Wednesday 11 March 2020
St. Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem; St Euthymius, Bishop of Novgorod
Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent
Great Lent, day 10 · 39 days until Pascha
Saints commemorated
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Saint of the day
St. Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem
Sophronius the Sophist (c. 560 – 638) was Patriarch of Jerusalem in the last years before the Arab conquest, and one of the towering figures of seventh-century Orthodoxy. A rhetorician of Damascus turned monk, he was for decades the companion and disciple of John Moschus, with whom he wandered the monasteries of Palestine, Egypt, Sinai and the West gathering the sayings that became the Spiritual Meadow; healed of an eye disease at the shrine of Cyrus and John, he wrote their Miracles, and he composed the Life of John the Almsgiver of Alexandria. As a hymnographer he gave the Church a wealth of stichera and the learned anacreontic odes, and above all the great consecratory prayer of the Great Blessing of the Waters at Theophany, "Great art thou, O Lord." Raised to the throne of Jerusalem in 634, he spent his brief patriarchate as the first and most formidable opponent of Monotheletism — his Synodical Letter is the founding document of the Orthodox defence of the two wills of Christ, the cause Maximus the Confessor would carry to martyrdom. He lived to see Islam overwhelm the Holy Land, preached the Saracens' seizure of Bethlehem at the very Nativity, and negotiated the surrender of Jerusalem to the Caliph Umar; he died soon after, on March 11, 638.
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Saint of the day
St Euthymius, Bishop of Novgorod
Euthymius II (c. 1380s – 1458), Archbishop of Novgorod from 1434 to his death, was the great builder-hierarch of the last age of the Novgorod Republic. Born in the city and baptized John, given by his parents to God in fulfilment of a vow, he was tonsured young at the Vyazhishchi monastery of Saint Nicholas, served as its steward under Archbishop Symeon, and after a long delay — for there was then no metropolitan resident in Rus' — was consecrated archbishop in 1434. Through fires, Muscovite pressure, and the last decades of Novgorod's freedom he adorned the city with churches and rebuilt its cathedral of Holy Wisdom; his most famous monument is the Faceted (Vladychny) Chamber of the archbishop's court, raised in 1433 with Western masters. A defender of his Church's ancient liberties and a lover of learning who fostered the copying of books, he reposed at Vyazhishchi on March 11, 1458; his relics were found incorrupt, and he was numbered among the saints at the Council of 1549.
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St Sophronios, patriarch of Jerusalem (638)
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St John Moschos, author of the Spiritual Meadow (622)
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Holy Martyr Pionius (250)
Pionius (third century, †c. 250) was a learned presbyter of the church of Smyrna who was arrested, tried, and burned alive in the persecution of the emperor Decius, about the year 250. His martyrdom is preserved in the Martyrdom of Pionius, one of the most vivid and historically trustworthy of all the early acts of the martyrs, which records that he was seized on a Saturday, the anniversary of the martyrdom of Polycarp of his own city, together with the Christian woman Sabina and Asclepiades; that he bound ropes about his own neck and theirs so the crowd would know they went to prison and not to sacrifice; and that he answered his judges with long and fearless speeches before he was fastened to the stake and given to the flames. He gave up his spirit with joy, and the Church keeps him with his companions on March 11.
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Epimachus of Pelusium
Epimachus of Pelusium (†c. 250) was an Egyptian martyr of the Decian persecution. A native of Egypt, he lived for a long time as a solitary on Mount Pelusium; hearing that Christians were being persecuted at Alexandria, he came down to the city, publicly smashed a number of pagan idols, and confessed himself a Christian. Brought before the eparch, he refused to sacrifice and was subjected to prolonged and savage torture — during which a drop of his blood, falling into the blind eye of a watching woman, restored her sight and brought her to faith — before being beheaded. He is distinguished in the calendars as Epimachus "the New," and is commemorated on October 31, with a further commemoration of the transfer of his relics on March 11.
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Sophronius of the Kiev Caves
Sophronius was a recluse of the Far Caves of the Kiev Caves Lavra, one of the monks of that house whose ascetic life is known only from the liturgical commemoration of the Caves fathers and whose relics rest in the Far (Theodosian) Caves. The Canon to the Venerable Fathers of the Far Caves remembers his solitary struggle in enclosure and says that he was counted worthy to hear the singing of angels. He is usually placed in the thirteenth century, but nothing of his history survives; his memory is kept on May 11, again on March 11 in Kievan usage, and with the whole company of the Far Caves fathers on August 28.
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Sophronius of Vratsa
Sophronius of Vratsa (1739–1813), born Stoyko Vladislavov, was a bishop of the Church of Bulgaria and one of the fathers of the Bulgarian National Revival. A priest of Kotel who copied out Paisius of Hilendar's Slavo-Bulgarian History and carried its call for national awakening, he was made Bishop of Vratsa in 1794, taking the name Sophronius; driven from his see by the lawlessness of the age, he withdrew at last to Wallachia, where he wrote and printed the Nedelnik (Kyriakodromion, "the Sunday Book," 1806) — the first printed book in modern Bulgarian — and his celebrated autobiography, The Life and Sufferings of Sinful Sophronius. A tireless labourer for the enlightenment and the liberation of his people, he died in Bucharest about 1813 and was glorified by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in 1964; he is commemorated on March 11.
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Trophimus and Thalus
Trophimus and Thalus (Thallus) were two brothers, martyrs of Laodicea, who suffered for Christ in the persecution of Diocletian about the year 300. Seized as Christians and refusing to sacrifice to the idols, they were beaten and stoned, and at the last crucified, giving up their spirits upon the cross in imitation of their Lord. The tradition remembers that even in their torments they praised God and prayed for their persecutors, and that wonders attended their deaths. They are commemorated together on March 11.
British Isles and Ireland
- St. Oengus the Culdee, compiler of the first Irish Martyrology (824)
Readings
6th Hour
Isaiah 5.16-25
16But the LORD of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness. 17Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat. 18Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope: 19That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it! 20Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! 21Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! 22Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink: 23Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him! 24Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. 25Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
Vespers
Genesis 4.16-26
16And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. 17And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch. 18And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech. 19And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. 20And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle. 21And his brother’s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ. 22And Zillah, she also bare Tubal-cain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah. 23And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. 24If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold. 25And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. 26And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.
Proverbs 5.15-6.3
15Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. 16Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. 17Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee. 18Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. 19Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. 20And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? 21For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings. 22His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. 23He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray. 1My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, 2Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth. 3Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, when thou art come into the hand of thy friend; go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend.
Troparia & kontakia
Kontakion — Tone 8
Moved by divine zeal, and opening thy lips to declare the true commandments, thou didst well order the foundations of the Church and deliver them to the monastic company that dwelt there; O all-wise Sophronius of Jerusalem, chief among patriarchs, thou hast brought thy most wise words forth into the light, and, guided by them, we cry to thee: Rejoice, O radiant boast of the Orthodox.
Troparion — Tone 4
Your martyr Epimachus, O Lord, in his contest has received from you our God the crown of incorruption; for possessed of your strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By his prayers, O Christ God, save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 4
A rule of faith and an image of meekness, a teacher of temperance, the truth of things revealed thee to thy flock; therefore by humility thou hast gained the heights, and by poverty the things of wealth. O Father and Hierarch Sophronius, intercede with Christ our God, that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)
Walled in the darkness of the cave, thou didst find the unwaning light, O Sophronius our father; for in silence and enclosure thy prayer was made unceasing, and thou wast granted to hear the angels praising God: pray for us who honour thy memory.
Presanctified Liturgy