Paschaltide, day 29 · 28 days since Pascha
Samaritan Woman
Saints commemorated
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Martyr Theodotus of Ancyra
Theodotus was an innkeeper of Ancyra in Galatia — a married layman, a wine-seller, whose tavern became in the Great Persecution the hiding-place of the hunted Church, the house where the Liturgy was served when the churches were pulled down, and the office from which the bodies of the martyrs were ransomed and buried. With him are honoured seven aged consecrated virgins — Tecusa his own aunt, Alexandra, Claudia, Phaina, Euphrasia, Matrona and Julitta — who were seized under the governor Theoteknos, refused to serve as priestesses at the washing of the images of Artemis and Athena, were handed over to be violated and preserved their purity, and were at last drowned in the lake outside the city with stones tied to them. Theodotus recovered their bodies by night and buried them, and for that act was betrayed, tortured and beheaded, about the year 303–304. Their passion, told by an eyewitness named Nilus, is one of the most vivid and most disputed documents of the Diocletianic persecution in Asia Minor.
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Holy Martyrs Peter, Dionysius, Christina, Andrew, Paul, Benedimus, Paulinus, and Heraclius (250)
These eight are the company whose names open the Byzantine notice for May 18: Peter, Dionysius, Christina the virgin, Andrew, Paul, Benedimus, Paulinus and Heraclius, martyred in the persecution of the emperor Decius (249–251). They are in fact two separate companies joined in one commemoration: five who suffered on the Hellespont, at Lampsacus and Troas, under a proconsul the acts name Optimus — Peter broken on a wheel and beheaded for refusing to bow to Aphrodite, the two soldiers Andrew and Paul stoned to death with Dionysius, and the sixteen-year-old Christina beheaded after she had cried out in open court against an apostate; and three who suffered at Athens — Heraclius, Paulinus and Benedimus, preachers against the idols, who were cast into a burning furnace. The Greek Menaion places all eight in a single notice, and this collection follows it.
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David and Tarichan of Georgia
David and Tarichan were two Georgian boys, the children of the nobleman Vardan and his wife Tagine, kinsfolk of the royal house, murdered in the year 693 by their own uncle Theodosius because they would not leave the faith of their baptism. Theodosius, a pagan, had seized their dead father's estate and tried to secure it by adopting the boys into his own religion — offering them sweets, an inheritance and the affection of a father; they answered that they were content with the faith of their father and would keep it until their souls left their bodies. Their mother fled with them to the province of Tao, where they kept sheep on a mountainside; there Theodosius ambushed them and stabbed them both. The Georgian tradition surrounds their deaths with wonders — David's shepherd's staff struck root and became a tree, the murderer was struck blind on the spot, and Tagine restored his sight with earth soaked in her son's blood, forgiving him — and the story ends not with vengeance but with the uncle's baptism and the building of two churches over the boys' graves.
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Photini the Samaritan Woman
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.
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Potamon of Heraclea
Potamon, Bishop of Heraclea in Egypt, is the rare saint who was twice a martyr's victim: maimed by the pagans and killed by fellow Christians. In the persecution of Maximinus Daia, about the year 310, he confessed Christ, was mutilated — he lost an eye and was crippled — and was sent to the mines; he came to the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325 with his wounds on him, one of the scarred confessors whose presence gave that council its moral authority, and there stood against Arius. Ten years later, at the Synod of Tyre, it was Potamon who rose and challenged Eusebius of Caesarea to his face to explain how he had come out of the same prison whole. He remained to the end a defender of Athanasius; and when the Arian intruder Gregory and the prefect Philagrius were breaking the Egyptian Church by force, the old confessor was beaten with clubs and left for dead, and died of it about the year 341 — a hieromartyr, as Athanasius himself records, at the hands of Christians.
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Simeon, Isaac and Bachtisius of Persia
Simeon, Isaac and Bachtisius were Christians of the Persian empire who died for refusing to renounce Christ and to conform to the state religion of the Sasanians. Brought before their judges and required to worship the fire and the sun, they answered that they would not turn from the Creator of all things to reverence His creatures; they were tortured, shut up in prison and left seven days without food, and at the last beheaded. Their names are Syriac and Persian rather than Greek — Bachtisius represents the Syriac Bokhtishoʿ, "Jesus has delivered" — and they belong to the vast company of the martyrs of the Church of the East under Shapur II, whose forty-year persecution (from about 339) produced more martyrs than any single Roman persecution and of whom the Byzantine calendar preserves only a fraction, often reduced, as here, to a name and a manner of death.
British Isles and Ireland
- St. Elgiva, mother of St. Edgar and abbess of Shaftesbury (944)
- St. Feredarius, abbot of Iona (c.863)
Troparia & kontakia
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of several martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contests 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 supplications, O Christ God, save our souls.
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of several martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contests 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 supplications, O Christ God, save our souls.
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a hieromartyr)
As a sharer in the ways and a successor to the thrones of the Apostles, O divinely-inspired one, thou didst find in contemplation the means to ascend to divine heights; rightly dividing the word of truth, thou didst struggle for the faith even unto blood, O hieromartyr Potamon: intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of several martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contests 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 supplications, O Christ God, save our souls.
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of several martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contests 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 supplications, O Christ God, save our souls.
Kontakion — Tone 2 (common of martyrs)
O athletes who shone forth as stars in the firmament of the Church, ye did not spare your bodies for the love of the Master; the wine-seller and the seven aged virgins are glorified together, for the lake became for them a font, and the grave a fountain of healing.
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.
Readings
7th Matins Gospel
John 20.1-10
1The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. 2Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. 3Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. 4So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. 5And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. 6Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, 7And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. 8Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. 9For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. 10Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.
Epistle
Acts 11.19-26, 29-30
19Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only. 20And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus. 21And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord. 22Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem: and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch. 23Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. 24For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord. 25Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul: 26And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. 29Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judæa: 30Which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.
Gospel
John 4.5-42
5Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. 7There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. 8(For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) 9Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. 10Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. 11The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? 12Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? 13Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: 14But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. 15The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. 16Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. 17The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: 18For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly. 19The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. 20Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. 21Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. 23But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. 25The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. 26Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. 27And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her? 28The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, 29Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? 30Then they went out of the city, and came unto him. 31In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. 32But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. 33Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat? 34Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. 35Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. 36And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. 37And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. 38I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. 39And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did. 40So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days. 41And many more believed because of his own word; 42And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.