Righteous Simeon the Godbearer and Anna the Prophetess

Saints commemorated

Saint of the day

Righteous Simeon the Godbearer and Anna the Prophetess

Anna the Prophetess (Ἄννα ἡ Προφῆτις) is the aged widow of the tribe of Asher who, with the righteous Symeon, witnessed to the infant Christ at his Presentation in the Temple (Luke 2:36–38). "A prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel," she had lived with a husband seven years and remained a widow to a great age, "which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day." Coming forward at the very hour Symeon held the Child, "she gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem." She is one of the few women the Scriptures call a prophetess, and the Church honours her as the last prophetess of the Old Covenant and the first evangelist of the Temple, proclaiming the Redeemer to the waiting remnant. With Symeon the God-receiver she leads the afterfeast of the Meeting, commemorated on February 3. She is not to be confused with Anna the mother of the Theotokos, nor with Hannah the mother of Samuel.
Our Father among the Saints, Nikolai (Nicholas), Archbishop and Enlightener of Japan (1912)

Nicholas of Japan (Ivan Dmitrievich Kasatkin, 1836–1912) was the founder and first hierarch of the Orthodox Church in Japan, honoured as Equal-to-the- Apostles for a missionary labour of half a century. A Russian priest who came to the consulate at Hakodate in 1861, he gave himself to the language, literature, and mind of Japan so completely that he rendered the Scriptures and the whole round of the services into Japanese, and gathered from nothing a native Church of tens of thousands, served by Japanese clergy and catechists. As bishop and then archbishop he built the great Holy Resurrection Cathedral in Tokyo — known to the city as Nikolai-do, "Nicholas's house" — and through the Russo-Japanese War he remained at his post, bidding his Japanese flock pray for their own country and its soldiers even as he, a Russian, kept silence. He reposed in Tokyo on February 3, 1912, and was glorified as a saint in 1970. He is one of the great apostolic missionaries of the modern age.
Adrian and Eubulus

Adrian and Eubulus were two Christians of the region of Batanea who, at the height of the Diocletianic persecution, came to Caesarea to visit and comfort the confessors imprisoned there and were themselves seized. Brought before the governor Firmilian and refusing to sacrifice, they were cruelly tortured and condemned to the beasts of the amphitheatre: Adrian, after being given to a lion that did not finish him, was dispatched by the sword; Eubulus, offered his freedom if only he would sacrifice, chose death and suffered two days later — by the tradition preserved in Eusebius, the very last of the martyrs of Caesarea in that persecution. They are commemorated on February 3, and their courage in seeking out the imprisoned made them a byword for the works of mercy that the persecution could not extinguish.
Azariah the Prophet

Azariah, son of Oded, is the Old-Testament prophet who, "the Spirit of God coming upon him," went out to meet King Asa of Judah as he returned from victory and summoned him to reform: "The Lord is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you" (2 Chronicles 15:1–7). His word moved the king to purge idols from Judah and Benjamin, to restore the altar of the Lord, and to gather the people to a great covenant, so that "they sought God with their whole desire, and he was found of them." Azariah flourished in the early ninth century before Christ; the Church commemorates him on February 3. He is not to be confused with Azarias, one of the Three Holy Youths in the furnace, nor with the many other bearers of this common Hebrew name.
Blaise of Caesarea

Blaise the Herdsman (Βλάσιος ὁ Βουκόλος, "the cowherd") was a simple keeper of cattle near Caesarea in Cappadocia who, in the persecutions of the third century, was seized for confessing Christ and refusing to sacrifice to the idols. Tortured, hung upon a tree and his flesh torn with iron, he endured with the constancy of the great martyrs, and — the tradition holds — was attended even by the beasts of his herd, which followed him and would not leave him; he was at last beheaded. He is commemorated on February 3. He is to be distinguished carefully from the more famous Blaise (Vlasios) the Bishop of Sebaste (February 11), the physician-hieromartyr with whom, sharing both name and an association with animals, he is very frequently confused.
Symeon the God-receiver

Symeon the God-receiver (Θεοδόχος, "he who received God") is the righteous and aged elder of Jerusalem who, "just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel," took the forty-day-old Christ-child into his arms in the Temple and knew him for the Salvation of God (Luke 2:25–35). To him the Holy Spirit had revealed "that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ"; and holding the Infant he sang the last of the Gospel canticles — "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace… for mine eyes have seen thy salvation" — the Nunc Dimittis that the Church prays at every Vespers. He blessed the Mother and foretold to her the sword that should pierce her own soul. A cherished tradition numbers him among the Seventy translators of the Septuagint, kept alive across centuries until the prophecy he had doubted — the Virgin who should conceive — was fulfilled before his eyes. With Anna the Prophetess he leads the afterfeast of the Meeting, commemorated on February 3.

British Isles and Ireland

St. Caellainn of Roscommon (6th C)
Holy Martyr Ia (Ives) of Cornwall (450)
St. Werburgh of Chester, abbess of Hanbury (700)
St. Werburgh, abbess of Bardney (c.785)
St. Anatoolius, Scots bishop (9th C)

Troparia & kontakia

Canticle

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. (Luke 2:29–32)

Kontakion — Tone 1

Thou who by thy birth didst sanctify the Virgin womb, and as was fitting didst bless the hands of Symeon, hast now come and saved us, O Christ our God. Give peace amid wars unto thy commonwealth, and strengthen those whom thou hast loved, O only Lover of mankind.

Troparion — Tone 4

Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest received incorruptible crowns from thee our God; for possessed of thy might, they cast down the tyrants and shattered the powerless boldness of the demons. By their prayers, O Christ our God, save thou our souls.

Troparion — Tone 1

In thee, O mother, was the divine image surely preserved; for thou didst take up the cross and follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passeth away, but to care for the soul as a thing immortal. Wherefore thy spirit, O righteous Anna, rejoiceth with the angels.

Troparion — Tone 2

Keeping the memory of thy prophet Azariah, O Lord, through him we beseech thee: save thou our souls.

Troparion — Tone 4

Thy martyr Blaise, O Lord, in his contest received an incorruptible crown from thee our God; for possessed of thy might, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the powerless boldness of the demons. By his prayers, O Christ our God, save thou our souls.

Troparion — Tone 1

Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos, full of grace, for from thee has dawned the Sun of Righteousness, Christ our God, enlightening those in darkness. Be glad, O righteous Elder, thou who didst receive in thine arms the Deliverer of our souls, who granteth unto us the resurrection.

Readings

Epistle

James 4.7-5.9

⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. ⁹Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. ¹⁰Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. ¹¹Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. ¹²There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another? ¹³Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: ¹⁴Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. ¹⁵For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. ¹⁶But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. ¹⁷Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. ¹Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. ²Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. ³Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. ⁴Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. ⁵Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. ⁶Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you. ⁷Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. ⁸Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. ⁹Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.

Gospel

Mark 11.27-33

²⁷And they come again to Jerusalem: and as he was walking in the temple, there come to him the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders, ²⁸And say unto him, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority to do these things? ²⁹And Jesus answered and said unto them, I will also ask of you one question, and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. ³⁰The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? answer me. ³¹And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why then did ye not believe him? ³²But if we shall say, Of men; they feared the people: for all men counted John, that he was a prophet indeed. ³³And they answered and said unto Jesus, We cannot tell. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.

Saints commemorated