Thursday 10 April 2025

Martyrs Terence, Pompeius, Africanus and Companions

Thursday of the Sixth Week of Lent

Great Lent, day 39 · 10 days until Pascha

Saints commemorated

  • Saint of the day

    Martyrs Terence, Pompeius, Africanus and Companions

    Africanus, Pompeius (also called Publius) and Terence, with a company of fellow-Christians, were martyrs of Africa who suffered in the third century at a place called Petrium, near Carthage, in one of the persecutions that swept the Roman province. Seized for their confession of Christ and refusing to sacrifice to the idols, they endured torments and were put to death together. The Church keeps their memory on March 13; a larger company of the same African martyrs, including Terence and Africanus with many others, is commemorated again on April 10.

  • Six Thousand Holy Martyrs in Georgia (1615)

  • New Hieromartyr Gregory, Patriarch of Constantinople (1821)

    Gregory V (1746–1821) was Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople three times over, a reforming and deeply pastoral hierarch, and — at the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence — the great ethnomartyr of the Orthodox nation. On the very morning of Pascha, April 10, 1821 (Old Style), Ottoman authorities, holding him answerable for the uprising he had in fact anathematised, hanged him in his vestments from the central gate of the Patriarchate at the Phanar in Constantinople. He is honoured by the Church as a hieromartyr, and his relics rest in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens.

British Isles and Ireland

  • Monk-martyrs Beocca and Hethor at Chertsey, martyred by the Danes (869)

Troparia & kontakia

Apolytikion — Tone 4

Thou didst shepherd the Church of Christ in a time of trial, and with thy blood as a hierarch thou didst seal thy confession, O Gregory, adornment of patriarchs and glory of martyrs; entreat Christ God, who crowned thee, that our souls may be saved.

Kontakion — Tone 3

Thou wast offered as a Paschal victim upon the very feast of the Resurrection, O hierarch Gregory; hanged for the flock thou didst not abandon, thou hast joined the choir of the martyrs, and dost intercede unceasingly for those who honour thee.

Troparion — Tone 4

Thy holy martyrs Africanus, Pompeius and Terence, O Lord, through their contests have received incorruptible crowns from thee our God; for having thy strength, they laid low their persecutors and shattered the powerless boldness of the demons. By their intercessions save our souls.

Readings

6th Hour

Isaiah 65.8-16

8Thus saith the LORD, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants’ sakes, that I may not destroy them all. 9And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there. 10And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for the herds to lie down in, for my people that have sought me. 11But ye are they that forsake the LORD, that forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink offering unto that number. 12Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted not. 13Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed: 14Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit. 15And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord GOD shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name: 16That he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from mine eyes.

Vespers

Genesis 46.1-7

1And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beer-sheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac. 2And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I. 3And he said, I am God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation: 4I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes. 5And Jacob rose up from Beer-sheba: and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. 6And they took their cattle, and their goods, which they had gotten in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob, and all his seed with him: 7His sons, and his sons’ sons with him, his daughters, and his sons’ daughters, and all his seed brought he with him into Egypt.

Proverbs 23.15-24.5

15My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine. 16Yea, my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things. 17Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the LORD all the day long. 18For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off. 19Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way. 20Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh: 21For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. 22Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old. 23Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. 24The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him. 25Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice. 26My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. 27For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit. 28She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men. 29Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? 30They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. 31Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. 32At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. 33Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things. 34Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. 35They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again. 1Be not thou envious against evil men, neither desire to be with them. 2For their heart studieth destruction, and their lips talk of mischief. 3Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: 4And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches. 5A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.