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Tuesday 30 April 2019

Bright Tuesday

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No Fast — Fast Free Tone 3

Paschaltide, day 3 · 2 days since Pascha

Holy Apostle James, Brother of St John

Saints commemorated

  • Saint of the day

    James the Son of Zebedee

    James the son of Zebedee is one of the Twelve, the elder brother of John the Theologian, and — with his brother and with Peter — one of the three disciples whom the Lord took apart with Him to the raising of the daughter of Jairus, to the Transfiguration on the mountain, and to the agony in Gethsemane. Christ named the two brothers Boanerges, "sons of thunder," and told them they would drink His cup; James drank it first. About the year 44, at Jerusalem, Herod Agrippa I "killed James the brother of John with the sword" (Acts 12:2) — the first of the apostles to be martyred, and the only one whose death the New Testament records. In the Latin West he became Santiago, patron of Spain, whose reputed relics at Compostela made the greatest pilgrimage of medieval Europe; the Eastern synaxaria keep his memory on April 30 on the plain ground of the Acts of the Apostles.

  • St Ignatius (Brianchaninov), Bishop of Stavropol and Kavkaz (1867)

  • Argyra of Prussa

    Argyra was a young married woman of Prussa (Bursa) in Bithynia who, having refused the advances of a Turkish official's son and refused with them the invitation to apostatise, was denounced on a false charge, flogged, and shut up in prison at Constantinople, where she spent seventeen years under repeated interrogation, beating and the abuse of her fellow prisoners without yielding, sustained by fasting and prayer. She died in her cell on 5 April 1721, aged about thirty-three. Some years later her body was found whole and incorrupt and fragrant, and on 30 April 1735 her relics were translated with the blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarch to the church of St Paraskeve, where they are still venerated. She is commemorated on April 30, the day of the translation.

  • Basil of Amasea

    Basil — in the Greek sources Basileus (Βασιλεύς), "the king," not the commoner Basileios — was bishop of Amasea in Pontus in the first decades of the fourth century, a subscriber of the canons of Ancyra (314) and Neocaesarea (c. 315), and one of the hierarchs destroyed in the last persecution the Roman world saw: that of Licinius, who turned on the Church in his eastern half of the empire in the years before his defeat by Constantine. His fall was occasioned by his sheltering the fugitive virgin Glaphyra, a maidservant of the empress Constantia who had fled Licinius's advances to Amasea and spent her mistress's money on the bishop's new church. Summoned to Nicomedia, Basil refused to sacrifice and was beheaded about the year 322; his body, flung into the sea, was recovered at Sinope after an angel three times directed his companion Elpidephorus to it, and was buried in the church he had built. He is honoured on April 26 together with Glaphyra.

  • Clement the Hymnographer

    Clement "the Poet" (ὁ Ποιητής) is one of the great canon-writers of the iconophile generation: a monk of the late eighth and early ninth centuries who composed some thirty canons for the service books, who was a confessor for the holy icons and died in exile, and who left his signature across the Church's hymnography in an unusual way — the initial letters of his theotokia spell out ΚΛΗΜΕΝΤΟΣ, "of Clement," a device that later hymnographers imitated. Almost every canon of his touches, somewhere, on the veneration of the icons or the folly of iconoclasm, so that his poetry is at once liturgy and confession. He is commemorated on April 30.

  • Donatus of Euroea

    Donatus, bishop of Euroea in Epirus in the second half of the fourth century, is one of the very few wonderworking hierarchs of the age whose miracles are recorded not by a synaxarion but by a contemporary church historian: writing about 440, Sozomen devotes a chapter of his Ecclesiastical History to him, reporting the fame of his sanctity among the people of Epirus, the destruction of a monstrous dragon on the high road at Chamaegephyrae by the sign of the Cross, and the spring that God caused to rise from waterless ground at his prayer, beside which his tomb lay in a great church bearing his name. The later synaxaria add the sweetening of a brackish spring, rain given in drought, the healing of the daughter of the emperor Theodosius the Great, and the raising of a dead man to bear witness that a debt had been paid. He reposed in peace about 387, and is honoured today as the patron of Paramythia in Thesprotia and, since his relics were carried there in the seventh century, at Kassiopi on Corfu.

  • Maximus of Ephesus

    Maximus is a martyr of Ephesus commemorated on April 30, of whom the Byzantine books preserve only a single line — that he suffered for the faith of Christ and was perfected by the sword. The Latin tradition, which keeps the same day, transmits a little more and probably older matter: that he was a layman and a merchant of the city, that he was arrested in the persecution of Decius about the year 250, that he confessed Christ before the proconsul, was beaten and racked, and was finally stoned to death. The two traditions agree on the man, the place and the fact, and differ on the manner of his death.

