Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Special Commemorations

The Saturday After the Exaltation of the Cross

Epistle

The Reading is from the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ mid 125].

For Gk. usage, see 1 Cor. 1:26-2:5; for Sl. usage, see 1 Cor. 1:26-29.

1 ²⁶Brethren, ye see your calling, that there are not many wise according to the flesh, not many powerful, not many well-born. ²⁷But God chose for Himself the foolish things of the world, that He may put to shame the wise; and God chose for Himself the weak things of the world, that He may put to shame the mighty things. ²⁸And God chose for Himself the low-born of the world and the despised, and the things that are nothing, that He might make of no effect the things that are, ²⁹so that no flesh should boast before Him. ³⁰But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, Who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, ³¹in order that, even as it hath been written: “He that boasteth, in the Lord let him boast [cf. Jer. 9:23, 24].”

2 ¹And I, brethren, having come to you, came not according to excellency of speech or of wisdom, announcing to you the testimony of God. ²For I decided not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ, even this One Who was crucified. ³And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. ⁴And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 30]. The Lord said to the Jews who had come to Him:

8 ²¹“I am going away, and ye shall seek Me, and shall die in your sin. Where I am going, ye are not able to come.” ²²Then the Jews were saying, “He will not kill Himself, will He, because He saith, ‘Where I am going, ye are not able to come’?” ²³And He said to them, “Ye are from beneath; I am from above. Ye are of this world; I am not of this world. ²⁴“I said therefore to you that ye shall die in your sins; for if ye do not come to believe that I am, ye shall die in your sins.” ²⁵Then they were saying to Him, “Thou, Who art Thou?” And Jesus said to them, “Altogether that which even I am saying to you. ²⁶“I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but the One Who sendeth Me is true; and what I heard from Him, these things I speak to the world.” ²⁷They knew not that He was speaking to them of the Father. ²⁸Then Jesus said to them, “Whenever ye lift up the Son of Man, then ye shall know that I am, and I do nothing of Myself; but even as the Father taught Me, these things I speak. ²⁹“And the One Who sent Me is with Me. The Father did not leave Me alone, for I always do the things pleasing to Him.” ³⁰As He spoke these things, many believed in Him.

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Saturday of the Eighteenth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ 162]. Brethren:

15 ³⁹Not all flesh is the same flesh, but there is indeed one kind of flesh of men, and another of beasts, and another of fish, and another of birds. ⁴⁰And there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; but indeed, the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. ⁴¹There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differeth from star in glory. ⁴²So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. ⁴³It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. ⁴⁴It is sown an animal body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is an animal body, and there is a spiritual body. ⁴⁵And so it hath been written: “The first man Adam became a living soul [cf. Gen. 2:7]; the last Adam became a life-creating Spirit.”

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke [§ 74]. At that time:

14 ¹Jesus entered into a house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees on a sabbath to eat bread; and they themselves were watching Him closely. ²And behold, there was a certain man before Him suffering from dropsy. ³And Jesus, answering, spoke to the doctors of the law and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?” ⁴But they became silent. And He took hold of him, and healed him, and let him go. ⁵And He answered and said to them, “Who is there among you, whose son or ox shall fall into a well, and he will not straightway draw him up on the sabbath day?” ⁶And they were not able to answer Him again to these things. ⁷And He was speaking a parable to those who were invited, aiming at how they kept on choosing for themselves the chief places, saying to them, ⁸“Whenever thou art invited by anyone to wedding festivities, do not begin to recline at table in the chief place, lest perchance one more honorable than thou may have been invited by him; ⁹“and the one who invited thee and him, having come, shall say to thee, ‘Give this one place’; and then thou begin with shame to occupy the lowest place. ¹⁰“But whenever thou art invited, go and recline at table in the lowest place, that whenever the one who hath invited thee should come, he might say to thee, ‘Friend, go up higher’; then there shall be honor to thee before those who recline at table with thee. ¹¹“For everyone who exalteth himself shall be humbled, and the one who humbleth himself shall be exalted.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the Afterfeast of the Exaltation, and the holy Great-martyr Efstathios and those with him.

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians [§ 233].

6 ¹⁰Brethren, keep on being empowered in the Lord and in the strength of His might. ¹¹Put on the full armor of God, for you to be able to stand against the wiles of the devil; ¹²because for us the wrestling is not against blood and flesh, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the cosmic rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of evil on account of the heavenly things. ¹³For this cause take up the full armor of God, in order that ye might be able to withstand in the evil day, and having counteracted all things, to stand. ¹⁴Stand therefore, having girt your loins with truth, and having put on for yourselves the breastplate of righteousness, ¹⁵and having shod your feet in readiness of the Gospel of peace; ¹⁶on the whole, take up the shield of faith, with which ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. ¹⁷And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke [§ 106]. The Lord said to His disciples, “Be taking heed of men:

21 ¹²“For they shall lay their hands upon you and persecute you, delivering you up to synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors on account of My name; ¹³“but it shall prove to be a testimony for you. ¹⁴“Therefore settle it for yourselves in your hearts not to premeditate to make a defense; ¹⁵“for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all those who oppose you shall not be able to contradict nor withstand. ¹⁶“And ye shall be delivered up also by parents, and kinfolk, and friends, and brethren; and they shall put some of you to death. ¹⁷“And ye shall be hated by all for My name’s sake. ¹⁸“But a hair of your head in no wise shall perish. ¹⁹“In your patience win your souls.”

