Great and Holy Wednesday

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Lenten Fast — No overrides

Holy Week, day 5 · 4 days until Pascha

Saints commemorated

Prophet Jeremiah

Jeremiah is the second of the four Greater Prophets, the priest of Anathoth who was called as a boy in the thirteenth year of Josiah and prophesied for some forty years, through the reigns of five kings, until Jerusalem fell and the Temple burned. To him was given the bitterest of all prophetic commissions: to announce the ruin of his own city, to be hated for it by priests, princes and people, beaten, put in the stocks, imprisoned and let down into a miry cistern to die — and yet to promise, at the very bottom of the catastrophe, a new covenant written not on tablets but on the heart (Jeremiah 31:31–34), the text that gives the New Testament its name. Dragged into Egypt by the fleeing remnant against his own warning, he was stoned to death by his countrymen at Tahpanhes. The Church honours him on May 1 as prophet and martyr, reads him through Holy Week as the figure of the innocent Lamb led to slaughter, and ascribes to him the Book of Jeremiah and the Lamentations.
Ven. Paphnutius of Borovsk

Paphnutius (1394–1477) is one of the great abbots of the northern Russian revival that descended from Saint Sergius of Radonezh. Grandson of a baptised Tatar tax-collector, he was tonsured at twenty in the Protection monastery on the Vysokoye near Borovsk, served there some thirty years and became its abbot; then at fifty-one, after an illness he had thought mortal, he left his own house and began again in the forest at the mouth of the Isterma on the Protva, founding the monastery of the Nativity of the Theotokos that has borne his name ever since. He was a builder, a strict ascetic who ate nothing at all on Mondays and Fridays, and a spiritual father of the first rank: it was Paphnutius who tonsured the young John Sanin and gave him the name Joseph — Saint Joseph of Volokolamsk. He reposed on May 1, 1477, and was glorified in 1531.
Saint Tamara (Tamar), Queen of Georgia (1212)

Tamara (c. 1166–1213) is the queen under whom Georgia reached the height of its power and holiness, and whom her own people call not queen but king — mepe — because she ruled in her own right. Daughter of George III of the Bagratid house, crowned co-ruler at about twelve and sole sovereign at eighteen, she opened her reign by summoning a council that purged the Church of simony, and closed it having doubled her kingdom: the victories of Shamkor (1195) and Basiani (1203) broke the Muslim coalitions ranged against her, and Georgian arms reached from the Black Sea to the Caspian. She abolished capital punishment and torture, endowed churches and monasteries from Vardzia to Athos, Palestine, Cyprus, Sinai and Antioch, wove vestments with her own hands, and lived beneath the purple as an ascetic. To her court belongs the golden age of Georgian letters, and Shota Rustaveli's Knight in the Panther's Skin is dedicated to her. She reposed in 1213 and is honoured on May 1 and on the Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing Women.
Synaxis of the Three New Righteous Martyrs of the Holy Mountain, Euthymius, Ignatius, and Acacius (1814-1815)

Three young monks of the Holy Mountain, formed by the same elders and following one another deliberately to death, are commemorated together on May 1 as the new martyrs of Athos: Euthymius, a Peloponnesian who had denied Christ in Constantinople and returned to wash the apostasy away with his blood, beheaded — in the event, his throat cut — on Palm Sunday, 22 March 1814; Ignatius, a Bulgarian of Stara Zagora, hanged at the Daktyloporta in Constantinople in October 1814; and Acacius, a Bulgarian of Macedonia, beheaded at Parmak Kapi on 1 May 1816. All three were prepared for their contest at the Skete of Saint Anne and at Iveron under the elder Acacius and under Nicephorus of Chios, the "trainer of martyrs"; all three were accompanied to the city by the same monk Gregory, who afterwards ransomed their bodies and brought them home. Their relics were laid at Iveron in a church built for the first two, and their heads are venerated at the Russian monastery of Saint Panteleimon.
Batas of Nisibis

Batas was a monk of the Church of Persia in the fourth century who was put to death at Nisibis for confessing Christ, about the year 364, in the persecution of the Christians carried on under Shapur II. The synaxaria preserve almost nothing beyond the fact and the place, and this entry does not go beyond what they say; but the fact is eloquent enough, for Nisibis had just passed from Roman into Persian hands, and Batas belongs to the first generation of monks who paid for their faith under the new masters of the city that had been Saint Ephrem's.
Gerasimus of Boldino

