Great Lent, day 17 · 32 days until Pascha
Saints commemorated
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Saint of the day
Ven. Nicetas the Confessor
Nicetas (c. 760–824) was abbot of the great monastery of Medikion in Bithynia and one of the foremost confessors of the second period of Byzantine Iconoclasm. Under his governance Medikion became a school of holiness numbering hundreds of monks; and when the emperor Leo V the Armenian renewed the war on the holy icons, Nicetas — with the Patriarch Nicephorus and Theodore the Studite — refused all compromise, and for it endured imprisonment, exile and years of hardship, ending his days a confessor. His Life, written soon after his death by his disciple Theosteriktos, is one of the fullest and most valuable accounts of the iconoclast persecution seen from within.
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Saint Joseph the Hymnographer (886)
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Saint Seraphim of Vyritsa (1949) (March 21 OC)
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Theodosia of Tyre
Theodosia was a young maiden of Tyre, about eighteen years old, who during the persecution of Maximinus Daza went up to the confessors awaiting trial at Caesarea in Palestine to greet them and ask their prayers, and was for this seized and put to a cruel death — her sides and breasts torn, and at last cast into the sea (or, in the Greek synaxarion, beheaded). Her martyrdom is recorded by Eusebius of Caesarea, who was an eyewitness of the persecution.
British Isles and Ireland
- St. Comman (c.7th C)
Troparia & kontakia
Kontakion — Tone 2
Celebrating thy holy memory, O all-blessed Nicetas, we glorify the Lord who gave thee strength to confess Him; for standing firm for the honour of the holy icons, thou didst endure exile and affliction, and now thou dost intercede for us all.
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a venerable confessor)
O God of our fathers, ever dealing with us according to Thy gentleness: take not Thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of Thy venerable one Nicetas guide our life in peace.
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a woman-martyr)
Thy lamb, O Jesus, crieth with a loud voice: Thee, O my Bridegroom, do I love, and seeking Thee I pass through many sufferings; 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. Accept me as a spotless sacrifice offered in love. By her prayers, O merciful One, save our souls.
Readings
6th Hour
Isaiah 10.12-20
12Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. 13For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent: and I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man: 14And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped. 15Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood. 16Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire. 17And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day; 18And shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body: and they shall be as when a standardbearer fainteth. 19And the rest of the trees of his forest shall be few, that a child may write them. 20And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more again stay upon him that smote them; but shall stay upon the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
Vespers
Genesis 7.6-9
6And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. 7And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. 8Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, 9There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
Proverbs 9.12-18 (LXX)
12If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself: but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it. 13A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing. 14For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city, 15To call passengers who go right on their ways: 16Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: and as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, 17Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. 18But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.
Presanctified Liturgy