Pre-Lenten Triodion, day 22 · 49 days until Pascha
Forgiveness Sunday
Saints commemorated
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Martyr Eudoxia of Heliopolis
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Agapius of Vatopedi
Agapius of Vatopedi (13th century) was a young monk of the Holy Mountain, a novice at the Trinity cell of Kolitsou, a dependency of the great monastery of Vatopedi. Carried off by Turkish raiders and sold into slavery at Magnesia, he spent many years in chains, praying continually to the Mother of God, until she appeared to him and set him free, his fetters falling away and the doors of his prison opening of themselves. Yet when he returned to the Holy Mountain, his elder, holding that a debt of obedience was owed even to an earthly master, sent him back to his captor. His unresisting obedience so astonished and moved the Turk that he came to Athos with his two sons and received holy Baptism, and all three ended their days as monks — a story the Athonite tradition treasures as a parable of obedience and of the power of the Theotokos.
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Antonina of Nicaea
Antonina of Nicaea (†c. 302) was a Christian woman of Nicaea in Bithynia who suffered martyrdom in the persecutions of the late third and early fourth centuries. Arrested for her confession of Christ and brought before the governor, she refused every inducement and threat to sacrifice to the idols; she was subjected to a succession of savage tortures — the rack, fire, and imprisonment — which she endured with unshaken constancy, and at last was put to death. The Church honours her among the martyrs of Nicaea and keeps her memory on March 1.
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Domnina the Younger of Syria
Domnina the Younger (†c. 450–460) was a Syrian ascetic of the region of Cyrrhus, one of the enclosed holy women whose lives Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, set down from his own knowledge in his Religious History. Born of pious and well-to-do parents, she forsook the world for a life of extreme austerity, dwelling in a little hut of reeds built in the garden of her mother's house, clothed in haircloth, eating only lentils moistened with water, and going out only to the village church for the morning and evening services. Above all she was known for her ceaseless weeping — her veil and her cheeks perpetually wet with the tears of compunction — and for a boundless charity, giving away to the poor and to passing strangers all that her mother's estate produced. She reposed in peace in the mid-fifth century, and the Church honours her among the venerable ascetics of Syria, of particular note in the Antiochian tradition to which she belongs.
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Eudocia of Heliopolis
Eudocia of Heliopolis (†c. 152–170) was a wealthy Samaritan woman of Heliopolis in Phoenicia — the great sun-city the Romans called Baalbek — who lived by her beauty as a famed and dissolute courtesan, and amassed a fortune from her many lovers. Overhearing through a wall the monk Germanus reading aloud of the Last Judgement and the torments and rewards to come, she was pierced to the heart, sought him out, and was converted; baptised by the bishop Theodotus, she gave her whole fortune to the poor, entered a convent, and gave herself to so severe a repentance that she was counted worthy of the gift of wonders, raising the dead and turning her former companions and their persecutors to Christ. After many years as a nun and at length abbess, she was seized in a renewed persecution and beheaded for the faith. The Church honours her as a venerable-martyr — a monastic who sealed her repentance with her blood — and keeps her as one of its great models of conversion, that the deepest sinner may become the purest saint.
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Marcellus and Anthony
Marcellus and Anthony were two early martyrs commemorated on March 1, of whom the synaxarion preserves only that, having confessed Christ, they were cast into the fire and perished in the flames — shining, in the words of the notice, brighter than gold tried in the furnace. Nothing further of their place or age is securely transmitted; the Church keeps their memory among the martyrs of the day.
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Martyrius of Zelenets
Martyrius of Zelenets (†1603) was a Russian monastic saint, the founder and first abbot of the Trinity monastery of Zelenets — the "Green Island" in the marshes east of the river Volkhov, in the Novgorod land. Born Menas in the town of Velikiye Luki and orphaned in childhood, he was raised in piety by a priest, was tonsured under his own spiritual father, and after years of shared cell-life withdrew into the deep forest, guided (the tradition holds) by visions of the Mother of God and of a radiant cross of stars. On the wooded island he found there he raised a church of the Life-giving Trinity and gathered a brotherhood, becoming their abbot; he was granted the gift of wonders, and reposed in great old age in 1603, having dug his own grave and taken leave of his monks with a final charge to trust in the Holy Trinity and the Mother of God.
British Isles and Ireland
- St. David of Wales (6th C)
- St. Marnock of Kilmarnock (625)
- St. Swithbert the Elder of Northumbria, bishop of the Frisians (713)
- Holy Martyr Monan of St. Andrew’s (874)
Troparia & kontakia
Kontakion — Tone 4
In thy contest thou didst nobly struggle, and after death thou dost sanctify us by the outpouring of thy wonders, O all-praised one; therefore, honouring thy holy memory, we glorify Christ who is glorified in thee, O venerable Eudocia.
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy ewe-lamb, O Jesus, crieth out with a loud voice: "Thee, my Bridegroom, do I long for, and seeking Thee I contend; I am crucified and buried with Thee, and I suffer for Thy sake, that I may reign with Thee; I die for Thee, that I may live in Thee: receive me as an unblemished sacrifice offered to Thee with love." At her intercessions, O Merciful One, save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 8
In thee, O mother, the divine image was preserved unto perfection; for taking up the cross, thou didst follow after Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach the despising of the flesh, which passeth away, and the care of the soul, a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Domnina, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy ewe-lamb, O Jesus, crieth out with a loud voice: "Thee, my Bridegroom, do I long for, and seeking Thee I contend; I am crucified and buried with Thee in Thy baptism, and I suffer for Thy sake, that I may reign with Thee; I die for Thee, that I may live in Thee: receive me, then, as an unblemished sacrifice offered to Thee with love." At her intercessions, O Merciful One, save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest received crowns of incorruption from Thee our God; for possessing Thy strength, they cast down the tyrants and shattered the powerless boldness of the demons. At their supplications, O Christ God, save our souls.
Readings
4th Matins Gospel
Luke 24.1-12
1Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. 2And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. 3And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. 4And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: 5And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? 6He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, 7Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. 8And they remembered his words, 9And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest. 10It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles. 11And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not. 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.
Epistle
Romans 13.11-14.4
11And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. 12The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. 13Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. 14But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. 1Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. 2For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs. 3Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him. 4Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.
Gospel
Matthew 6.14-21
14For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: 15But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. 16Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 17But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; 18That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. 19Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 21For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.