Sunday after Theophany
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Saints commemorated
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St Sava, Archbishop of Serbia
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Holy Martyr Tatiana (ca. 230)
Tatiana of Rome (died c. 226) was a noble Roman virgin and deaconess martyred under the emperor Alexander Severus. Daughter of a man who had thrice been consul and who raised her secretly in the faith, she consecrated her virginity to Christ and served the Church of Rome as a deaconess, tending the sick and the poor. Arrested in the persecution driven by the prefect Ulpian, she was subjected to a long sequence of tortures out of which the tradition tells its most vivid signs: the temple of Apollo into which she was led fell in ruin, the arena lion loosed upon her lay down and licked her feet, and several of her executioners, seeing her wounds healed and their own blows turned back upon them, confessed Christ and were themselves baptised in their blood. Beheaded with the sword — together, the account says, with her aged father — she became one of the best-loved virgin-martyrs of the Church, and in Russia the patroness of students, her feast kept as "Tatiana's Day" and bound to the founding of the University of Moscow.
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Venerable Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth (689-690)
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Eupraxia of Tabenna
Eupraxia was a child of the senatorial nobility of Constantinople — daughter of Antigonus, a kinsman of the emperor Theodosius the Great — who was taken to Egypt at the age of seven, asked to be left in a women's monastery of the Thebaid near Tabennisi, and never came out again. Betrothed in infancy to a senator's son, she wrote to the emperor at the age of twelve to renounce the match and to ask that her whole inheritance be given to the poor and the churches, saying that she was already the bride of Christ. In the monastery she chose the lowest work of the house — the kitchen, the water, the sweeping — carried her fast from daily food to one meal a week, bore in silence the malice of an envious sister and a series of disfiguring accidents, and received before her death the gift of healing. She died aged about thirty, about the year 410–413, ten days after the abbess had seen her in a vision standing before the throne of God. Her Life is one of the most widely copied of the early Egyptian women's lives, and she is commemorated on July 25 with Olympias the Deaconess.
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Euthasia
Euthasia (died c. 305) was a virgin-martyr commemorated on January 12, of whom the synaxaria preserve only the fact of her consecrated virginity and her death by the sword. The Greek books group her among the martyrs of the Diocletianic age, about the year 305.
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Mertius of Mauretania
Mertius (died c. 305) was a soldier of the Roman army in Mauretania, in Roman Africa, martyred in the persecution of Diocletian. Commanded to sacrifice to the idols and refusing, he was given over to torture, which he bore without a sound; cast into prison, he died there of hunger and of the wounds of his torments. He is commemorated on January 12.
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Peter Absolom
Peter Absolom (died c. 309–311) was a young Christian of Anea, near Eleutheropolis in Palestine, martyred by fire at Caesarea in the persecution of Diocletian and his successors — one of the Palestinian martyrs whose sufferings Eusebius of Caesarea witnessed and recorded. Renowned, the tradition says, for his bodily strength and his piety, he was seized, refused every inducement to deny Christ or even to make a token compliance, and was burned alive. He is commemorated on January 12.
Troparia & kontakia
Apolytikion — Tone 1
Venerating thy divine icon as the tabernacle of thy glory, O Virgin Milk-Giver, we glorify thee; for from it thou dost mystically pour forth the milk of immaterial gifts, and dost nourish the hearts and the souls of those who cry to thee in faith: Glory to thy magnificence, O pure one; glory to thy wonders; glory to thine unutterable goodness toward us.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Let us hymn her who as a mother gives suck, as to an infant, to Him who was ineffably born of her — the only Theotokos, who nourishes with milk Christ our God; for she delivers us from many dangers.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Despising the bridal chamber of earth and the wealth of thy fathers, thou wast betrothed to Christ alone, O all-blessed Eupraxia; and serving thy sisters in the lowest labours thou wast raised on high, and dost intercede unceasingly for us all.
Megalynarion
Come, brethren, let us venerate the sacred and honoured icon of the Milk-Giver; for it wells up the grace of ineffable compassion, and warms our hearts and our souls.
Synaxarion
A spiritual milk thou pourest forth, O thou who barest God: thy divine icon is the Milk-Giver.
Synaxarion
For the head of all-radiant Tatiana the sword wrought out a radiant crown. On the twelfth, the sword shore through Tatiana's neck.
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable woman)
In thee, O mother, was the divine image preserved unimpaired: for taking up the cross thou didst follow after Christ, and by thy deeds thou hast taught us to despise the flesh, which passeth away, and to care rather for the soul, a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Eupraxia, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy lamb Tatiana crieth unto Thee, O Jesus, with a loud voice: Thee, my Bridegroom, do I love, and seeking Thee I strive in contest; I am crucified and buried together 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. Receive me then as a spotless sacrifice, offered unto Thee in love. By her prayers, O Merciful One, save Thou our souls.
Readings
7th Matins Gospel
John 20.1-10
1The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. 2Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. 3Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. 4So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. 5And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. 6Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, 7And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. 8Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. 9For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. 10Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.
Epistle
Ephesians 4.7-13 (Sunday after Theophany)
7But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. 8Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. 9(Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? 10He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) 11And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; 12For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: 13Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
Gospel
Matthew 4.12-17 (Sunday after Theophany)
12Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee; 13And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim: 14That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, 15The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; 16The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up. 17From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.