Great Lent, day 13 · 36 days until Pascha
Memorial Saturday
Saints commemorated
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Martyr Agapius and Seven with Him
Agapius and his companions (†c. 303) were a band of young men of Palestine — Agapius, Plesius, Timolaus, Romulus, two named Dionysius and two named Alexander, eight in all — who gave themselves up to martyrdom at Caesarea in Palestine during the Great Persecution of Diocletian. Their martyrdom is not a synaxarion legend but a scene witnessed and recorded by Eusebius of Caesarea in his Martyrs of Palestine: at a public spectacle in which Christians were being thrown to the beasts, six of them stepped forward with their own hands bound before the governor Urbanus, declaring themselves Christians and demanding to share the martyrs' lot; imprisoned, they were joined by Agapius — already a confessor hardened by earlier torments — and by another Dionysius who had ministered to them. All eight were beheaded together on one day. The Church keeps their memory on March 15, honouring in them a martyrdom sought rather than merely endured.
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Holy Martyr Alexander (270-275)
Alexander (†c. 270–275) was a priest of Side, the port-city of Pamphylia on the southern coast of Asia Minor, who suffered martyrdom in the persecution under the emperor Aurelian. Arrested for his bold preaching of Christ and brought before the governor Antoninus, he confessed the faith without flinching and was put through a succession of savage torments; through them, the synaxarion relates, the Lord upheld him beyond nature, so that the tortures failed of their purpose. At the last he was beheaded, and — in the received account — the very judge who had condemned him was moved by what he had seen. He is commemorated on March 15.
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Aristobulus of Britain
Aristobulus (1st century) was one of the Seventy Apostles and, by the tradition of the East, the brother — or kinsman — of the Apostle Barnabas of Cyprus. Paul greets "those of the household of Aristobulus" (Romans 16:10), and the Church numbers him among the fellow-labourers of the Apostle, ordained bishop and sent to preach the Gospel in the far West. He is honoured as the first apostle of Britain, carrying Christ to the islands at the edge of the world, where — among a fierce and unbelieving people who beat and mocked him — he founded the Church, made many converts, and, in the received Eastern account, reposed in peace among those he had won. He is commemorated in his own right on March 15 (Greek usage; the Slavic and American calendars keep him on March 16), and again with a company of his fellow apostles of the Seventy on October 31, and among them all in the Synaxis of the Seventy on January 4.
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Manuel of Crete
Manuel the Cretan (†1792) was a new martyr of the Ottoman period. Born a Christian in Crete in the eighteenth century, he was taken captive as a child by the Turks and compelled to accept Islam. Grown to manhood and unable to bear the denial of his baptism, he openly confessed himself a Christian once more, and for this "apostasy" from Islam — a capital crime under Ottoman law — he was beheaded on the island of Chios in the year 1792. He is numbered among the company of new martyrs who, under the yoke, washed away a forced conversion in their own blood, and is commemorated on March 15.
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Nicander of Egypt
Nicander (†c. 302) was a Christian of Egypt — remembered in the tradition as a physician — who suffered martyrdom in the Great Persecution under Diocletian. His crime, in the eyes of the persecutors, was an act of mercy: he sought out the bodies of the martyrs who had been put to death and left unburied, and gave them honourable burial, and he ministered to the confessors held in prison. Seized in the very act of caring for the dead, he refused to renounce Christ and was put to death — flayed alive, the synaxarion says. He is commemorated on March 15.
Troparia & kontakia
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their courageous contest received incorruptible crowns from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength, they cast down the tyrants and broke the feeble insolence of the demons. By their intercessions, O Christ God, save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of a hieromartyr)
As one who shared in the ways of the Apostles and succeeded to their thrones, thou didst find in thy labours, O God-inspired one, an ascent to divine vision; wherefore, rightly dividing the word of truth, thou didst contend for the faith even unto blood, O Hieromartyr Alexander. Intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 3 (from the common of apostles)
Holy Apostle Aristobulus, intercede with the merciful God, that he may grant to our souls the forgiveness of transgressions.
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of a martyr)
Thy martyr, O Lord, in his courageous contest received an incorruptible crown from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and broke the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions, O Christ God, save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of a martyr)
Thy martyr, O Lord, in his courageous contest received an incorruptible crown from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and broke the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions, O Christ God, save our souls.
Readings
Epistle
Hebrews 3.12-16
12Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. 13But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 14For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; 15While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. 16For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
1 Thessalonians 4.13-17 (Departed)
13But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 15For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 16For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Gospel
Mark 1.35-44
35And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. 36And Simon and they that were with him followed after him. 37And when they had found him, they said unto him, All men seek for thee. 38And he said unto them, Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth. 39And he preached in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and cast out devils. 40And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 41And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. 42And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed. 43And he straitly charged him, and forthwith sent him away; 44And saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man: but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.
John 5.24-30 (Departed)
24Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. 25Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. 26For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; 27And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. 28Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, 29And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. 30I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.