Ven. Paul of Thebes and John Calabytes

Saints commemorated

Saint of the day Antiochian commemoration

Ven. Paul of Thebes and John Calabytes

Paul of Thebes (c. 227 – c. 341), called the First Hermit, is honoured by the Church as the father and archetype of Christian solitude. A wealthy and educated young Egyptian of the Thebaid, orphaned early and threatened with betrayal by a covetous brother-in-law during the persecution of the emperor Decius, he fled into the desert about the age of twenty-three and found a hidden cave beside a spring and a single palm tree. There he remained for some ninety years, clothed in woven palm-leaves and fed — the tradition holds — by a raven that brought him half a loaf of bread each day, unknown to the world and known only to God. Near the end of his life he was sought out and found by Anthony the Great, to whom God revealed that a monk more perfect than himself dwelt deeper in the wilderness; the two aged fathers conversed, and Anthony was present at Paul's death and buried him — the grave, the account says, dug by two lions that came from the desert. Paul reposed about the year 341, aged some one hundred and thirteen. He is kept on January 15.
Saint Ita of Kileedy, Ireland (570)
John Kalyvites

John Kalyvites — "the Hut-dweller" (c. 450) — was the only son of a wealthy senatorial family of Constantinople who, seized in boyhood by the longing for God, secretly left his parents' house to become a monk in the "Sleepless" (Akoimetoi) monastery. After years of ascetic struggle he returned, unrecognised, to his own family's gate, and lived there as a nameless beggar in a little hut, enduring the contempt of his parents' servants and the daily sight of the home and the mother he had renounced, keeping always with him a precious Gospel-book his parents had once given him. Only on his deathbed did he make himself known, sending word by that book, so that his mother and father knew at last that the beggar at their door was their lost son. He reposed about the year 450, still a young man, and a church was raised over the hut. He is kept on January 15, together with Paul of Thebes.
Pansophius of Alexandria

Pansophius (early 3rd century – c. 250) was a martyr of Alexandria, the son of a Roman proconsul, who was well educated in his youth and, coming to the faith of Christ, distributed his large inheritance to the poor and withdrew to live as an ascetic, spending some twenty-seven years in prayer, fasting, and the study of the Scriptures. During the persecution of the emperor Decius he was arrested and brought before the magistrate; confessing Christ and refusing to sacrifice to the idols, he was scourged so cruelly that he gave up his soul under the lash, receiving the crown of martyrdom about the year 250. He is commemorated on January 15.

British Isles and Ireland

St. Ita of Killeedy, nun (570)
St. Teath of Wales, daughter of King Brychan (6th C)
St. Lleudadd, abbot of Bardsey (6th C)
St. Sawl, father of St. Asaph (6th C)
St. Ceolwulf, King of Northumbria, monk (764)
Hieromartyr Blaithmaic, abbot of Iona (823)

Troparia & kontakia

Kontakion — Tone 2

Longing, O wise one, for a poverty in imitation of Christ, thou didst forsake the wealth of thy parents; and holding the Gospel in thy hands, thou didst follow after Christ our God, O John, interceding without ceasing for us all.

Sticheron

Having renounced the world and the things that are in the world, O righteous one, and having taken up the Gospel, thou didst follow after it in the manner of the Gospel; and dwelling in thy hut as mystically in Paradise, by the utmost hardness of thy flesh thou didst slay the man-slaying dragon. Therefore, making thy dwelling in the heavens, O blessed John, ask for us the great mercy.

Sticheron — Tone 2

A stranger's way of life upon the earth didst thou pursue, O Paul, and thou didst dwell together with the wild beasts, ministered to by a bird, O righteous one, at the biddings of God; and when the great Anthony beheld this, when he had found thee, he was filled with wonder at all these things, and ceaselessly magnified as God the Provider and Master of all.

Troparion — Tone 4

From infancy thou didst fervently long for the Lord, and thou didst forsake the world and the delights that are in the world, and thou didst struggle excellently; thou didst set up thy hut before the gates of thy parents, and thou didst shatter the snares of the demons, O all-blessed one. Wherefore, O John, Christ hath worthily glorified thee.

Troparion — Tone 4

Thy martyr, O Lord, in his contest received the crown of incorruption from thee our God; for possessed of thy strength, he set at nought the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions, O Christ God, save our souls.

Troparion — Tone 8

With the streams of thy tears thou didst cultivate the barrenness of the desert, and with sighs from the depths thou didst bear fruit a hundredfold in labours; and thou becamest a beacon to the whole world, shining forth with miracles, O Paul our righteous father. Intercede with Christ our God, that our souls may be saved.

Readings

Epistle

Hebrews 10.1-18

¹For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. ²For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. ³But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. ⁴For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. ⁵Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: ⁶In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. ⁷Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. ⁸Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; ⁹Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. ¹⁰By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. ¹¹And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: ¹²But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; ¹³From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. ¹⁴For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. ¹⁵Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, ¹⁶This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; ¹⁷And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. ¹⁸Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.

Gospel

Mark 8.30-34

³⁰And he charged them that they should tell no man of him. ³¹And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³²And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. ³³But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. ³⁴And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Saints commemorated