Eikon
←

Friday 21 March 2025

St James the Confessor of Catania

Friday of the Third Week of Lent

→
Lenten Fast Tone 5

Great Lent, day 19 · 30 days until Pascha

Saints commemorated

  • Saint of the day

    St James the Confessor of Catania

    Jacob (James) the Confessor was a monk from his youth who, raised to the episcopate, endured imprisonment, hunger and exile for the veneration of the holy icons during the second period of Byzantine Iconoclasm in the early ninth century. He did not die a martyr's death but is numbered among the confessors, having borne much affliction for the faith and lived out his days in ascetic labour. In the Greek synaxaria he is associated with the church of Catania in Sicily.

  • Our Holy Father Serapion (366)

    Serapion (c. 300 – after 362) was bishop of Thmuis in the Egyptian Delta, a monk of the Nitrian desert before his consecration, the intimate friend and staunch ally of Athanasius the Great in the struggle against Arianism, and one of the recipients of the letters of Antony the Great. He is remembered above all for the Euchologion (Sacramentary) that bears his name — the earliest substantially surviving collection of Egyptian liturgical prayers — and for his treatise Against the Manichaeans. He is numbered among the confessors of the Nicene faith.

  • Serapion the Sindonite

    Serapion the Sindonite is the Egyptian ascetic who owned nothing at all but a single coarse linen cloth — the sindōn that gave him his name — and who twice sold himself into slavery in order to convert his masters. Known from the Lausiac History of Palladius, he lived without roof or possessions "like the birds of the air," gave away even his cloth and his Gospel-book, walked from Egypt to Rome, and made of destitution an instrument of mission rather than a private discipline. Because his freedom from property extended to his own body and his own reputation, he stands at the head of a line that runs to the fools-for-Christ; and his few recorded sayings — above all his rebuke to a Roman recluse who thought herself dead to the world — are among the sharpest words in the desert literature.

  • Thomas of Constantinople

    Thomas (†610) was Patriarch of Constantinople from 607 until his death, holding the see through the troubled last years of the emperor Phocas. A deacon and the sakellarios (treasurer) of the Great Church before his elevation, he was esteemed for gentleness and for his care of the Church's order; the tradition recalls a portent of processional crosses clashing of their own accord, which he took, with the counsel of the holy John the Faster's disciple, as an omen of the divisions and calamities soon to fall upon the empire.

British Isles and Ireland

  • St. Enda of Inishmore, abbot of Aran (530)

Troparia & kontakia

Apolytikion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)

In thee, O Father, was preserved unfailingly that which is according to the image; for taking up the Cross thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passes away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Serapion, thy spirit rejoices with the angels.

Kontakion — Tone 2 (common of an ascetic)

Having nothing upon the earth, thou didst possess Christ alone; and selling even thy own freedom, thou didst purchase souls for God. Wherefore, O Serapion, teach us to be poor, that we may be rich in Him.

Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable confessor)

In thee, O Father, was preserved unimpaired that which is according to God's image; for taking up the Cross thou didst follow after Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passeth away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Jacob, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.

Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a hierarch)

O God of our fathers, ever dealing with us according to Thy gentleness: take not Thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of Thy hierarch Serapion guide our life in peace.

Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a hierarch)

O God of our fathers, ever dealing with us according to Thy gentleness: take not Thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of Thy hierarch Thomas guide our life in peace.

Readings

6th Hour

Isaiah 13.2-13

2Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain, exalt the voice unto them, shake the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles. 3I have commanded my sanctified ones, I have also called my mighty ones for mine anger, even them that rejoice in my highness. 4The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together: the LORD of hosts mustereth the host of the battle. 5They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. 6Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. 7Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man’s heart shall melt: 8And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames. 9Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. 10For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. 11And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. 12I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir. 13Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.

Vespers

Genesis 8.4-21

4And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. 5And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen. 6And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: 7And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. 8Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; 9But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. 10And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; 11And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. 12And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more. 13And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried. 15And God spake unto Noah, saying, 16Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee. 17Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth. 18And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him: 19Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark. 20And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

Proverbs 10.31-11.12

31The mouth of the just bringeth forth wisdom: but the froward tongue shall be cut out. 32The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable: but the mouth of the wicked speaketh frowardness. 1A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight. 2When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom. 3The integrity of the upright shall guide them: but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them. 4Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death. 5The righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way: but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness. 6The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them: but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness. 7When a wicked man dieth, his expectation shall perish: and the hope of unjust men perisheth. 8The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead. 9An hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbour: but through knowledge shall the just be delivered. 10When it goeth well with the righteous, the city rejoiceth: and when the wicked perish, there is shouting. 11By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted: but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked. 12He that is void of wisdom despiseth his neighbour: but a man of understanding holdeth his peace.

Presanctified Liturgy