St Stephen, Bishop of Perm

Saints commemorated

Saint of the day

St Stephen, Bishop of Perm

Stephen, bishop of Great Perm (c. 1340–1396), is the apostle of the Permians and Zyrians — the Finno-Ugric people known today as the Komi, on the Vychegda and the upper Kama in the Russian north-east. A cleric's son from Veliky Ustyug who had heard Zyrian spoken in the markets of his childhood, he was tonsured at Rostov, learned Greek in order to read the Fathers in the original, and there did the thing for which he is remembered: he devised an alphabet for the Permian tongue — the Abur or Anbur script — and translated the Scriptures and the offices into it, so that when he went out to the Vychegda in 1379 he could preach, catechise, baptise, and celebrate the Liturgy in the language of the people he came to. He felled their sacred birch, outfaced their chief sorcerer, was consecrated their first bishop in 1383, founded churches, monasteries, and schools among them, fed them in famine and defended them from tax-farmers and raiders, and died at Moscow on 26 April 1396. He is one of the very few missionaries of medieval Christendom, East or West, to have given a people its literacy in order to give it the Gospel.
Hieromartyr Basil, bishop of Amasia and Righteous Virgin Glaphyra (322)

Basil — in the Greek sources Basileus (Βασιλεύς), "the king," not the commoner Basileios — was bishop of Amasea in Pontus in the first decades of the fourth century, a subscriber of the canons of Ancyra (314) and Neocaesarea (c. 315), and one of the hierarchs destroyed in the last persecution the Roman world saw: that of Licinius, who turned on the Church in his eastern half of the empire in the years before his defeat by Constantine. His fall was occasioned by his sheltering the fugitive virgin Glaphyra, a maidservant of the empress Constantia who had fled Licinius's advances to Amasea and spent her mistress's money on the bishop's new church. Summoned to Nicomedia, Basil refused to sacrifice and was beheaded about the year 322; his body, flung into the sea, was recovered at Sinope after an angel three times directed his companion Elpidephorus to it, and was buried in the church he had built. He is honoured on April 26 together with Glaphyra.
Glaphyra the Virgin

Glaphyra was a Christian virgin of the imperial household at Nicomedia, a maidservant of the empress Constantia, wife of Licinius and half-sister of Constantine the Great. When the emperor conceived a passion for her, she took refuge with her mistress; and Constantia, putting out the report that the girl had gone mad and was dying, dressed her in men's clothing, gave her money and an escort, and sent her east out of reach. At Amasea in Pontus she was sheltered by the bishop, the hieromartyr Basil, and gave every coin she had to the church he was then building, writing to the empress for more when the funds ran short. That letter betrayed her: Licinius, learning she was alive, sent for her and the bishop together — but Glaphyra was already dead when the order reached the city, about the year 322. Basil was taken and beheaded, and the Church keeps the two of them together on April 26, the virgin whose flight cost the bishop his life.
Joannicius of Devič

Joannicius (Serbian Joanikije, popularly Janićije) was a Serbian hermit of the first half of the fifteenth century who withdrew from the world as a young man into the gorge of the Ibar, lived in a cave above the Crna Reka — the Black River — and afterwards buried himself deeper still in the forests of the Drenica in Kosovo. There, tradition says, the despot Đurađ Branković brought him a daughter afflicted in her mind; the hermit healed her, and the grateful prince built on the spot the monastery which took its name from the healed maiden — Devič, "the maiden's place." Joannicius reposed there, by the received reckoning on 2 December 1430, and his relics remained in the monastery church, where for five centuries they were sought above all by the mentally ill and the possessed, Serbs and Albanians alike. He is one of the last of the medieval Serbian ascetics, and his shrine became in the twentieth century one of the most bitterly contested holy places in the Balkans. The wider Orthodox calendars keep his memory on April 26.

British Isles and Ireland

St. Trudpert of Muenstethal (644)

Troparia & kontakia

Apolytikion — Tone 4

As a sharer in the ways and a successor to the thrones of the Apostles, O divinely-inspired one, thou didst find in contemplation the means to ascend to divine heights; rightly dividing the word of truth, thou didst struggle for the faith even unto blood, O hieromartyr Basil: intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a holy virgin)

In thee, O blessed Glaphyra, the image of God was kept unclouded, for thou didst set thy heart on chastity above the favour of princes, and having given away all that was thine, thou didst find the treasure that is not taken away. Pray thou to Christ our God that our souls may be saved.

Apolytikion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)

The image of God was kept unblemished in thee, O father Joannicius, for thou didst take up the Cross and follow Christ into the wilderness, and by thy prayers thou didst give back to the troubled their right mind. Pray to Christ our God that our souls may be saved.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Thou wast a shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep, and the sword could not divide thee from Christ, O all-blessed Basil; wherefore the deep itself gave back thy body unharmed, and thou wast laid in the temple thou didst build. Cease not to intercede for those who honour thee.

Kontakion — Tone 8

The Word who gave tongues to the Apostles gave thee a tongue not thine own, that thou mightest speak to the Zyrians of His kingdom; and thou didst feed them with bread in their hunger and with the Gospel in their darkness. Therefore, O father Stephen, thy children cry to thee: Rejoice, enlightener of Perm.

Troparion — Tone 4

Being filled with the grace of God's Spirit, thou didst go forth to a people that sat in darkness, and didst give them letters that they might read the words of life; thou didst cast down the tree of sacrifice and plant in its place the Cross, O hierarch Stephen, first shepherd of the Permian land: pray to Christ our God that our souls may be saved.

Readings

6th Hour

Isaiah 66.10-24

¹⁰Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her: ¹¹That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. ¹²For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees. ¹³As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. ¹⁴And when ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb: and the hand of the LORD shall be known toward his servants, and his indignation toward his enemies. ¹⁵For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. ¹⁶For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many. ¹⁷They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine’s flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD. ¹⁸For I know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory. ¹⁹And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles. ²⁰And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the LORD out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the LORD, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD. ²¹And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the LORD. ²²For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain. ²³And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the LORD. ²⁴And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.

Vespers

Genesis 49.33-50.26

³³And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people. ¹And Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him. ²And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel. ³And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days. ⁴And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, ⁵My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die: in my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Now therefore let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again. ⁶And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear. ⁷And Joseph went up to bury his father: and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, ⁸And all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father’s house: only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen. ⁹And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen: and it was a very great company. ¹⁰And they came to the threshingfloor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days. ¹¹And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abel-mizraim, which is beyond Jordan. ¹²And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them: ¹³For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a buryingplace of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre. ¹⁴And Joseph returned into Egypt, he, and his brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father. ¹⁵And when Joseph’s brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him. ¹⁶And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, ¹⁷So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. ¹⁸And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants. ¹⁹And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God? ²⁰But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. ²¹Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them. ²²And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father’s house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years. ²³And Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation: the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were brought up upon Joseph’s knees. ²⁴And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. ²⁵And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence. ²⁶So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

Proverbs 31.8-31

⁸Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction. ⁹Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy. ¹⁰Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. ¹¹The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. ¹²She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. ¹³She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. ¹⁴She is like the merchants’ ships; she bringeth her food from afar. ¹⁵She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens. ¹⁶She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. ¹⁷She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms. ¹⁸She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night. ¹⁹She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. ²⁰She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy. ²¹She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet. ²²She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple. ²³Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land. ²⁴She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant. ²⁵Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. ²⁶She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. ²⁷She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. ²⁸Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. ²⁹Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. ³⁰Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised. ³¹Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

Saints commemorated