Daily Devotional
Wednesday, April 2, 2025 (NS)
March 20, 2025 (OS)
Commemorations
Pascalion — Movable Calendar
Wednesday of the Fifth Week of the Great Fast
There is No Divine Liturgy This Day Because of the Great Fast.
Menaion — Fixed Calendar
The commemoration of the holy fathers slain at the Monastery of St. Savvas the Sanctified, the Martyrs John, Sergius, Patrick, and others.
Fasting Information
Fast day, but Wine and Oil Allowed.
Holy & Great Fast
Scripture Readings
Movable Calendar (Pascalion)
Wednesday of the Fifth Week of the Great Fast
There is No Divine Liturgy This Day Because of the Great Fast.
No readings given.
Menaion — Fixed Calendar
The commemoration of the holy fathers slain at the Monastery of St. Savvas the Sanctified, the Martyrs John, Sergius, Patrick, and others.
No readings given.
Lives of the Saints
(Prologue)
April 2nd – Civil Calendar
March 20th – Church Calendar
1. Our Holy Father John, and those martyred with him from the Community of St. Sava the
Sanctified near Jerusalem.
This famous monastery, both visited by St. Sava of Serbia and endowed by various Serbian
rulers, is still in existence today. Several times fallen to the savage Arabs, plundered and left
empty, it has always been restored by the providence of God. In the time of the reign of
Constantine and Irene it fell to the Arabs and was plundered. The monks would not flee, but took
counsel together with their abbot, Thomas, saying: ‘We have fled from the world into this
wilderness for the love of Christ; it would be shame to us now to flee from the wilderness from
fear of men. If we are killed here, we shall be killed through love for Christ, for Whose sake we
have come here to live.’ And, so deciding, they awaited unarmed the armed Arabs, as lambs
before wolves. The Arabs killed some of them with arrows, and others they shut into the cave of
St. Sava and lit a fire at the entrance to suffocate them in the smoke. And thus many of them
died as martyrs for the sake of Christ and went to the kingdom of Him Whom they had loved and for
the sake of Whose love they had perished. They suffered with honor before Pascha in 796, in the
time of Patriarch Elias of Jerusalem. But a just punishment quickly fell on their savage
destroyers. Returning to their tents, they began to quarrel, and in the ensuing battle killed
each other off.
2. The Holy Martyr Photine.
This was that Samaritan woman who had the rare fortune to speak with the Lord
Christ Himself at Jacob’s Well in Sychar (Jn. 4). Coming to faith in the Lord, she then
came to belief in His Gospel, together with her two sons, Victor and Josiah, and five sisters who
were called Anatolia, Phota, Photida, Paraskeve and Kyriake. They went to Carthage in Africa. But
they were arrested and taken to Rome in the time of the Emperor Nero, and thrown into prison. By
the providence of God, Domnina, Nero’s daughter, came into contact with St. Photine and was
brought by her to the Christian Faith. After imprisonment, they all suffered for Christ. Photine,
who first encountered the light of truth by a well, was thrown into a well, where she died and
entered into the immortal kingdom of Christ.
FOR CONSIDERATION
God does not punish sinners because it gives Him pleasure to annihilate man. If that had given
Him pleasure, He would not have formed man out of nothing. But He punishes sinners for more
important reasons, of which two are obvious to us. Firstly, that by punishment He may set the
sinner aright and lead him onto the way of salvation, and secondly, that others may see and be
fearful of sinning. St. Isaac thinks the same when he says: ‘A truly wise man is like God,
for he punishes a man, not in order to be revenged for sin, but either to correct the man or to
make others fearful.’ An undisciplined young man, who blasphemed against God and against
his parents, suddenly went out of his mind. The whole town in which this young man lived saw this
as God’s punishment, and was possessed by the fear of God. The young man was kept under
restraint for three years. But his mother wept bitterly and prayed to God for her son. One year,
on the Feast of the Holy Spirit, the mother took her mad son to the monastery of St. Basil at
Ostrog. After prayers there, the mad boy was healed and came to himself. After that he repented
and became an exemplary man and a true Christian.
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.
