Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Monday of the Twelfth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Second Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ 179]. Brethren:

5 ¹⁰We must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of the Christ, in order that each one might receive for oneself the things done through the agency of the body, according to what one did, whether good or bad. ¹¹Knowing, therefore, the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade men; but we have been made manifest to God, and I hope also to have been made manifest in your consciences. ¹²For we commend not ourselves again to you, but are giving you an occasion of boasting on our behalf, that ye may have somewhat to face those who boast in what is for show and not in heart. ¹³For whether we are beside ourselves, it is for God; or if we are of sound mind, it is for you. ¹⁴For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we judged this: that if One died for all, then all died; ¹⁵and He died for all, in order that they who are living no longer are living to themselves, but to Him Who died for them and was raised.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Mark [§ 2]. In those days:

1 ⁹Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰And straightway, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens being parted, and the Spirit as a dove descending upon Him; ¹¹and there came to be a voice out of the heavens, “Thou art My Son, the Beloved, in Thee I am well pleased.”

¹²And straightway, the Spirit driveth Him forth into the desert. ¹³And He was there in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan; and He was with the wild beasts; and the angels were ministering to Him.

¹⁴Now after John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the Gospel of the kingdom of God, ¹⁵and saying, “The time hath been fulfilled, and the kingdom of God hath drawn near; repent ye and believe ye in the Gospel.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of Hieromartyr Eftychios, disciple of St. John the Theologian.

No readings given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

September 6th – Civil Calendar
August 24th – Church Calendar

1. The Hieromartyr Eftyches.

One of the lesser apostles, born in Sebastopol, he was a disciple and friend of the Apostles John the Theologian and Paul. Although he was not included in the Seventy, he was called an apostle by virtue of having been a disciple of the great apostles, and because he showed true apostolic zeal in the service of the Gospel. Consecrated as a missionary bishop, St. Eftyches travelled widely, having an angel as a companion, and he also received heavenly bread from an angel while in prison. When his body was flayed with serrated iron rods, his blood ran down mingled with a sweet myrrh. He was thrown into the flames and before wild beasts, and was finally beheaded with the sword in Sebastopol.

2. The Holy Martyr Tation.

Born in Mantinaeas near Claudioupolis in Bithynia, he suffered under Diocletian. After harsh torture, he was buried alive and thus gave his holy soul into God’s hands.

3. The Holy Martyr Syra.

A kinswoman of St. Golinduc (July 12th), she was a Persian, the daughter of an eminent priest of fire-worship. Brought up in paganism, the maiden Syra heard of Christ from some godly Christian woman, and her little heart became inflamed with love for the Lord. In a time of sickness, while still unbaptized, she begged dust from the church of the Christian priest, but he refused to give it to her in her unbaptized state. Then she, with great faith, touched the priest’s garments and was healed. This miraculous healing confirmed her yet more fully in the Christian Faith. Her soulless father put her to harsh torture, during which she received encouragement and support from heavenly visions. Cruelly strangled with a cord and then drowned, in 558 at the age of eighteen, in the time of the Persian King Chozroes I, this holy maiden thus gloriously finished her earthly course and entered into the heavenly community of the angels.

4. Our Holy Father Arseny of Komel.

Born in Moscow of noble parents, he received the monastic schema as a young man in the community of St. Sergius of Radonezh. A model monk, he was chosen as abbot, but he yearned for a life of prayerful solitude and withdrew to the forest of Komel, where he lived in asceticism till his death, fighting courageously with great diabolical temptations. He entered into rest in the Lord in 1550.

5. St. George Limniotes (“of the Lake”).

A confessor and a great ascetic of Olympus, he suffered in about 216, at the age of ninety-five.

In the Greek Great Synaxarion, St. Dionysius, Archbishop of Aegina, who died in 1624, is also commemorated (translation of his relics). Many miracles have been wrought over his relics.

FOR CONSIDERATION

If you ask many people why they do not go to church, they usually reply: ‘I haven’t got time; I must work.’ Look at these people, who only work and never go to church, devoting themselves only to their work, and compare them with people who set aside time both for work and for prayer, and you will soon be convinced that these latter are different. They are better-off, and which is more important, more contented. It is told of two neighbors who were tailors that they were very different in their work and in their prayer, in their possessions and in their contentment. One of them had a large family and the other was single. The first had the habit of going to church each morning, and the lone one never went to church. The first not only worked less, but was a less skilled workman than the other, but he had all he needed and the other was in straitened circumstances. The latter asked the former how it was that he had everything although he worked less. The prayerful man replied that he went to church every day, and found some gold on the way. He invited his neighbor to go with him to pray, promising that they would share the gold that they found. His neighbor began going regularly to church, and they both soon became one in their abundance and their contentment. They found no gold on the road, but the gold of God’s blessing increased the abundance of these true men of prayer. To those who ‘seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,’ God will add the increase of all that is necessary to them for their bodily life.

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.