Paschaltide, day 16 · 15 days since Pascha
Saints commemorated
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Saint of the day
Great Martyr Irene of Thessalonica
Irenaeus, Irene and Peregrinus are three martyrs commemorated on May 5 who, according to the Latin martyrologies and the Greek synaxaristic notices that follow them, suffered at Thessalonica in the persecution of Diocletian, refusing to sacrifice to the idols and being cast into the fire. Nothing further is transmitted about them. Their dossier is unusually vexed: the Latin manuscript tradition varies, the localisation at Thessalonica has been questioned, and the presence of an Irene in the company on the very day of the Great-Martyr Irene — and in the very city associated with the other virgin-martyr Irene of Thessalonica of April 16 — makes this small commemoration one of the most easily confused in the calendar.
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Saint of the day
Irene the Great Martyr
Irene is the great-martyr whose long passion — a cycle of tortures survived, deliverances and repeated returns to preaching — made her one of the most widely honoured women saints of the Byzantine world. Born Penelope, the only daughter of a petty pagan king named Licinius, she was shut up from childhood in a tower with thirteen companions, taught the faith in secret by her tutor Apellian, and baptised Irene ("peace") by Timothy, whom the tradition identifies as the disciple of the Apostle Paul. Her father's attempt to kill her ended in his own conversion and that of some three thousand souls; thereafter she passed from city to city under a succession of rulers — Sedekias, Sapor, Numerian, Babdonus — enduring the serpent-pit, the saw, the millwheel and three heated bronze oxen, converting whole populations, and at last reposing near Ephesus, where her sealed tomb was found empty. She is commemorated on May 5.
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Ephraim of Nea Makri
Ephraim is a fifteenth-century Greek monk of Mount Amomon above the modern Nea Makri in Attica, held to have been tortured to death by Turkish raiders on 5 May 1426. Nothing whatever was known of him until 1950, when the nun Makaria Desipri, excavating the ruins of the abandoned Monastery of the Annunciation on the hill, uncovered a burial she took — on the strength of a series of dreams and visions she reported — to be his, and from which the whole of his transmitted biography derives. A very large popular veneration grew up around the shrine within a generation; the Church of Greece entered him in its calendar in 1998 and the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2011. His commemoration is therefore canonically established and liturgically kept, while the historical foundation of his life rests on private revelation and not on any document, and the Church's own recognition of him was cautious and late.
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Euthymius of Madytos
Euthymius was a monk of Constantinople who became bishop of Madytos on the European shore of the Hellespont in the last decades of the tenth century, and was famed in his own lifetime as a healer and a seer. He was born at Epivates in Thrace and is remembered chiefly, in the wider Church, as the elder brother of St Parasceva of the Balkans — "Petka" — whose Life records that he went first to the monastic state and drew her after him. He is said to have received the emperor Basil II at Madytos and to have foretold his victory over Bardas Phocas in 989. At his repose, between 989 and 996, myrrh flowed from his tomb, whence he is called the Myrrh-flowing; healings continued there. He is commemorated on May 5.
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Neophytus, Gaius and Gaianus
Neophytus, Gaius and Gaianus are three martyrs of whom the Greek synaxarion for May 5 preserves a single line: that they were perfected by the sword. Nothing is transmitted of their country, their persecutor, their date, or the relation between them. The one further notice attached to their memory is topographical and belongs to Constantinople: their synaxis was kept in the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian "in the quarter of Dareios", which indicates a real and located cult in the imperial city, however completely their story has been lost.
British Isles and Ireland
- St. Hydroc of Cornwall (5th C)
- St. Echa of Crayke, hermit (767)
Troparia & kontakia
Kontakion — Tone 4
Adorned with the beauties of virginity, O maiden, thou wast made yet more comely by thy contest, O Irene, stained crimson with thine own outpoured blood; and thou didst cast down the delusion of godlessness. Wherefore thou hast received the honours of victory from the hand of thy Creator.
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a venerable-martyr)
Trained in the discipline of the monks and made perfect in the contest of the martyrs, thou didst offer to Christ a twofold crown, O Ephraim: for having died to the world in the ascetic life, thou didst give thy body to torments for His name, and wast found faithful unto the end. Wherefore intercede with Him that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a hierarch)
The truth of things hath revealed thee to thy flock as a rule of faith, an image of meekness and a teacher of continence, O father and hierarch Euthymius; therefore thou hast attained by humility to the heights, and by poverty to riches. Intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest received incorruptible crowns from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength they cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By their intercessions save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a virgin-martyr)
Thy lamb Irene crieth unto Thee with a great voice, O Jesus: Thee, my Bridegroom, do I love, and seeking Thee I endure the contest; I am crucified with Thee and buried with Thee in Thy baptism; I suffer for Thy sake that I may reign with Thee, and I die for Thee that I may live with Thee. Receive me as a spotless sacrifice, offered to Thee in love; and by her prayers, O merciful One, save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest received incorruptible crowns from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength they cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By their intercessions save our souls.
Readings
Epistle
Acts 6.8-7.5, 47-60
8And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people. 9Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen. 10And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. 11Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses, and against God. 12And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council, 13And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law: 14For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us. 15And all that sat in the council, looking stedfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel. 1Then said the high priest, Are these things so? 2And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, 3And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. 4Then came he out of the land of the Chaldæans, and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell. 5And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child. 47But Solomon built him an house. 48Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, 49Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest? 50Hath not my hand made all these things? 51Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. 52Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: 53Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it. 54When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. 55But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, 56And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. 57Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, 58And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul. 59And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. 60And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
Gospel
John 4.46-54
46So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum. 47When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judæa into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death. 48Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. 49The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. 50Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. 51And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. 52Then enquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. 53So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house. 54This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judæa into Galilee.