Martyr Sabinas of Egypt

Saints commemorated

Saint of the day

Martyr Sabinas of Egypt
Our Holy Father Christodoulos, Wonderworker of Patmos (1111)

Christodoulos (c. 1020 – 1093), baptised John, was a Byzantine monk and abbot of the eleventh century and the founder of one of the great houses of Aegean monasticism, the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on Patmos. Formed in the ascetic tradition of Mount Olympus in Bithynia, the Lavra of Saint Sabbas in Palestine, and above all Mount Latros in Caria — where he became the superior of its monks — he was driven westward through the islands by the Seljuk Turkish advance. In 1088 the emperor Alexios I Komnenos, by a golden bull, granted him the deserted island of Patmos, where the Apostle John had received the Revelation, in exchange for his lands on Kos; there Christodoulos built and fortified his monastery and gave it the rule (Hypotyposis) that still governs it. A fresh Turkish raid drove him at the last to Euboea, where he wrote his Testament and reposed on March 16, 1093. His relics were carried back to Patmos, where they remain incorrupt and work wonders, and he is honoured as the Wonderworker of Patmos.
Holy Apostle Aristobulus of the Seventy, first Bishop of Britain (1st c.)
Alexander of Rome

Alexander (†c. 119) was, by the ancient reckoning, the fifth Bishop of Rome after the Apostle Peter, who held the see for about ten years in the early second century and, in the tradition of the Church, suffered martyrdom in the reign of the emperor Hadrian. The Western passion joins to him the priests Eventius and Theodulus, his fellow-sufferers, and remembers his conversion of the prefect Hermes and his household. He is one of the early bishops of Rome venerated throughout the undivided Church; the Byzantine calendar keeps his memory on March 16, the West on May 3. His martyrdom, though held by the tradition, rests on a late and legendary account, and the entry keeps it as such. He is not to be confused with Alexander of Rome the Soldier, the eighteen-year-old martyr of the regiment of the Tiberiani beheaded at Drizipera in Thrace under Maximian and commemorated on May 13 — a different saint who carries the same epithet "of Rome," and whom part of the manuscript tradition wrongly calls a bishop.
Julian of Anazarbus

Julian (†c. 305) was a martyr of Cilicia, in the south-east of Asia Minor — a young man of senatorial family from Anazarbus who confessed Christ in the Great Persecution under the Roman governor and, after a year of being dragged from city to city and tortured, was sewn into a sack filled with sand and venomous vipers and scorpions and cast into the sea. The waves bore his body to the Cilician shore (the tradition says to Alexandria), whence his relics were gathered and at last enshrined at Antioch. There, some ninety years later, John Chrysostom preached a celebrated homily in his honour, which remains the chief witness to his martyrdom. He is commemorated on March 16.
Papas of Lycaonia

Papas (†c. 305) was a martyr of Laranda in Lycaonia, in the interior of Asia Minor, who suffered in the Great Persecution under Maximian. Seized as a Christian and refusing to sacrifice to the idols, he was cruelly tortured — his feet, the tradition says, were shod with iron shoes driven through with nails, and he was made to run before his persecutors as they moved him from city to city, to Diocaesarea in Isauria. There, at the last, he was bound to a barren tree, which — at the death of the martyr — put forth leaves and bore fruit, a wonder that the tradition keeps as the sign of his crown. He is commemorated on March 16.
Sabinus of Egypt

Sabinus (†c. 287) was a martyr of Hermopolis in Egypt — a leading citizen, and by some accounts the governor of the city, who in the persecution laid aside his rank and hid himself with a company of fellow-Christians in a house outside the town. Betrayed for two pieces of gold by a beggar whom he had fed in his need, he was seized, brought before the persecutors, tortured for his confession of Christ, and at the last drowned in the waters of the Nile. His memory is a parable of the treachery repaid for kindness and the crown won through it, and the Church keeps him on March 13.
Serapion of Novgorod

Serapion (c. 1450 – 1516) was a Russian monastic saint and hierarch — hegumen of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and afterwards Archbishop of Novgorod — best remembered for his part in the great controversy over the monastic estate that divided the Russian Church in his day. Born near Moscow, married and briefly a parish priest, he was widowed and took the monastic habit, rising through the Dubensk and Trinity-Sergius houses to the see of Novgorod in 1506. His excommunication of the abbot Joseph of Volokolamsk (Joseph of Volotsk), who had removed his monastery from Novgorod's jurisdiction to the Grand Prince's, brought Serapion himself before a council in 1509, which deposed him from his see; he withdrew to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, was reconciled, and reposed there in peace on March 16, 1516. He was later glorified, and his relics rest at the Lavra.

British Isles and Ireland

St. Abban of Kilabban (650)
St. Finan Lobur, abbot of Swords (5th C)

Troparia & kontakia

Kontakion — Tone 8

To thee who by thy venerable teachings hast led thy flock out of the dread vanity of the world, we thy children inscribe a hymn, O blessed one; but as one who hast boldness before the Lord, deliver us from punishments of every kind, that we may cry: Rejoice, O father Christodoulos!

Troparion — Tone 1

The offspring of Nicaea and the boast of Patmos, and the glory of monastics, the God-bearing Christodoulos, let us honour with hymns, O brethren, embracing his holy tabernacle, that we may receive the healing of our souls and bodies, and crying aloud: Glory to him who has given thee strength; glory to him who has crowned thee; glory to him who works through thee healings for all.

Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a martyr)

Thy martyr Julian, O Lord, in his contest has received from thee our God the crown of incorruption; for having thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the impotent insolence of the demons. By his supplications, O Christ God, save our souls.

Troparion — Tone 3 (common of a martyr)

Thy martyr Papas, O Lord, in his contest has received from thee our God the crown of incorruption; for having thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the impotent insolence of the demons. By his supplications, O Christ God, save our souls.

Troparion — Tone 3

Thy holy martyr Sabinus, O Lord, through his contest has received an incorruptible crown from thee our God; for having thy strength, he laid low his persecutors and shattered the powerless boldness of the demons. By his intercessions save our souls.

Readings

6th Hour

Isaiah 8.13-9.7

¹³Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. ¹⁴And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ¹⁵And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken. ¹⁶Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. ¹⁷And I will wait upon the LORD, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. ¹⁸Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion. ¹⁹And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? ²⁰To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. ²¹And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward. ²²And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness. ¹Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. ²The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. ³Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. ⁴For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. ⁵For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire. ⁶For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. ⁷Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

Vespers

Genesis 6.9-22

⁹These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. ¹⁰And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. ¹¹The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. ¹²And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. ¹³And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. ¹⁴Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. ¹⁵And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. ¹⁶A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. ¹⁷And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die. ¹⁸But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee. ¹⁹And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. ²⁰Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. ²¹And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them. ²²Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.

Proverbs 8.1-21

¹Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? ²She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths. ³She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. ⁴Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man. ⁵O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart. ⁶Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things. ⁷For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips. ⁸All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them. ⁹They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge. ¹⁰Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold. ¹¹For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it. ¹²I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions. ¹³The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate. ¹⁴Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength. ¹⁵By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. ¹⁶By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth. ¹⁷I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me. ¹⁸Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness. ¹⁹My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold; and my revenue than choice silver. ²⁰I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment: ²¹That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures.

Saints commemorated