recover sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” ¹⁸And straightway, as if scales fell from his eyes, he both recovered sight forthwith and rose up and was baptized. ¹⁹And having received food, he was strengthened.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 23]. The Lord said to the Jews who had believed in Him:

6 ⁴⁸“I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹“Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and died. ⁵⁰“This One is the bread, the One coming down out of the heavens, in order that anyone might eat of it and not die. ⁵¹“I am the bread, the living one, the One having come down out of the heavens; if anyone should eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And indeed the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” ⁵²Then the Jews began quarreling with one another, saying, “How is this One able to give us His flesh to eat?” ⁵³Then Jesus said to them, “Verily, verily, I say to you, unless ye should eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye are not having life in yourselves. ⁵⁴“The one who partaketh of My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up in the last day.”

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.