Holy Fathers Slain at St Sabbas Monastery

Saints commemorated

Saint of the day

Holy Fathers Slain at St Sabbas Monastery

On March 20 the Church commemorates the monks of the Great Lavra of Saint Sabas — the monastery of Mar Saba in the Judaean desert — who were massacred by marauding desert nomads about the year 796, in the disordered years of early Abbasid rule over Palestine. Raiders fell twice upon the defenceless community above the Kidron gorge; when the monks yielded up what little the poor house possessed and still the plunderers found no treasure, they turned to torture and slaughter, driving many of the fathers into the cave-church of Saint Nicholas and choking them with the smoke of a fire kindled at its mouth. Some twenty monks died of wounds and suffocation, among them John, Sergius, and Patrick; the survivors, tended by the abbot Thomas, buried their dead and kept the Lavra. The sufferings were set down by an eyewitness monk of the house, Stephen the Sabaite, and the day stands as one of the great witnesses of Palestinian desert monasticism enduring under Muslim rule.
St Photine the Samaritan Woman (66)

Photini (first century – c. 66) is the name the Church gives to the Samaritan woman whom Christ met at Jacob's Well near Sychar and to whom, alone among all to whom he spoke, he openly declared himself the Messiah (John 4). Tradition holds that she was baptized with the name Photini, "the enlightened," and became a fearless preacher of the Gospel — carrying it, with her two sons and her five sisters, as far as Carthage and at last to Rome in the days of Nero. There, the tradition relates, the whole company confessed Christ before the emperor, converted his daughter Domnina and the officer Sebastian sent to break them, and after fearful tortures were martyred about the year 66 — Photini herself, it is said, cast at the end into a dry well, the well of her witness answering the well of her calling. She is honoured as Great-Martyr and Equal-to-the-Apostles. Her fixed commemoration is February 26; her principal feast is the movable Sunday of the Samaritan Woman, the fourth Sunday after Pascha, on which the Church reads the Gospel of the Well.
St Cuthbert the Wonderworker, Bishop of Lindisfarne (687)

Cuthbert (c. 634 – 687) was the greatest saint of the early English Church and the wonderworker of Northumbria — a shepherd boy who, seeing in a vision the soul of Bishop Aidan borne to heaven, became a monk of Melrose, then prior of Lindisfarne, a tireless missionary among the villages of the north, and at last, drawn against his will from the solitude of the Farne islands, bishop of Lindisfarne. He united in one life the Celtic and the Roman streams of British Christianity, accepting the Roman usages of the Synod of Whitby while keeping the ascetic austerity of the Irish tradition, and he was famed in life and after death for miracles, for his gentleness, and for a familiarity with the wild creatures and the sea that the tradition treasures. He reposed on his hermit's island of Inner Farne on March 20, 687; his body was found incorrupt eleven years later, and his relics, carried through centuries of upheaval, came at last to rest at Durham. He is honoured throughout the Orthodox calendar as a father of the undivided Church.
Euphrosynus of Sinozersky

Euphrosynus (mid-sixteenth century – 1612), born in Karelia and named Ephraim in the world, was a Russian hermit who withdrew into the forests of the Novgorod land and settled beside the remote Blue Lake (Sinozero), where he founded a hermitage of the Holy Trinity and lived in prayer and great austerity. In the anarchy of the Time of Troubles, when Polish-Lithuanian bands and brigands ravaged the northern countryside, Euphrosynus foresaw the coming of the raiders and warned the people who had taken refuge near him to flee; but he himself, together with the monk Jonah, refused to abandon his cell, and awaited the marauders in prayer. When they came, demanding the monastery's supposed treasure, they struck him down before his own cross on March 20, 1612. He is honoured as a venerable-martyr and wonderworker of the Novgorod land.
Nicetas the Confessor of Apollonias

Nicetas was archbishop of Apollonias in Bithynia in the early ninth century, and one of the confessors of the holy icons in the second iconoclast persecution. When the Emperor Leo V the Armenian (813–820) revived the war on the images, Nicetas stood firm in their veneration, refused to submit to the imperial policy, and was for this confession deposed from his see and sent into exile, in which he ended his life. Because he suffered — deprivation, hardship, and banishment — for the faith without dying of it, the Church numbers him among the confessors, and keeps his memory on March 20.
The Virgin-Martyrs of Amisus

On March 20 the Church commemorates a company of Christian women martyred at Amisus in Pontus (the Black Sea city, modern Samsun) in the last of the pagan persecutions — seven virgins whose names the calendars hand down as Alexandra, Claudia, Euphrasia, Matrona, Juliana, Euphemia and Theodosia (Theodora). In the persecution under the Emperor Maximian, about the year 310, these women openly confessed Christ before the ruler of the province and, refusing to sacrifice to the idols, were subjected to torture and put to death by fire. Honoured together as virgin-martyrs, they are one of the several companies of women whom the age of the persecutions gave to the Church, and on the Slavonic calendar their memory is joined on this day to that of Photini the Samaritan Woman.

