Daily Devotional

Scripture Readings

Paschalion — Movable Calendar

Sunday of the First Week, of All Saints

Mode Plagal Four — First Eothinon

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Hebrews [§§ 330, 331]. Brethren:

11 ³³All the saints through faith struggled against kingdoms, wrought righteousness, attained to promises, stopped mouths of lions, ³⁴quenched the power of fire, escaped the edges of the sword, were empowered out of weakness, became strong in battle, turned back encampments of aliens. ³⁵Women received their dead by resurrection. And others were tortured, not accepting release, that they might attain a better resurrection. ³⁶And others received trial of mockings and of scourgings, and, moreover, of bonds and of imprisonment. ³⁷They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted; they died, murdered by the sword. They went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being in need, afflicted, ill-treated— ³⁸of whom the world was not worthy. They were made to wander in deserts, and in mountains, and in caves, and in the holes of the earth. ³⁹And these all, having been approved by testimony through faith, received not for themselves the promise, ⁴⁰God having foreseen some better thing concerning us, that they should not be made perfect without us.

12 ¹Therefore we also, having so great a cloud of witnesses which is set around us, and having laid aside every weight and sin that is easily circumvented, let us by means of patience be running the course which is set before us, ²looking to Jesus, the originator and accomplisher of our faith, Who, in exchange for the joy set before Him, endured a cross, having despised the shame, and hath sat down on the right of the throne of God.

Gospel

The Reading is from the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew [§§ 38, mid 79]. The Lord said to his disciples:

10 ³²“Everyone who shall confess in Me before men, I also will confess in him before My Father Who is in the heavens. ³³“But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father Who is in the heavens.... ³⁷“The one who loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and the one who loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. ³⁸“And whosoever taketh not his cross and followeth after Me is not worthy of Me.”...

19 ²⁷Peter answered and said to Him, “Behold, we left all things and followed Thee; what then shall be for us?” ²⁸And Jesus said to them, “Verily I say to you, that ye who followed Me, in the regeneration, whenever the Son of Man shall have taken His seat upon the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. ²⁹“And everyone who leaveth houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, on account of My name, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit life everlasting. ³⁰“But many who are first shall be last, and the last first.”

Menaion — Fixed Calendar

The commemoration of the holy Virgin-martyr Theodosia of Constantinople.

Epistle

The Reading is from the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Galatians [§§ 208, 209]. Brethren:

3 ²³Before faith came, we were being guarded under the law, having been closed up to the faith about to be revealed. ²⁴Therefore the law hath become our tutor until Christ, in order that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵But faith having come, we are no longer under a tutor. ²⁶For all are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. ²⁷For as many as were baptized into Christ, ye put on Christ. ²⁸There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male and female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹And if ye are Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to promise.

4 ¹Now I say, as long as the heir is an infant, he differeth nothing from a slave, though he is lord of all; ²but he is under guardians and stewards until the appointed time of the father. ³So we also, when we were infants, were enslaved under the elements of the world. ⁴But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, ⁵in order that He might redeem those under the law, that we might receive what is our due, the adoption as sons.

Gospel

No reading given.

Lives of the Saints (Prologue)

June 11th – Civil Calendar
May 29th – Church Calendar

1. Commemoration of the First Ecumenical Council.

Today we commemorate and eulogize the holy fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, which was held in Nicaea in 325 in the reign of Constantine the Great—held during the week before Pentecost, or the seventh week after Pascha. It was summoned to remove the confusion which Arius, an Alexandrian priest, had created by his false teaching. He had been spreading the teaching that Christ was created from God in time, and that He is not the pre-eternal Son of God, equal in being with God the Father. Three hundred and eighteen holy fathers took part in this council. It condemned the Arian teaching, and anathematised Arius when he would not repent. This council wrote the first half of the Creed, which was later amplified at the Second Ecumenical Council. Many bishops were present at the First Ecumenical Council, among whom the following stood out: St. Nicholas of Myra in Lycia, St. Spiridon, St. Athanasius, St. Achillios, St. Paphnutios, St. Jacob of Nisibis, St. Makarios of Jerusalem, St. Alexander of Alexandria, St. Efstathios of Antioch, Evsevios of Caesarea, St. Metrophanes of Constantinople, John of Persia, Aristarchus of Armenia and many others from the East. And from the West: St. Hosius of Cordova, Theophilus the Goth, St. Cecilianus of Carthage, and others. The most important work of this council was the confirmation of the Symbol of Faith. The council also confirmed the time of the celebration of Pascha, and prescribed twenty canons.

2. The Holy Martyr Theodosia of Tyre.

One day during the reign of the Emperor Maximian, many Christians were standing bound before the praetor in Palestinian Caesarea. The pious virgin Theodosia came to comfort them and encourage them in their death by martyrdom. The soldiers heard her words and brought her also before the judge. The enraged judge ordered that a stone be tied round her neck and that she be cast into the deep. But angels carried her up onto the shore alive. When she appeared before the judge again, he gave orders to have her beheaded. The following night, Theodosia appeared to her parents in the brightest heavenly light, surrounded by many other virgins, and said: ‘Do you see how great is the glory and grace of my Christ, of which you wished to deprive me?’ She spoke thus to her parents because they had turned back from confessing Christ and from martyrdom. She suffered with honor and was glorified in the year 308.

3. Our Holy Mother, the Martyr Theodosia.

She was born after her mother’s prayers to the holy Martyr Anastasia, who appeared to her and told her that she would give birth to a child. Her parents dedicated her to God and gave her very early to a women’s monastery. At her parents’ death, she received a vast estate. She ordered three icons from a goldsmith: the Savior, the Mother of God and St. Anastasia, and gave the rest away to the poor. She suffered in the time of the Emperor Leo the Isaurian, the iconoclast, and received a twofold crown: of virginity and martyrdom, in the year 730.

4. St. Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria.

He was the first to take up the struggle against Arius, and entered into rest in the year 328.

5. The Holy Martyr Nannus (John) of Thessalonica.

He suffered for the Faith at the hands of the Turks in Smyrna in 1802.

6. The Holy Martyr Andrew of Chios.

He suffered for the Faith at the hands of the Turks in Constantinople in 1465.

7. The Fall of Constantinople

Because of the sin of apostasy from Orthodoxy, God sent great calamity on the capital city of the Christian world on May 29th, 1453. The infidels had laid siege upon Constantinople, losing many thousands in their attempts to take the city. But God protected the city until the Orthodox concelebrated with the Latins in order to receive military aid. The Lord immediately abandoned the city, and it fell the next day. Sultan Mehmed II sacked Constantinople and murdered the Emperor Constantine XI.

FOR CONSIDERATION

Oh, how great was the intrepidity of holy men and women! As we read their lives, both shame and pride arise within us—shame that we are so far behind them, and pride because they belonged to our Christian race. Neither sickness nor prison, nor exile nor torments nor humiliations, nor the sword nor the abyss, nor the flame nor the gallows could shake the exalted peace of their souls, firmly fixed on Christ the Helmsman of the universe and of human history. When the Emperor Julian apostatised from the Faith and began to lay Christianity waste throughout the breadth of the entire Roman Empire, St. Athanasius the Great spoke to the faithful about this with equanimity: ‘It’s but a small cloud; it will pass!’ And the small, dirty cloud did indeed soon pass, and Christianity took yet deeper root and spread its branches further over the world. Julian’s impotent fury against Christ passed after a few quick years with Julian’s cry in his death-rattle: ‘Thou hast conquered, O Nazarene!’ Why should we, the sons of God, fear anything when God our Father fears nothing?

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.