  • Nikitas of Novgorod

    Nikitas of Novgorod (†1108) was a monk of the Kiev Caves who became one of the most instructive figures in the Russian ascetic tradition: a young hermit who, shutting himself into reclusion against his abbot's warning and before he was ready, fell into spiritual delusion (prelest) — visited by a demon in the guise of an angel, given a false gift of prophecy, and turned wholly to the Old Testament while unable so much as to bear the name of Christ or the Gospels. The elders of the Caves, discerning the deception, drove out the demon by their prayers, and Nikitas was restored — humbled, unlettered again, and set on the sure path of obedience. He rose to sanctity, was made Bishop of Novgorod about 1096, and governed that see for some thirteen years, remembered for the two miracles by which he saved his city: he brought rain in a drought and quenched a great fire by his prayer. He reposed in 1108; his incorrupt relics were uncovered in 1558.

  • Raphael, Nicholas and Irene of Lesbos

    The strangest entry in the modern Greek calendar, and one of the few saints in this collection whose whole biography reached the Church after their cult did. For five centuries the people of Lesbos walked up on Bright Tuesday to a ruined enclosure at Karyes, above the village of Thermi north-west of Mytilene, without being able to say why: there had been a monastery there, it was remembered, and the monks had been killed by the Turks, and that was all. In 1959 the ground was being cleared to build a chapel when the workmen uncovered a grave, and from that year the dead began — in the accounts of a very large number of islanders — to appear and to say who they were: Raphael, hieromonk and abbot, a native of Ithaca; Nicholas, his deacon, of Thessaloniki; Irene, the twelve-year-old daughter of the village headman; and with them Irene's parents Basil and Maria, the schoolmaster Theodore, and Irene's fifteen-year-old cousin Eleni. They were tortured, the accounts say, from Great Thursday until Bright Tuesday, 9 April 1463, ten years after the fall of Constantinople; Raphael died with a saw through his jaw, tied to a tree; Irene had an arm cut off before her parents' eyes and was suffocated in a burning earthenware jar. They asked for an icon, for a service, and for their graves to be found, and all three were given them: the icon by Photios Kontoglou, the office by the hymnographer Gerasimos Mikragiannanites, and the relics between 1959 and 1961. Their commemoration is movable — it is kept on the anniversary as the Church counts it, the Tuesday of the Renewal, and has no fixed date in the general calendar.

  • The Six Thousand Martyrs of David-Gareji

    The largest single martyrdom in the history of the Georgian Church, and the one commemoration of the Georgian calendar that is fixed to Bright Week rather than to a day of the month. In 1616, in the aftermath of the devastation of Kakheti by Shah Abbas I of Persia, the whole brotherhood of the cave-monasteries of the David-Gareji wilderness — reckoned by the Georgian tradition at six thousand monks — was cut down by the shah's troops in the paschal season, at the altar, in their festal vestments, immediately after they had received Holy Communion. The tradition relates that the shah, hunting in the semi-desert, saw from his camp a line of lights moving on the mountain at midnight and was told that these were monks going round their church with candles for the Resurrection of Christ, and that he gave the order for their slaughter on the spot; that an angel warned the abbot Arsenius that night and left each man free to flee or to stay; that all but two novices stayed; and that the two who had hidden returned and were killed when they saw the crowns descending from heaven, two of which floated empty in the air. Their bones were gathered later in the century by King Archil and laid in a great stone vessel beside the altar, where they were reported to stream myrrh. The brotherhoods of the David and the Baptist monasteries asked Catholicos Anthony I to compose their service and to appoint the Tuesday of Bright Week as their day, and it has been kept so ever since.

British Isles and Ireland

  • St. Erconwald, bishop of London (c.693)
  • St. Cynwl, hermit (6th C)
  • St. Forannan (982)

Troparia & kontakia

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a woman martyr)

Thou wast a lamb of Christ, O Argyra, and didst cry aloud in thy contest: I am the bride of my Bridegroom, and Him alone will I confess. Neither flattery nor beating nor the long years of the prison could sever thee from Him; wherefore He hath crowned thee with an incorruptible crown, and hath glorified thy body with incorruption. By thine intercessions save our souls.

Apolytikion — Tone 4

As a sharer in the ways and a successor to the thrones of the Apostles, O divinely-inspired one, thou didst find in contemplation the means to ascend to divine heights; rightly dividing the word of truth, thou didst struggle for the faith even unto blood, O hieromartyr Basil: intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Apolytikion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)

In thee, O father, the image of God was preserved unimpaired, for thou didst take up the Cross and follow Christ; and by thy deeds thou hast taught us to despise the flesh, which passeth away, and to care for the soul, a thing immortal: wherefore, O venerable Clement, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a hierarch)

As a sharer in the ways and a successor to the thrones of the Apostles, O God-inspired Donatus, thou didst find in the active life the ascent to divine contemplation; wherefore, rightly dividing the word of truth, thou didst contend for the faith even unto blood: intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Apolytikion — Tone 3

O holy Apostle James, make intercession with the merciful God, that He grant unto our souls forgiveness of sins.

