Memorial Saturday

Saturday of the 7th Sunday of Pascha

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No Fast Tone 6

Ascensiontide, day 10 · 48 days since Pascha

Memorial Saturday

Saints commemorated

Hieromartyr Theodotus, Bishop 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.
Hieromartyr Marcellinus, pope of Rome (304)

Marcellinus was bishop of Rome from 296 to 304, and his pontificate ended inside the Great Persecution of Diocletian. The Byzantine synaxarion honours him as a hieromartyr and tells his story as a fall and a recovery: worn down by torture he offered incense to the idols, was rewarded by the emperor with honours and friendship, and then, undone by his conscience, confessed his apostasy before a synod of bishops at Sinuessa in Campania in sackcloth and ashes, judged himself unworthy of the priesthood and asked that his body be left unburied. The bishops refused to condemn him, reminding him that Peter also had denied Christ and had wept and been forgiven; and Marcellinus returned to Rome, renounced his compliance to the emperor's face, and was tortured and beheaded with three companions, Claudius, Cyrinus and Antoninus. His body lay unburied thirty-six days until the Apostle Peter appeared to his successor Marcellus and bade him bury it, and it was laid in the cemetery of Priscilla on the Via Salaria. His feast is June 7 in the Byzantine calendars and April 26 in the Latin.
St Daniel of Skete in Egypt (5th c.)

Daniel of Sketis was the great Egyptian elder of the sixth century, priest and hegumen of Sketis in the Nitrian desert, remembered less for sayings of his own than for a group of narratives — the Life and Tales of Abba Daniel of Sketis — which made him the Church's chief witness to the hidden saint: the holy man or woman whose sanctity is covered by folly, drunkenness, disguise, poverty or the ordinary business of a trade, and whom Daniel is repeatedly given to recognise. He himself is remembered as a penitent: taken captive twice in a barbarian raid on the desert, he killed one of his captors in escaping, and spent the rest of his life seeking a penance that no patriarch would impose, until he took one upon himself and served a leper in his inner cell in secret until he died. The cycle attached to his name gathers Mark the Fool of the Alexandrian hippodrome, Eulogius the Hospitable the stonecutter, Anastasia the Patrician hidden as a eunuch, Thomais of Alexandria the martyr for chastity, the nun who feigned drunkenness, and Andronicus and Athanasia; in one of them the elder himself is the man corrected. His memory is kept on June 7.
Kyriake, Kaleria and Mary of Caesarea

Kyriake, Kaleria — the name is also transmitted as Valeria — and Mary were three women of Caesarea in Palestine who turned from paganism to Christ during the persecution of Diocletian, left the city and settled together in a solitary place, and gave their lives to prayer, whose one recorded petition was that the persecution of the Christians might cease. Denounced and brought before the governor, they refused to worship the idols, confessed Christ before the tribunal, and were tortured to death, about the year 304. Nothing more of them is transmitted: no passion, no tomb, no relics, no proper hymn — three converts, a hut outside a city, one prayer, and a death. Their memory is kept on June 7.
Marcellus of Rome

Marcellus was bishop of Rome for a little under two years at the very end of the Great Persecution, about 308 to 309, taking up a see that had been vacant since the death of Marcellinus and a city divided over the readmission of Christians who had complied with the edicts. He reorganised the clergy and the cemeteries of Rome into twenty-five parish districts, and his severity toward the lapsi provoked riots that gave the emperor Maxentius his pretext: the bishop was deposed from his church and sentenced, the Roman account says, to labour at the catabulum, the public cattle-station and stable into which his own titular church had been turned, and there he died worn out about 309 or 310. In the Byzantine calendars he is remembered on June 7, at the head of the long company of Roman martyrs of the persecution — the deacons Sisinius and Cyriacus and those with them — whom the same cycle of Acts associates with him. The Latin calendars keep him on January 16.
Potamiaena of Alexandria