Gerasimus (1490–1554) was the great monastic coloniser of the Smolensk lands. Born at Pereslavl-Zalessky, he attached himself at thirteen to Saint Daniel of Pereyaslavl and spent some twenty-six years under him, becoming known in Moscow as an ascetic of the strictest kind; then, seeking obscurity, he went west into the wild forest near Dorogobuzh, settled beside a great oak at Boldino, was beaten and driven off by robbers, and stayed. Out of that solitude grew four monasteries — the Trinity at Boldino (1530), the Forerunner at Vyazma, the Entry of the Theotokos on the Zhizdra in the Bryansk forest, and a fourth house at Bryansk — and a school of disciples that included Anthony, later bishop of Vologda. He dictated a testament to his brethren, and reposed on 1 May 1554.
Isidora of Tabenna

Isidora is the first fool-for-Christ whose story the Church records — a nun of the great Pachomian women's monastery at Tabennisi in the Egyptian Thebaid in the middle of the fourth century, who deliberately made herself despised. She wore a rag on her head instead of the monastic cowl, never sat at table but lived on the crumbs and the scourings of the pots, served four hundred sisters who mocked, struck and drenched her, and never in all those years spoke an idle or a resentful word. Her secret was disclosed by an angel to the hermit Piteroum, who was sent to the monastery to find "one wearing a crown upon her head" and holier than himself; and when the honour of the community turned upon her, she slipped away and was never found again. Her account, written by Palladius within living memory, is the foundation-text of the whole tradition of holy folly.
Macarius of Kiev

Macarius, Metropolitan of Kiev and All Rus (1495–1497), was killed by a Tatar raiding party at the altar, in the middle of the Divine Liturgy, in the village of Strigolovo on the river Vzhishcha, on 1 May 1497. Formerly archimandrite of the Holy Trinity monastery in Vilna, he was raised to the metropolitan throne of the western Russian lands at a moment when the Church there was pressed between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Latin hierarchy and the Crimean Tatars, and he spent his short episcopate travelling his ruined diocese to rebuild what the raids had destroyed. He died vested and serving, having told the people to flee and refused to leave the holy table. His incorrupt relics rest in Kiev, and he is honoured as the hieromartyr of the Kievan see.
Nicephorus of Chios

Nicephorus of Chios (c. 1750–1821) was a monk, teacher, hymnographer and — the title by which the tradition knows him — a trainer of martyrs. Dedicated as a child to the monastery of Nea Moni on Chios after surviving a plague, educated in the schools of the island, he became the disciple and collaborator of two of the leading figures of the Greek spiritual revival, Macarius of Corinth and Athanasius Parios. Driven from the abbacy of Nea Moni by intrigue, he withdrew to the hermitage of Saint George at Resta, where he planted trees, wrote, and completed the great collection of saints' lives and services which Macarius had entrusted to him, the New Leimonarion. He composed services for a multitude of saints, and above all he prepared repentant apostates for martyrdom, among them the Athonite new martyrs Euthymius, Ignatius and Acacius, with whom he is commemorated on May 1. He reposed in 1821, and his relics were found in 1845.
Panaretus of Paphos

Panaretus (c. 1710–1790) was bishop of Paphos in Cyprus for twenty-three years, in the hardest decades of Ottoman rule on the island, and is honoured as one of the very few eighteenth-century Cypriot hierarchs glorified as a saint. Born at Peristeronopigi in the Famagusta district and formed as a monk at the monastery of Saint Anastasius, he was exarch of the archbishopric and abbot in Nicosia before his consecration to Paphos in January 1767. He rebuilt and restored churches across a devastated diocese, defended his flock against the extortions of the Ottoman governors, and paid for the printing of books; and beneath all of it he lived as an ascetic, eating once a day and wearing an iron chain next to the skin. He foretold his own repose, was granted the arrival of his confessor by what the tradition treats as a miracle, and died in the late spring of 1790. Patriarch Gerasimos III of Constantinople proclaimed his sanctity in 1794, only four years after his death.

British Isles and Ireland

St. Brioc (510)
St. Asaph, bishop of Llanelwy (7th C)
St. Ceallach, bishop of Killala (6th C)
St. Buriana (Beryan) (6th C)

Troparia & kontakia

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a hierarch)

O God of our fathers, who dealest with us ever according to thy gentleness, take not thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of thy hierarch Panaretus direct our life in peace.

Kontakion — Tone 4

Having washed away by your blood the denial into which you had fallen, O thrice-blessed ones, you returned to Christ by the way of the sword and the rope; wherefore the Holy Mountain that nurtured you rejoices, and we cry to you: Rejoice, Euthymius, Ignatius and Acacius, boast of the new martyrs.