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

October 3rd – Civil Calendar
September 20th – Church Calendar

1. The Holy and Great Martyr Efstathios (Eustace), the General Placidus.

He was a great Roman military leader in the time of the Emperors Titus and Trajan. Although a pagan, Placidus (for that was his pagan name) was a righteous and merciful man, like the centurion Cornelius, who was baptized by the Apostle Peter (Acts 10). Going hunting one day, he found a stag. By the providence of God, a shining Cross appeared among the stag’s antlers and the voice of God came to Placidus, telling him to go to a Christian bishop and be baptized. Placidus was baptized, along with his wife and two sons. At his Baptism, he received the name Efstathios, his wife the name Theopiste and their sons the names Agapius and Theopistus. After his Baptism, Efstathios went back to the very place where the revelation through the stag had occurred, and thanked God on his knees that he had brought him to the truth. At that, the voice of God came to him again, foretelling suffering for His name and strengthening him. Then Efstathios secretly left Rome with his family, with the intention of hiding among simple people and serving God in an unknown and humble way. Arriving in Egypt, he was immediately beset by trials. Some wicked barbarian carried off his wife, and his two sons were seized by wild beasts. But the barbarian quickly came to a bad end, and a herdsman saved the boys from the wild beasts. Efstathios settled in the Palestinian village of Vadisis, and there lived as a village hireling for fifteen years. After this, the barbarians descended on the Roman Empire, and the Emperor Trajan was sorry that his brave commander Placidus, who had been victorious wherever he had fought, was not with him. The emperor sent his officers to seek the great general throughout the empire. By God’s providence, these officers, who had been friends of Efstathios, came to this village of Vadisis, found him and took him to the emperor. Efstathios gathered the army together and defeated the barbarians. On the way back to Rome, Efstathios went and found his wife and sons. When he arrived in Rome, the Emperor Trajan had died and the Emperor Hadrian was on the throne. When Hadrian summoned Efstathios to offer sacrifice to idols, Efstathios told him that he was a Christian. The emperor put him to torture, together with his wife and sons. When the wild beasts did them no harm, he threw them into a white-hot metal ox. On the third day, they took out their bodies, dead but untouched by the fire. Thus this glorious general gave to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God that which is God’s, and entered into the eternal kingdom of Christ our God.

2. The Hieromartyr Hypatios, Bishop of Ephesus, and Andrew the Priest.

Two childhood friends, born in Lycia, they both gave themselves with their whole souls to the service of God when they grew up, Hypatios as a strict monk and ascetic, and Andrew as a priest among the people and a preacher of the word of God. For his great virtues, Hypatios was made Bishop of Ephesus, and Andrew was made priest in the same city. They both suffered in the time of the iconoclast Emperor Leo the Isaurian. After terrible tortures for Orthodoxy, they were beheaded in 730, and both went from this transitory world to eternal life.

3. The Holy Prince Michael and his Counselor Theodore.

Prince Michael (Mikhail) of Chernigov went to the Tartar horde with his counselor, Theodore (Fedor), at the invitation of their ruler, Bati. When they refused to follow the Tartar custom of passing through fire and worshiping idols on being received by Bati, they were beheaded, in 1244. Their relics, the witnesses of their death by martyrdom for the sake of Christ, are preserved in the Church of the Archangel in Moscow.

4. Our Holy Father, the Martyr Hilarion

A monk of the Holy Mountain, he suffered voluntarily for the Christian Faith at the hands of the Turks in Constantinople on September 20th, 1804. His wonder-working relics are preserved in the Church of the Transfiguration on the island of Proti.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Suicide is a sin against the Holy Spirit, Who gives life. Suicide is a much graver sin than murder, as a man can yet repent of murder, while there is no repentance for the sin of suicide. Here are two examples of the greatest misfortune, in which a man of little soul would have committed suicide, but in which holy men of God showed themselves heroic. St. Efstathios found himself one day in this predicament: he had left one of his sons on one bank of the river while he carried the other to the opposite bank and returned for the second. Coming to the middle of the river, he looked on one bank and saw a lion seize the son that was there and carry him off; he looked at the other bank and saw a wolf grab hold of his son and carry him off. One little of soul would, in such a situation, have drowned himself in the river and made an end. Efstathios, filled with grief, did not kill himself, but with hope in God, lived for fifteen years as a hireling and waited with patience to see his two sons again. And God rewarded his faith and patience.

St. Hilarion was constrained as a young man to embrace Islam, but his conscience began to torment him and he had no peace. He returned to the Christian Faith, became a monk and gave his body to strict fasting and the harshest asceticism, but spiritual peace did not return to him. Therefore, he went to Constantinople with his spiritual father, Vissarion, and not only confessed his faith in Christ openly at the sultan’s court, but also counseled Bash Agha to go to Russia and be baptized. After ridicule and torture, this brave young man was beheaded, and God glorified him in heaven and on earth. His holy relics have wonder-working power to this day. But where is the glory of the suicide? Where are his relics?

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.