British Isles and Ireland

St. Herbert, hermit of Derwentwater (687)

Troparia & kontakia

Kontakion — Tone 8

As first-fruits of nature to the Planter of all creation, the world offereth unto thee, O Lord, the God-bearing martyrs; by their prayers, and through the Mother of God, preserve thy Church in deep peace, O thou who art plenteous in mercy.

Troparion — Tone 8

In thee, O Father, was preserved unfailingly that which is according to the image; 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 have care for the soul, a thing immortal. Wherefore thy spirit, O venerable Cuthbert, rejoiceth with the angels.

Troparion — Tone 4

Thy martyr Euphrosynus, O Lord, in his struggle hath received from thee, our God, an incorruptible crown; for possessing thy strength, he cast down the tormentors and shattered the feeble boldness of the enemy. By his prayers, O Christ God, save our souls.

Troparion — Tone 4

O God of our fathers, who ever dealest with us according to thy forbearance: take not thy mercy from us, but by their prayers guide our life in peace.

Troparion — Tone 4

A rule of faith and an image of meekness, a teacher of temperance, hath the truth of thy deeds revealed thee to be unto thy flock: therefore hast thou attained the heights by humility, and riches by poverty. O Father and Hierarch Nicetas, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Troparion — Tone 4

Thy ewe-lamb, O Jesus, cries out with a great voice: O my Bridegroom, thee I love, and seeking thee I struggle, and I am crucified and buried together with thee in thy baptism; I suffer for thy sake, that I may reign with thee; I die for thee, that I may live in thee. Receive me as a spotless sacrifice, offered to thee with love. By her intercessions save thou our souls, O thou who art merciful.

Troparion — Tone 4

Your ewe-lambs, O Jesus, cry out with a great voice: O our Bridegroom, thee we love, and seeking thee we endure the contest; we are crucified and buried together with thee in thy baptism, and we suffer for thy sake, that we may reign with thee; we die for thee, that we may live in thee. Receive us as spotless sacrifices, offered to thee with love. By their prayers, O merciful Saviour, save our souls.

Readings

6th Hour

Isaiah 11.10-12.2

¹⁰And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious. ¹¹And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. ¹²And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. ¹³The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim. ¹⁴But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them. ¹⁵And the LORD shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod. ¹⁶And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt. ¹And in that day thou shalt say, O LORD, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. ²Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation.

Vespers

Genesis 7.11-8.3

¹¹In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. ¹²And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. ¹³In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; ¹⁴They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. ¹⁵And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. ¹⁶And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in. ¹⁷And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. ¹⁸And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. ¹⁹And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. ²⁰Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. ²¹And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: ²²All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. ²³And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. ²⁴And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days. ¹And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged; ²The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; ³And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.

Proverbs 10.1-22

¹The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother. ²Treasures of wickedness profit nothing: but righteousness delivereth from death. ³The LORD will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish: but he casteth away the substance of the wicked. ⁴He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. ⁵He that gathereth in summer is a wise son: but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame. ⁶Blessings are upon the head of the just: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked. ⁷The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot. ⁸The wise in heart will receive commandments: but a prating fool shall fall. ⁹He that walketh uprightly walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known. ¹⁰He that winketh with the eye causeth sorrow: but a prating fool shall fall. ¹¹The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked. ¹²Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins. ¹³In the lips of him that hath understanding wisdom is found: but a rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding. ¹⁴Wise men lay up knowledge: but the mouth of the foolish is near destruction. ¹⁵The rich man’s wealth is his strong city: the destruction of the poor is their poverty. ¹⁶The labour of the righteous tendeth to life: the fruit of the wicked to sin. ¹⁷He is in the way of life that keepeth instruction: but he that refuseth reproof erreth. ¹⁸He that hideth hatred with lying lips, and he that uttereth a slander, is a fool. ¹⁹In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips is wise. ²⁰The tongue of the just is as choice silver: the heart of the wicked is little worth. ²¹The lips of the righteous feed many: but fools die for want of wisdom. ²²The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.

Saints commemorated