Kontakion — Tone 3

Thy heart being cleansed by the Spirit, O glorious prophet and martyr Jeremiah, thou didst become a great vessel of prophecy, beholding things far off as though they were present. Therefore, being stoned by thy own people, thou dost never cease to intercede for the world, O adornment of the prophets.

Kontakion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)

Having from childhood offered thyself wholly to God, and despising the ease of the flesh, thou wast shown forth as a lamp of the desert and a father of monks; wherefore we cry to thee: Rejoice, O Paphnutius, unshaken pillar of the monastic life.

Kontakion

Having preserved thy soul unspotted in the midst of a kingdom, and having clothed the naked and comforted the afflicted, thou wast shown forth as a bright lamp of thy land, O most praised Tamara; wherefore we cry to thee: Rejoice, boast and protection of Georgia.

Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a martyr)

Thy martyr Batas, O Lord, in his contest received an incorruptible crown from thee, our God; for possessing thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions save our souls.

Troparion — Tone 4 (common of several martyrs)

Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest received incorruptible crowns from thee, our God; for possessing thy strength, they cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By their intercessions, O Christ our God, save our souls.

Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)

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 passeth away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Therefore doth thy spirit, O venerable Gerasimus, rejoice together with the angels.

Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable woman)

In thee, O Mother, 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 passeth away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Therefore doth thy spirit, O venerable Isidora, rejoice together with the angels.

Troparion — Tone 2

As we celebrate the memory of thy prophet Jeremiah, O Lord, through him we entreat thee: save our souls.

Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a hieromartyr)

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 Macarius: intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)

Troparion — Tone 4

Having loved Christ from thy youth, O venerable one, and taken his yoke upon thee, thou didst make thy dwelling in the wilderness and there raise up a house to the Mother of God; and having gathered a flock of monks, thou wast to them a rule of fasting and a pattern of humility. O our father Paphnutius, entreat Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Troparion

Thou didst love Christ from thy youth, O blessed one, and having received the sceptre from God thou didst rule thy people in righteousness and in mercy; adorning thy royal state with fasting, almsgiving and prayer, thou didst finish thy course in peace. O right-believing Tamara, entreat Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Readings

Gospel

John 12.17-50 (Bridegroom)

¹⁷The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record. ¹⁸For this cause the people also met him, for that they heard that he had done this miracle. ¹⁹The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him. ²⁰And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast: ²¹The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus. ²²Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus. ²³And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. ²⁴Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. ²⁵He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. ²⁶If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour. ²⁷Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. ²⁸Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. ²⁹The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. ³⁰Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. ³¹Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. ³²And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. ³³This he said, signifying what death he should die. ³⁴The people answered him, We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man? ³⁵Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. ³⁶While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them. ³⁷But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him: ³⁸That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? ³⁹Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, ⁴⁰He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. ⁴¹These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him. ⁴²Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: ⁴³For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. ⁴⁴Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. ⁴⁵And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me. ⁴⁶I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. ⁴⁷And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. ⁴⁸He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. ⁴⁹For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. ⁵⁰And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.

Matthew 26.6-16 (Presanctified)

⁶Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, ⁷There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat. ⁸But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? ⁹For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor. ¹⁰When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me. ¹¹For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always. ¹²For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial. ¹³Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her. ¹⁴Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, ¹⁵And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. ¹⁶And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.

6th Hour

Ezekiel 2.3-3.3

³And he said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day. ⁴For they are impudent children and stiffhearted. I do send thee unto them; and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD. ⁵And they, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, (for they are a rebellious house,) yet shall know that there hath been a prophet among them. ⁶And thou, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions: be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house. ⁷And thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear: for they are most rebellious. ⁸But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee. ⁹And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein; ¹⁰And he spread it before me; and it was written within and without: and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe. ¹Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel. ²So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll. ³And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness.

Vespers

Exodus 2.11-22

¹¹And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren. ¹²And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. ¹³And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? ¹⁴And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known. ¹⁵Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well. ¹⁶Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. ¹⁷And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock. ¹⁸And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon to day? ¹⁹And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock. ²⁰And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? why is it that ye have left the man? call him, that he may eat bread. ²¹And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter. ²²And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.

Job 2.1-10

¹Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD. ²And the LORD said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. ³And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause. ⁴And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. ⁵But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face. ⁶And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life. ⁷So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. ⁸And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes. ⁹Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. ¹⁰But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.

Presanctified Liturgy