Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Tuesday of the Ninth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ 152]. Brethren:

12 ¹²Even as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the one body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ. ¹³For also by one Spirit were we all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and were all given to drink into one Spirit. ¹⁴For also the body is not one member, but many. ¹⁵If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it on account of this not of the body? ¹⁶And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it on account of this not of the body? ¹⁷If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? ¹⁸But now God Himself set the members, each one of them in the body, even as He willed. ¹⁹But if all were one member, where would the body be? ²⁰But now indeed are they many members, but one body. ²¹And the eye is not able to say to the hand, “I have no need of thee”; or again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” ²²But much rather the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. ²³And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, to these we bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness, ²⁴but our comely parts have no need. But God tempered the body, giving more abundant honor to that which lacked, ²⁵in order that there may not be a schism in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. ²⁶And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§§ 76, mid 77, mid 78]. The Lord said to His disciples:

18 ¹⁸“Verily I say to you, whatsoever ye shall bind on the earth shall have been bound in the heavens, and whatsoever ye shall loose on the earth shall have been loosed in the heavens. ¹⁹“Again I say to you, that if two of you should agree on the earth concerning any matter—whatsoever they ask for themselves—it shall come to pass for them from My Father Who is in the heavens. ²⁰“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.”

²¹Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?” ²²Jesus saith to him, “I say not to thee, ‘Until seven times,’ but, ‘Until seventy times seven.’”...

19 ¹And it came to pass, when Jesus finished these words, He departed from Galilee and came to the borders of Judæa on the other side of the Jordan. ²And great crowds followed Him; and He cured them there....

¹³Then little children were brought to Him, in order that He should lay His hands on them and pray; but the disciples rebuked them. ¹⁴But Jesus said, “Let alone the little children, and cease hindering them to come to Me; for of such is the kingdom of the heavens.” ¹⁵And He laid His hands upon them, and He departed from that place.

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the holy Seven Youths ("the Seven Sleepers") of Ephesus: Maximilianos, Exakoustodianos, Iamvlichos, Martinianos, Dionysios, John, and Constantine.

No readings given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

August 17th – Civil Calendar
August 4th – Church Calendar

1. The Seven Holy Youths of Ephesus.

There was a great persecution of Christians under the Emperor Decius. The emperor himself went to Ephesus, and there prepared a riotous festival in honor of dead idols and also a vicious slaughter of Christians. Seven youths, all of them soldiers, held themselves apart from the foul offering of sacrifice, and wholeheartedly begged the one God to save the Christian people. They were the sons of the most eminent nobles in Ephesus, and their names were: Maximilian, Iamblichus, Martinian, John, Dionysius, Exacustodian, and Antoninus. When they were accused before the emperor, they hid on a hill called Ochlon outside Ephesus, concealing themselves in a cave. When the emperor discovered this, he commanded that the cave be walled-in. God then, in His far-seeing providence, let a miraculous and long-lasting sleep fall on the young men. The imperial courtiers Theodore and Rufinus, secret Christians, caused a copper catafalque with leaden plaques to be made, on which were written the names of these young men and their death by martyrdom under the Emperor Decius. One hundred ninety-four years then passed. In the time of the Emperor Theodosios the Younger (408-450), there arose a great dispute about the resurrection of the dead, for there were some who doubted the resurrection. Emperor Theodosios was greatly grieved at this dispute among the faithful, and prayed God that He would in some way reveal the truth to the people. At that time of altercation in the Church, some shepherds of a certain Adolios, who owned Ochlon, began building pens for their sheep and took stone after stone from this cave. Then the youths awoke from their sleep, young and in full health as they had fallen asleep. This marvel was noised abroad on all sides, and Theodosios himself came with a great retinue and spoke apart with the young men. After a week, they prayed to God to take them from the clamor of the world, and again entered into sleep, the sleep of death, to await the general resurrection. The emperor wanted to place their bodies in golden coffins, but they appeared to him in a dream and told him to leave them in the earth, as they had been.

2. The New-Hieromartyr Kosmas, Equal to the Apostles.

Born in Aitolia, in the village of Megadendron (Great Tree), he went off to the Holy Mountain as a young man and there, in the monastery of Philotheou, was tonsured as a monk. But, urged by a constant desire to preach the Gospel to the people, he went to Constantinople, where he asked the blessing of Patriarch Seraphim II for this. He visited all the Danube area, preaching the Gospel, working especially in Albania, where he suffered at the hands of a certain Kurt Pasha, who was stirred up by the Jews against Kosmas. Kosmas was strangled by the Turks and then cast into a river, in 1779. His wonder-working relics are preserved in the village of Kalikontasi, in the church of the holy Mother of God, not far from the town of Berati. He suffered for his Lord at the age of sixty-five.

FOR CONSIDERATION

‘Keep on asking, and it shall be given you,’ says the Lord (Matt. 7:7). As parents give to their children all that they ask for that is good for them, so our God, in His love for mankind, gives to men all that they ask of Him that is of aid to their salvation. St. Kosmas, as a monk of the Holy Mountain, begged two things of God: to preach the Gospel to the people and to suffer a martyr for the Faith. For a monk of the Holy Mountain, linked by obedience to his monastery, these two desires might have seemed unlikely of fulfillment. But God is almighty. God perfectly fulfilled both of Kosmas’ desires. His joy when he received the patriarch’s blessing to leave the Holy Mountain and go among the people to preach the Gospel was indescribable, and he had another similar moment of joy when the servants of the Turkish pasha announced that, according to the pasha’s orders, he must die. Full of joy, the saint fell to his knees, thanking God for having fulfilled this wish also, and he gave his body to death and his soul to the living God.

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.