Potamiaena was a young Christian woman of Alexandria, in the household of a pagan master who desired her and could not have her. To his demands she answered — in the form the tradition has kept — that she was a Christian, and that she valued her honour above her life; and when he threatened her with the courts she told him plainly that she would rather die. He denounced her to the prefect of Egypt, who offered her the usual choice and, when she refused, had her lowered into a cauldron of boiling pitch, in which she died, keeping both her virginity and her faith; the older and better witness adds that her mother Marcella was burned with her, and that the executioner Basilides was converted by what he had seen and was himself martyred soon after, Potamiaena having appeared to him in the night and set a crown upon his head. The Byzantine calendars keep her on June 7, the Latin on June 28.
Sisinius, Cyriacus and the Martyrs of Rome

On June 7 the Byzantine calendars commemorate, in one long notice, the company of Roman martyrs formed around the relief of the Christian prisoners in the last years of the Great Persecution. A wealthy Christian of the city, Thrason, spent his fortune feeding and ransoming those condemned to the public works; his almoners Sisinius and Cyriacus were ordained deacons for the work by Marcellinus, and carried it on under Marcellus. Arrested for it, they turned the prison into a mission: the jailer Apronian was converted by the light that shone from Sisinius's face and was baptised with those he guarded, and the soldiers Papias and Maurus by the melting of the pagan incense-tripods at the prayer of Saturninus. The whole company was destroyed piecemeal between about 304 and 310 — Sisinius and Saturninus beheaded on June 7, Apronian beheaded, Papias and Maurus dying under the lash, and Cyriacus with Smaragdus, Largus and Crescentian perishing in the torments, together with the women Priscilla, Lucina and Artemia and, the account says, twenty-one others. They are honoured together as the martyrs of the works of mercy.
Zenais of Caesarea

Zenais — the name also appears as Zenaida — was born at Caesarea in Palestine in the year 284, and is remembered in the Byzantine books for two things only: that she was given the gift of working miracles, and that she ended her life by a martyr's death. Her surname in the Greek synaxaria is ἡ Θαυματουργός, "the Wonderworker," and the Menaion's couplet for her turns on the one fact transmitted about her: that she poured out wonders both in her life and after her end. Her cult was real and reasonably wide — the Synaxarion of Constantinople records a synaxis in her honour in the capital on June 6, and she is entered in a ninth-century calendar of Naples — but no passion of hers survives, and the Greek day-books say frankly that they have no details of her life. She is commemorated on June 7.

British Isles and Ireland

St. Colman, bishop of Dromore (6th C)
St. Meriadoc the Wonderworker, archbishop (7th C)

Troparia & kontakia

Apolytikion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)

By the flowing of thy tears thou didst make the waterless desert bear fruit, and by thy groanings out of the depths thou didst make thy labours yield a hundredfold; and thou wast shown to be a lamp for the whole world, shining with wonders, O Daniel our father: 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 crowns of incorruption from Thee our God; for having Thy strength they laid low the tyrants and broke the powerless insolence of the demons. At their supplications, O Christ God, save our souls.

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a hieromartyr)

Sharing the manner of life of the Apostles and succeeding to their thrones, thou didst find in the practice of virtue the way of ascent to the things of God, O inspired one; therefore, rightly dividing the word of truth, thou didst contend for the faith even unto blood, O hieromartyr Marcellinus: intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a hieromartyr)

Sharing the manner of life of the Apostles and succeeding to their thrones, thou didst find in the practice of virtue the way of ascent to the things of God, O inspired one; therefore, rightly dividing the word of truth, thou didst contend for the faith even unto blood, O hieromartyr Marcellus: intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a virgin-martyr)

Thy lamb Potamiaena cries aloud to Thee, O Jesus: Thee do I love, my Bridegroom, and seeking Thee I contend; I am crucified and buried with Thee in Thy baptism, and I suffer for Thy sake that I may reign with Thee, and I die for Thee that I may live in Thee. Accept me as a spotless sacrifice, offered to Thee in love; and by her prayers, O merciful one, 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 woman martyr)

Thy martyr Zenais, O Lord, in her contest received from Thee our God an incorruptible crown; for having Thy strength she laid low the tyrants and broke the powerless insolence of the demons. At her supplications, O Christ God, save our souls.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Thou didst seek a penance and wast given none, and so didst appoint thyself the leper and the hidden cell; wherefore God entrusted to thee His hidden ones, and thou didst uncover the fool, the mocked woman and the lantern of the poor man, O father Daniel, new Abraham and host of Christ.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Broken for an hour by the torments, thou didst offer the incense of denial; but rising up with the tears of Peter thou didst confess Christ before the tyrant, and didst wash thy word away in thy blood, O shepherd Marcellinus: and the Church, taught by thee that repentance is received, will not leave thy memory unhonoured.

