Daily Devotional

Sunday, November 14, 2027 (NS), November 1, 2027 (OS)

No Fasting.

The first Sunday in November: The Synaxis of the holy Unmercenary Physicians

Sunday of the Twenty-First Week

Mode Four — Tenth Eothinon

The commemoration of the holy Wonder-workers and Unmercenaries Kosmas and Damian.

Jump to Prologue

Scripture Readings

Special Commemorations

The first Sunday in November: The Synaxis of the holy Unmercenary Physicians

Epistle

The Reading is from the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ 153]. Brethren:

12 ²⁷Ye are the body of Christ, and members severally.

²⁸And God set for Himself some in the Church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then works of power, then free gifts of healings, helps, governments, kinds of tongues. ²⁹All are not apostles, are they? All are not prophets, are they? All are not teachers, are they? All do not have works of power, do they? ³⁰All do not have free gifts of healings, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? ³¹All do not interpret, do they? But keep on desiring earnestly the better gifts of grace. And yet I show you a more surpassing way.

13 ¹If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but I have not love, I have become as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophecy, and know all the mysteries and all the knowledge, and if I have all the faith, so as to remove mountains from one place to another, but I have not love, I am nothing. ³And if I dole out all of my goods, and if I deliver up my body that I may be burned, but I have not love, I am being profited nothing. ⁴Love is long-suffering, is kind; love is not jealous; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up; ⁵doth not behave unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, thinketh no evil; ⁶rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; ⁷covereth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. ⁸Love never falleth away.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ mid 34]. At that time:

10 ¹After Jesus called to Himself His twelve disciples, He gave to them authority over unclean spirits, so as to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every weakness.... ⁵These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, “Do not begin to go into the way of the nations, and do not begin to enter into a city of the Samaritans. ⁶“But go rather to the sheep, the lost of the house of Israel. ⁷“And as ye go, be preaching, saying, ‘The kingdom of the heavens hath drawn near.’ ⁸“Be healing the sick, cleansing lepers, raising the dead, casting out demons; freely ye received, freely give.”

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Sunday of the Twenty-First Week

Mode Four — Tenth Eothinon

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Galatians [§ 203]. Brethren:

2 ¹⁶Knowing then that a man is not being justified by the works of the law, except through faith in Jesus Christ, even we believed in Christ Jesus, in order that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. ¹⁷But if, while we sought to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also were found sinners, is then Christ a minister of sin? May it not be! ¹⁸For if I build again these things which I destroyed, I constitute myself a transgressor. ¹⁹For I through the law died to the law, in order that I might live to God. ²⁰I have been crucified with Christ; and I no longer live, but Christ liveth in me; and the life that I now live in the flesh I live in faith, in that of the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Luke [§ 83]. The Lord said:

16 ¹⁹“There was a certain rich man, and he was clothing himself in purple and fine linen, making merry in splendor every day. ²⁰“And there was a certain beggar, by name Lazarus, who was full of sores and was cast toward his gateway, ²¹“and was desiring to be fed from the crumbs that were falling from the table of the rich man; yea, even the dogs, which came were licking his sores. ²²“And it fell due for the beggar to die and for him to be carried away by the angels into the bosom of Abraham; and the rich man also died, and was buried. ²³“And in Hades, being in torments, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham from afar, and Lazarus in his bosom. ²⁴“And he cried aloud and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he might dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am suffering pain in this flame.’ ²⁵“But Abraham said, ‘Child, be mindful that thou didst have rendered to thee thy good things in thy life, and Lazarus likewise the bad things; but now, here, he is being comforted and thou art suffering pain; ²⁶“‘and besides all these things, between us and you a great chasm hath been firmly fixed, so that those wishing to pass through from this place to you are not able, nor may they pass through from that place to us.’ ²⁷“And he said, ‘I beg thee then, father, that thou wouldest send him to the house of my father, ²⁸“‘for I have five brothers, in order that he may bear witness to them, lest they also should come to this place of torment.’ ²⁹“Abraham saith to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ ³⁰“But he said, ‘By no means, father Abraham; but if one from the dead should go to them, they will repent.’ ³¹“And he said to him, ‘If they hear not Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if one should rise from the dead.’”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the holy Wonder-workers and Unmercenaries Kosmas and Damian.

