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Tuesday 19 March 2024

Martyrs Chrysanthius and Daria

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

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Lenten Fast — No overrides Tone 8

Great Lent, day 2 · 47 days until Pascha

Saints commemorated

  • Saint of the day

    Martyrs Chrysanthius and Daria

  • Chrysanthus and Daria

    Chrysanthus and Daria (†c. 283) were a young married couple martyred at Rome in the reign of the emperor Numerian. Chrysanthus was the son of a wealthy Roman senator of Alexandrian descent who, coming upon the writings of the Christians, sought out a teacher and was baptised; when his father tried to break his resolve by marrying him to Daria, a beautiful and learned priestess of Athena, Chrysanthus instead converted her, and the two lived together in unbroken virginity, devoting their marriage to the winning of others to Christ — he among the men, she among the women. Their preaching drew a persecution that only multiplied martyrs: the tribune Claudius sent to torture Chrysanthus was himself converted with his wife Hilaria, their sons Jason and Maurus, and his soldiers, and all were put to death. Daria, sent to a brothel, was guarded by a lion; and at the last the couple were thrown into a sandpit on the Via Salaria and buried alive under earth and stones. When Christians afterward gathered at the pit to keep their memory, the pagans sealed them in too — the Martyrs of the Pit, led by the presbyter Diodorus and the deacon Marianus. They are commemorated on March 19.

  • Innocent of Komel

    Innocent of Komel (mid-15th century – 1521) was a Russian monastic saint of the northern forests, a disciple of Nilus of Sora and one of the chief bearers of his teacher's austere skete tradition of non-acquisition and inner prayer. Descended from the princely Okhlyabinin line, a branch of the Rurikid house, he took monastic vows in the region of the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery and attached himself to Nilus, whom he accompanied on pilgrimage to the holy places of the Christian East. After Nilus's repose he withdrew north into the Komel forest of the Vologda land and, on the little river Nurma (Ediza), founded a hermitage under a written rule of his own that carried Nilus's skete discipline into the next generation. He reposed there on March 19, 1521, and is venerated as Innocent of Komel and of Vologda.

  • Pancharius of Nicomedia

    Pancharius (†c. 302) was a Roman of noble birth and a courtier in high favour with the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, who — fearing the emperor's anger and seduced by the honours of the world — denied Christ in the persecution and returned to paganism. His mother and sister, hearing of his fall, wrote to him a letter that recalled him to himself, bidding him fear God and the dread Judgment to come and not lose his soul for the passing glory of the court. Cut to the heart, Pancharius repented, and went before the emperor to confess Christ openly. For this he was stripped of his rank, tortured, and at the last beheaded at Nicomedia, washing away his denial in his own blood. He is commemorated on March 19.

British Isles and Ireland

  • St. Auxilius, bishop of Killossey (c.460)
  • St. Lactan, abbot of Achadh-Ur, now Freshford (672)
  • Holy Martyr Alcmund (c.800)

Troparia & kontakia

Troparion — Tone 4

Your martyrs, O Lord, in their contest received from you, our God, crowns of incorruption; for, armed with your strength, they cast down the tyrants and shattered the powerless insolence of the demons. By their supplications, O Christ our God, save our souls.

Troparion — Tone 8

In thee, O Father, was the divine image kept secure; for, taking up thy cross, thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passes away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Therefore doth thy spirit, venerable Innocent, rejoice together with the Angels.

Troparion — Tone 4

Your martyr, O Lord, in his contest received from you, our God, the crown of incorruption; for, armed with your strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the powerless insolence of the demons. By his supplications, O Christ our God, save our souls.

Readings

6th Hour

Isaiah 1.19-2.3

19If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: 20But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. 21How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. 22Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water: 23Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them. 24Therefore saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies: 25And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin: 26And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city. 27Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness. 28And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed. 29For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen. 30For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water. 31And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them. 1The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. 3And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

Vespers

Genesis 1.14-23

14And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. 20And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 22And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 23And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

Proverbs 1.20-33

20Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: 21She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, 22How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? 23Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. 24Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; 25But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: 26I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; 27When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. 28Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: 29For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: 30They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. 31Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. 32For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. 33But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.

Great Canon