Ven. Alexius the Man of God; Ven. Makary of Kalyazinsk

Saints commemorated

Saint of the day

Ven. Alexius the Man of God

Alexis the Man of God (died c. 411) is one of the most beloved saints of the undivided Church — a young Roman nobleman who, on his own wedding day, left his bride untouched at the bridal chamber and fled his father's palace to live as a nameless beggar. For seventeen years he begged at the doors of a church in Edessa of Syria, where a vision of the Mother of God revealed him as "the man of God"; when his fame grew unbearable he fled again, and Providence carried him back to Rome and to the very house of his father Euphemianus. There, unknown, he lived seventeen more years as a servant under the stairs of his own home, enduring the mockery of the household slaves and the daily grief of parents and wife who did not know him. Only at his death was he revealed — by a writing found clutched in his hand, which told his whole story — and Rome wept over the beggar it had trampled. He is kept on March 17, honoured as ὅσιος, "the man of God," the pattern of hidden sanctity and voluntary poverty.
Saint of the day

Ven. Makary of Kalyazinsk
St Alexis, the Man of God (411)
St Patrick, Enlightener of Ireland (ca. 461)

Patrick (late 4th century – c. 461/493) is the apostle and enlightener of Ireland, a saint of the undivided Church honoured East and West on March 17. A Romano-British youth, the son of a deacon, he was carried off at sixteen by Irish raiders and spent six years as a slave herding flocks, in which captivity — by his own account — he was converted from a careless faith to unceasing prayer. Escaping home, he was called back to Ireland by a vision, "the voice of the Irish" begging him to walk among them again; trained and consecrated bishop, he returned to the land of his bondage and spent the rest of his life baptising a pagan people, ordaining clergy, and planting the Church across the island, with his see at Armagh. He is known intimately from his own hand, for his Confession and his Letter against Coroticus survive — the earliest documents of Irish Christianity and a rare first-person witness of a saint of that age. The Orthodox Church receives him as a father of the one Church before the schism, and many number him, with Nina of Georgia and the like, among those equal to the Apostles.
Gertrude of Nivelles

Gertrude of Nivelles (c. 626–659) was a Frankish abbess of the seventh century and a saint of the undivided Western Church, kept on March 17. Daughter of Pepin of Landen, the powerful mayor of the palace of Austrasia, she refused a noble marriage and, when her widowed mother Itta founded the double monastery of Nivelles in Brabant, became its first abbess while still very young. She was renowned for her hospitality to pilgrims and wandering Irish monks, for her deep knowledge of the Scriptures, and for an ascetic devotion that wore out her body by her early thirties; she resigned her office to prepare for death and reposed on March 17, 659, at the age of thirty-three. Long one of the most popular saints of the Low Countries — invoked by travellers, gardeners, and against plagues of mice — she is honoured among the Orthodox as a mother of the one Church before the schism.
Macarius of Kalyazin

Macarius of Kalyazin (c. 1400–1483) was one of the great monastic founders of fifteenth-century Russia — a wonderworker of the Tver land whose monastery on the Volga became a centre of the Russian North. Born Matthew Kozhin to a pious boyar family, he was married at his parents' wish but widowed within a few years and left an orphan; freed of every earthly tie, he took the monastic habit at Kashin and then withdrew into the forest between the lakes above the Volga, where he built a cell and, drawing disciples, founded the Holy Trinity monastery later called after Kalyazin. Famed for a humility so deep that he named his own monastery after the very landowner who had first opposed it, and for the gift of healing, he governed his brotherhood into great old age and reposed in 1483. His relics were found incorrupt in 1521 and he was numbered among the saints of the Russian Church; his monastery stood until it was drowned by the waters of the Volga in 1940.
Theosteriktos the Confessor

Theosteriktos the Confessor (8th century) was a monk — by the tradition the abbot — of the famous Pelekete monastery on the Bithynian shore of the Sea of Marmara, one of the communities that stood firm for the holy icons during the iconoclast persecution of the eighth century. When the imperial power fell upon the iconodule monasteries, Pelekete was raided and its monks scattered, tortured, and put to flight; Theosteriktos endured the sufferings of a confessor for the veneration of the icons — imprisonment and ill-usage borne without recanting — and, surviving his tormentors, ended his life in peace, honoured by the Church as one who "confessed" the faith and did not die of it. He is commemorated on March 17.

British Isles and Ireland

St. Patrick, bishop of Armagh, Apostle to the Irish (461)
St. Beccan of Rhum (677)
St. Withburga, hermit at Holkham and East Dereham (c.743)

Troparia & kontakia

Kontakion — Tone 2

Regarding thy parents' house as a stranger's, thou didst dwell therein in the guise of a beggar; and at thy departure from this life, receiving a crown of glory, thou wast shown wondrous upon the earth, O Alexis, man of God, thou joy of the angels and of men.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Yearning for the things on high, and finding thy delight in abstinence and toil and sweat, thou didst bridle the desire of thy flesh, and didst receive the gift of wonders, to heal the sicknesses of them that run to thee in faith, O father Macarius. Wherefore we cry to thee: Rejoice, O most radiant lamp.

Troparion — Tone 4

Raised on high unto virtue and having purified thy mind, thou didst attain unto the Desired and Uttermost Good, O our father Alexis; adorning thy soul with the graces of dispassion, and taking up unceasing prayer as a shield, thou didst live as one of the bodiless powers. Intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.

Troparion — Tone 8

The mindings of the flesh, O father Macarius, thou didst put to death by fasting and by vigil; for the place whereon thou didst pour out thy sweat cries aloud like a trumpet to God who glorifieth thee; and after thy death thou didst receive the gift of wonders from Him who grants incorruption to all. Wherefore we cry to thee: Intercede with Christ our God, that our souls may be saved.

Readings

6th Hour

Isaiah 8.13-9.7

¹³Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. ¹⁴And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ¹⁵And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken. ¹⁶Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. ¹⁷And I will wait upon the LORD, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. ¹⁸Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion. ¹⁹And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? ²⁰To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. ²¹And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward. ²²And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness. ¹Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. ²The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. ³Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. ⁴For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. ⁵For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire. ⁶For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. ⁷Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

Vespers

Genesis 6.9-22

⁹These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. ¹⁰And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. ¹¹The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. ¹²And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. ¹³And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. ¹⁴Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. ¹⁵And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. ¹⁶A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. ¹⁷And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die. ¹⁸But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee. ¹⁹And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. ²⁰Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. ²¹And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them. ²²Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.

Proverbs 8.1-21

¹Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? ²She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths. ³She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. ⁴Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man. ⁵O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart. ⁶Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things. ⁷For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips. ⁸All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them. ⁹They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge. ¹⁰Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold. ¹¹For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it. ¹²I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions. ¹³The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate. ¹⁴Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength. ¹⁵By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. ¹⁶By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth. ¹⁷I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me. ¹⁸Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness. ¹⁹My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold; and my revenue than choice silver. ²⁰I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment: ²¹That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures.

Saints commemorated