Epistle

The Reading is from the First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians [§ 153]. Brethren:

12 ²⁷Ye are the body of Christ, and members severally.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§ mid 34]. At that time:

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

November 14th – Civil Calendar
November 1st – Church Calendar

1. Ss. Kosmas and Damian.

Ss Cosmas and Damian. Unmercenaries and wonder-workers, they were brothers in the flesh and in the spirit, born somewhere in Asia of a pagan father and a Christian mother. After their father’s death, their mother, Theodota, devoted all her time and energy to the bringing-up of her sons as true Christians. God helped her, and her sons grew as two choice fruits and as two holy lamps. They were skilled in medicine and ministered to the sick without payment, and so fulfilled Christ’s command: ‘Freely have ye received; freely give’ (Matt. 10: 8). They were so strict in their unpaid ministry to men that Kosmas became greatly enraged with his brother Damian when he took three eggs from a woman, Palladia, and gave orders that, after his death, he should not be buried with his brother. In fact, holy Damian had not taken those eggs as a reward for healing Palladia’s sickness, but because she had sworn by the Most Holy Trinity that he should have them. However, after their death in Fereman, they were buried together in obedience to a revelation from God. These two holy brothers were great wonder-workers both during their lifetime and after their death. A farm laborer, on lying down to sleep at one time, was attacked by a snake, which entwined itself around his mouth and stomach. This poor man would have breathed his last in the greatest torment had he not at the last moment invoked the help of Saints Kosmas and Damian. Thus the Lord glorified forever by miracles those who glorified Him here on earth by their faith, purity and mercy.

2. The Holy Martyr Hermenegild the Heir.

He was the son of the Gothic King Luvigeld, who held the Arian heresy. Hermenegild, however, did not turn from Orthodoxy, in spite of the flattery and threats of his brutal, heretic father. His father threw him into prison, and on Pascha, sent a heretic bishop early in the morning to give him Communion. This man of God would not receive Communion at the hands of a heretic; a fact that the bishop passed on to the king. The king was furious, and ordered the executioners to cut off Hermenegild’s head, which came to pass in 586. Luvigeld later repented of having killed his son and recognized his heresy, but he never officially returned to Orthodoxy before his death.

3. Our Holy Father, the Martyr Iakovos, with his disciples Iakovos and Dionysius.

He was born in the diocese of Kastoria, of parents called Martin and Paraskeve. Working as a shepherd, Iakovos became rich and thus incurred the envy of his brother, who reported him to the Turks as having found some money in the ground. Iakovos fled to Constantinople, where he became poor. He was once the guest of a Turkish bey. The Turks were eating meat, but Iakovos was fasting. The bey said: ‘Your Christian Faith is indeed great!’ and he related how his wife had been sick in mind and how, after trying all doctors and medicines, he had taken her to the patriarch for prayers to be read over her. As soon as the patriarch opened the book to read, a heavenly light filled the church. When the prayer was ended, his wife was made whole. Iakovos, hearing how the bey extolled the Christian Faith, gave away all that he had and went to the Holy Mountain, where he became a monk in the monastery of Iviron. He lived in asceticism on the Holy Mountain, and suffered for the Faith at the hands of the Turks in Jedrene on November 1st, 1520. His wonder-working relics and those of his disciples are preserved in the monastery of St. Anastasia near Thessalonica.

FOR CONSIDERATION

St. Hilarion of Meglin waged a fierce battle against the Bogomils. At one time, the leaders of the Bogomils came to Hilarion and began to dispute with him about faith. The Bogomils taught that God created the spiritual world, but that the material world was the work of the devil. Hilarion replied to this that it is written in the Scriptures: ‘God is the King of all the earth’ (Ps. 46:7), and also: ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof’ (Ps. 23:1). The Bogomils asserted that the Old Testament was of the devil. To this the saint replied: ‘If the Old Testament indeed came from the devil, could Christ have said: “Search the Scriptures: they testify of Me” (John 5:39), and could He have stated that the greatest commandments are those on love of God and one’s neighbor that were aforetime given by Moses?’ The Bogomils also asserted that Christ brought His body with Him from heaven. To this St. Hilarion replied that, had it been thus, then the body of Christ would not have felt hunger or thirst, nor weariness and suffering, nor would it have undergone death. The Bogomils then showed their disapprobation of the sign of the Cross that Orthodox Christians make. To this, the saint replied: ‘And what will you do when the sign of the Son of Man, the Cross, appears in the heavens, and when all the nations of the world who did not believe in the Cross will lament?’ And he added: ‘How can you say that all evil is material evil, and will not do reverence to that Wood by which the whole material world was sanctified?’

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.