Kontakion — Tone 2

They took thy church from thee and made it a stable, and set the shepherd of Rome to serve among the beasts; but thou didst not lay down thy priesthood, O Marcellus, and didst finish thy course in the dung and the chains, a bishop to the end: wherefore Christ has numbered thee with the martyrs.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Thou wast a bought slave and a free woman, O Potamiaena, and when thy master demanded what was not his thou didst answer that thy honour was dearer to thee than thy life; wherefore the cauldron and the pitch became thy bridal chamber, and thy crown was seen by the very hands that killed thee.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Ye carried bread to the pits and the quarries, and bought back the bodies of the slain, and for this alms ye were reckoned criminals; wherefore the prison became your church, the jailer your brother and the soldiers your fellow-martyrs, O deacons Sisinius and Cyriacus with all your company: entreat Christ for the imprisoned and the forgotten.

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.

Readings

Epistle

Acts 28.1-31

¹And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called Melita. ²And the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold. ³And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand. ⁴And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. ⁵And he shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm. ⁶Howbeit they looked when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly: but after they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god. ⁷In the same quarters were possessions of the chief man of the island, whose name was Publius; who received us, and lodged us three days courteously. ⁸And it came to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him. ⁹So when this was done, others also, which had diseases in the island, came, and were healed: ¹⁰Who also honoured us with many honours; and when we departed, they laded us with such things as were necessary. ¹¹And after three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria, which had wintered in the isle, whose sign was Castor and Pollux. ¹²And landing at Syracuse, we tarried there three days. ¹³And from thence we fetched a compass, and came to Rhegium: and after one day the south wind blew, and we came the next day to Puteoli: ¹⁴Where we found brethren, and were desired to tarry with them seven days: and so we went toward Rome. ¹⁵And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as far as Appii forum, and The three taverns: whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage. ¹⁶And when we came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard: but Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him. ¹⁷And it came to pass, that after three days Paul called the chief of the Jews together: and when they were come together, he said unto them, Men and brethren, though I have committed nothing against the people, or customs of our fathers, yet was I delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans. ¹⁸Who, when they had examined me, would have let me go, because there was no cause of death in me. ¹⁹But when the Jews spake against it, I was constrained to appeal unto Cæsar; not that I had ought to accuse my nation of. ²⁰For this cause therefore have I called for you, to see you, and to speak with you: because that for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain. ²¹And they said unto him, We neither received letters out of Judæa concerning thee, neither any of the brethren that came shewed or spake any harm of thee. ²²But we desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest: for as concerning this sect, we know that every where it is spoken against. ²³And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening. ²⁴And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not. ²⁵And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, ²⁶Saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: ²⁷For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. ²⁸Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it. ²⁹And when he had said these words, the Jews departed, and had great reasoning among themselves. ³⁰And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, ³¹Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.

1 Thessalonians 4.13-17 (Departed)

¹³But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. ¹⁴For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. ¹⁵For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. ¹⁶For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: ¹⁷Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

1 Corinthians 15.47-57 (Departed, variant)

⁴⁷The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. ⁴⁸As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. ⁴⁹And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. ⁵⁰Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. ⁵¹Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, ⁵²In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. ⁵³For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. ⁵⁴So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. ⁵⁵O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? ⁵⁶The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. ⁵⁷But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Gospel

John 21.15-25

¹⁵So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. ¹⁶He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. ¹⁷He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. ¹⁸Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. ¹⁹This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me. ²⁰Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? ²¹Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? ²²Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me. ²³Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? ²⁴This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. ²⁵And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.

John 5.24-30 (Departed)

²⁴Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. ²⁵Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. ²⁶For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; ²⁷And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. ²⁸Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, ²⁹And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. ³⁰I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

John 6.35-39 (Departed, variant)

³⁵And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. ³⁶But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not. ³⁷All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. ³⁸For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. ³⁹And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.