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a martyr)

Thy martyr Maximus, O Lord, in his contest received an incorruptible crown from Thee our God; for possessing Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions save our souls.

Apolytikion — Tone 1 (common of several martyrs)

By the sufferings which thy saints endured for thee, O Lord, be thou entreated; and heal all our pains, we pray thee, O Lover of mankind.

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of many martyrs)

Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest received incorruptible crowns from thee our God; for possessing thy strength, they cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. At their supplications, O Christ our God, save our souls.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Thou wast a shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep, and the sword could not divide thee from Christ, O all-blessed Basil; wherefore the deep itself gave back thy body unharmed, and thou wast laid in the temple thou didst build. Cease not to intercede for those who honour thee.

Kontakion — Tone 2 (common of a venerable father)

With songs thou didst gladden the children of earth, and with songs thou hast passed to the choirs of the bodiless powers; for having confessed the venerable image of the Word made flesh, thou didst endure exile for His sake, O Clement: wherefore we cry unto thee, Rejoice, O harp of the Spirit.

Kontakion — Tone 2 (common of a hierarch and wonderworker)

Thou didst shine forth as a lamp of Epirus, O father Donatus, driving out the serpent by the sign of the Cross and drawing living water out of the dry rock; and now thou pourest forth upon us the streams of thy wonders: cease not to intercede for them that honour thee.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Having heard the divine voice that called thee, thou didst pass by the love of thy kindred, O James, and together with thy brother didst straightway follow after Christ; and with him wast thou counted worthy to behold His divine Transfiguration.

Kontakion — Tone 6

Having cleansed thyself by humility from the deceit of the enemy that once ensnared thee, thou wast made a lamp of the Church of Novgorod, and by thy prayers thou didst bring down rain in the drought and quench the fire of the city; wherefore we cry to thee: Rejoice, O holy hierarch and father Nikitas.

Kontakion — Tone 4 (composed for this repository)

Five hundred years ye lay unknown beneath the stones of Karyes, and the people came up to you year by year and could not name you; but in the appointed time ye rose upon the island like a great sign, and told your names, and asked for nothing but to be remembered. O Raphael and Nicholas and Irene, remember us.

Kontakion — Tone 8 (original composition on the matter of the day)

Vested as for the feast and fed with the Bread of immortality, ye went out to the sword as to a bridal chamber, O six thousand fathers of the wilderness; and the crowns that came down from heaven found none of you wanting save two, and them the Lover of mankind called back. Wherefore we cry to you: rejoice, O city of monks made a city of martyrs.

Troparion — Tone 4

Rejoicing, thou didst enter upon the ascetic life from thy youth, O blessed Nikitas, and manfully overcoming the assaults of the enemy, thou wast shown forth a chosen vessel of God and a shepherd of the Church of Novgorod. Pray thou to Christ our God that our souls be saved.

Readings

Vespers

James 1.1-12 (St James)

1James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. 2My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. 5If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. 6But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. 7For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. 8A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. 9Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: 10But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. 11For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. 12Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

James 1.13-27 (St James)

13Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: 14But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. 15Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. 16Do not err, my beloved brethren. 17Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. 18Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. 19Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: 20For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. 21Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. 22But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. 23For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: 24For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. 25But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. 26If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. 27Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

James 2.1-13 (St James)

1My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. 2For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; 3And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: 4Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? 5Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? 6But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats? 7Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called? 8If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: 9But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. 10For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. 11For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. 12So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. 13For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.

Matins Gospel

John 21.15-25

15So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. 16He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. 17He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. 18Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. 19This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me. 20Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? 21Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? 22Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me. 23Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? 24This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. 25And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.

Epistle

Acts 2.14-21

14But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judæa, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: 15For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. 16But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; 17And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: 18And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: 19And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: 20The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: 21And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Acts 12.1-11 (St James)

1Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. 2And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. 3And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.) 4And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people. 5Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. 6And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison. 7And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands. 8And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals. And so he did. And he saith unto him, Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me. 9And he went out, and followed him; and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel; but thought he saw a vision. 10When they were past the first and the second ward, they came unto the iron gate that leadeth unto the city; which opened to them of his own accord: and they went out, and passed on through one street; and forthwith the angel departed from him. 11And when Peter was come to himself, he said, Now I know of a surety, that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews.

Gospel

Luke 24.12-35

12Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre; and stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass. 13And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. 14And they talked together of all these things which had happened. 15And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them. 16But their eyes were holden that they should not know him. 17And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad? 18And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days? 19And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people: 20And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. 21But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done. 22Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; 23And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive. 24And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not. 25Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: 26Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? 27And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. 28And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further. 29But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them. 30And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. 31And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. 32And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? 33And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, 34Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. 35And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread.

Luke 5.1-11 (St James)

1And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, 2And saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets. 3And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship. 4Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. 5And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. 6And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. 7And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink. 8When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. 9For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken: 10And so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men. 11And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him.