Daily Devotional

Thursday, May 11, 2028 (NS), April 28, 2028 (OS)

No Fasting.

Thursday of the Fourth Week

The commemoration of the holy Nine Martyrs of Kyzicus, Theognis, Rufus, Antipater, Theostichos, Artemas, Magnos, Theodotos, Thavmasios, and Philemon (commemorated on Sl. calendar on the 29^th of April). The commemoration of the holy Apostles of the Seventy, Jason and Sosipater, and their companions (commemorated on Gk. calendar on the 29^th of April). The commemoration of the holy Martyrs Maximos, Quintillian, and Dada at Dorostolum (commemorated on Gk. calendar on the 13^th of April).

Jump to Prologue

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Thursday of the Fourth Week

Epistle

The Reading is from the Acts of the Apostles [§ 26]. In those days:

10 ³⁴Peter opened his mouth and said, “In truth, I comprehend that God is not a respecter of persons, ³⁵“but in every nation, the one who feareth Him and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him. ³⁶“The Logos Whom He sent forth to the sons of Israel, preaching the Gospel, peace through Jesus Christ—this One is the Lord of all. ³⁷“Ye know the matter which came to pass throughout all of Judæa, which began from Galilee after the baptism which John proclaimed: ³⁸“how God anointed Him, Jesus, the One from Nazareth, with the Holy Spirit and with power, Who went about doing good and healing all those who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. ³⁹“And we are witnesses of all things which He did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, Whom also they killed, having hanged Him on a tree. ⁴⁰“God raised this One on the third day, and gave Him to become manifest, ⁴¹“not to all the people, but to witnesses who had been chosen before by God, to us, who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead. ⁴²“And He commanded us to proclaim to the people, and to testify that He is the One Who was ordained by God to be the Judge of the living and the dead. ⁴³“To this One all the prophets bear witness that, through His name, everyone who believeth in Him is to receive forgiveness of sins.”

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint John [§ 29]. The Lord said to the Jews who had come to Him:

8 ¹²“I am the light of the world; the one who followeth Me in no wise shall walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of the life.” ¹³The Pharisees therefore said to Him, “Thou art bearing witness concerning Thyself; Thy testimony is not true.” ¹⁴Jesus answered and said to them, “Even if I bear witness concerning Myself, My testimony is true, for I know from what place I came and where I am going; but ye do not know from what place I am coming from and where I am going. ¹⁵“Ye judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. ¹⁶“And even if I should judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I and the Father Who sent Me. ¹⁷“And it hath also been written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. ¹⁸“I am One Who beareth witness concerning Myself, and the Father Who sent Me beareth witness concerning Me.” ¹⁹Then they said to Him, “Where is Thy Father?” Jesus answered, “Ye neither know Me, nor My Father; if ye had known Me, ye would have known My Father also.” ²⁰These words spoke Jesus in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one laid hold of Him, for His hour had not yet come.

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

No readings given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

May 11th – Civil Calendar
April 28th – Church Calendar

1. The Holy Apostles Jason and Sosipater, and the Virgin Kerkyra.

The first two were among the Seventy Apostles, and the last was the daughter of the king of the island of Corfu. The Apostle Paul mentions Jason and Sosipater (Rom. 16:21), and calls them his kinsmen. Jason was born in Tarsus, as was the Apostle Paul himself, and Sosipater in Achaea. The first was nominated by the apostles as Bishop of Tarsus and the second as Bishop of Iconium. Travelling and preaching the Gospel, these two apostles came to the island of Corfu, where they succeeded in building a church dedicated to St. Stephen the Protomartyr and in bringing some unbelievers to the Church. The king of the island threw them into prison, where there were seven robbers already imprisoned: Satorninus, Jakischolus, Faustian, Januarius, Marsalus, Evphrasius and Mamminus. The apostles brought all seven of them to the Christian Faith, making wolves into lambs. The king commanded that these seven be put to death in boiling pitch, and they thus received the wreath of martyrdom. Seeking to disgrace Jason and Sosipater, the king had them dragged through the streets by a horse at a speed calculated to be slow enough to bruise them without killing them. When the king’s daughter, Kerkyra, saw this, she looked upon the wretchedness of her father with disdain, and discovering the reason for it, she visited them in the prison, where she was converted. She gave all her jewels away to the poor and proclaimed herself a Christian to her father. The king was filled with wrath against his daughter and shut her up in a separate prison. Then, failing to turn her from Christ, he ordered that the prison be burned down. The prison burned to the ground, but the maiden remained alive. Seeing this wonder, many of the people were baptized. The furious king ordered that his daughter be bound to a tree and killed with arrows. Those who had come to believe in Christ fled from the terrible king to a nearby island and hid themselves. The king set off in a boat to arrest them, but his boat overturned in the sea and thus the unrighteous perished, as Pharaoh aforetime. The succeeding king, Donatios, continued in the persecution. He ordered Sosipater to be put to death. It was presumed that Jason would follow his comrade in death, but the king decided to question the surviving partner first. A gnawing sense of guilt precipitated the meeting of the two, at which Jason succeeded in converting Donatios to the Christian Faith. Not long after this, the twelve-year-old daughter of Donatios was stricken with a fatal illness, but was cured when Jason knelt in prayer on her behalf. Jason continued to work for our Savior until his death at the age of sixty on April 28th, the day on which Sosipater had died for Christ.

2. The Holy Martyrs Maximus, Dada and Quintillian.

Suffering in the time of Diocletian, they were condemned and tortured by the commander Tarquinius. After imprisonment and torture, they were beheaded.

3. The Holy Martyr Tibald.

A Slav from Pannonia, he was terribly tortured for the Faith in the time of Diocletian, and suffered in Tsibal.

FOR CONSIDERATION

The mystery of our salvation is fulfilled in God’s appearing among men in human flesh. Meliton of Sardis writes: ‘The works of Christ after His Baptism showed and demonstrated to the world that His divinity is hidden within His flesh. Being God, He was also perfect man. He revealed His two natures to us: His divinity by His miracles, performed in the three years after His Baptism, and His humanity through those thirty years when bodily nature hid the signs of His divinity, although He was truly the pre-eternal God.’ The means of uniting the divinity with the humanity is difficult to comprehend, but the event of the appearing of God among men is perfectly comprehensible from the point of view of God’s love for man. As an event, the world is not more comprehensible—it can be said to be even less comprehensible than the event of events, the incarnation of God.

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.