Thursday 6 November 2025
St Paul the Confessor of Constantinople
Thursday of the 22nd week after Pentecost
Saints commemorated
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Saint of the day
St Paul the Confessor of Constantinople
Paul the Confessor (died c. 350) was archbishop of Constantinople during the height of the Arian crisis, a firm champion of the Nicene faith who was four times driven from his see by the emperor Constantius II and the Arian party. In his final banishment he was carried off to Cucusus in Armenia and there, the tradition holds, strangled with his own omophorion as he stood at the altar — so that the Church honours under the title "Confessor" a hierarch who in the end sealed his witness with a martyr's death. His secretaries, the notaries Marcian and Martyrius, were killed for continuing his cause. His feast is November 6.
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Saint Germanus, Archbishop of Kazan (1568)
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Barlaam of Khutyn
Barlaam of Khutyn (died 1192) was the founder of the Monastery of the Transfiguration at Khutyn on the river Volkhov and one of the most beloved wonderworkers of the Russian North. A nobleman's son of Novgorod, he became a monk in his youth, withdrew to a lonely and ill-reputed hill outside the city, and there gathered a brotherhood by the example of his ceaseless prayer, severe fasting, and hard manual labour. Endowed with clairvoyance and a wide fame for miracles — chief among them a summer frost he foretold to save the harvest — he reposed on November 6, 1192. He is venerated as a heavenly protector of Great Novgorod, and his relics rest in the monastery he founded.
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Herman of Kazan
Herman of Kazan (sixteenth century, died 1567) was a monk of the school of Joseph of Volokolamsk who became the first abbot of the Dormition monastery of Sviyazhsk and, from 1564, the second archbishop of the newly Christian region of Kazan. A learned copyist of books and a builder of churches and monastic libraries, he laboured to enlighten the Muslim and heathen peoples of the middle Volga. Summoned by Ivan the Terrible in 1566 to be metropolitan of Moscow, he dared to rebuke the Tsar's cruelties, was cast into disgrace, and died at Moscow on November 6, 1567. His relics were later enshrined at Sviyazhsk, and his repose is his principal feast.
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Luke of Taormina
Luke of Taormina (died c. 820) was a Sicilian ascetic of the age when the island was still Byzantine and its monasticism flourishing. A native of Tauromenium (modern Taormina), he forsook his parents and betrothed in his youth for the wilderness, spent long years in fasting and prayer on the slopes of Mount Etna, and in his old age, prompted by a revelation, founded a monastery, travelling to learn the usages of other houses. He fell asleep at Corinth. He is commemorated on November 6 among the venerable fathers, a minor but universal synaxarion memory.
British Isles and Ireland
- St. Mellion (6th C)
- St. Edwen (7th C)
- St. Efflam (c.700)
- St. Winoc (717)
- All Saints of Ireland
- St. Cowey of Portaferry, Abbot of Moville (8th C)
- St. Illtyd, abbot of Llanilltyd Fawr (6th C)
Troparia & kontakia
Kontakion — Tone 8
Like a second Elijah, O father, thou didst bring down from heaven — he indeed brought down fire and astonished the king, but thou didst gladden thy people and dispose them to keep festival; for great Novgorod boasts greatly of thee, holding thy relics within itself. Keep it unshaken from its enemies, that we may cry to thee: Rejoice, O Barlaam, our God-bearing father.
Kontakion — Tone 4
Illumining with the excellences of holiness and righteousness the reason-endowed flock entrusted to thee, and nourishing it in the verdant pastures of the word of Christ, thou didst by the power of thy spirit guide it into the right path of the Lord's commandments; wherefore now also, overshadowed by thy healing wonders, on thy holy memory we cry out to thee: Rejoice, O Herman our father.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Shining forth upon the earth as a star lit with the light of heaven, thou dost now illumine the catholic Church, for which thou didst contend, laying down thy soul, O Paul; and like the blood of Zacharias and of Abel, thy blood cries out plainly to the Lord.
Troparion — Tone 3
Wearing down thy body upon the earth by sleeping on the ground, by fasting and by vigil, O venerable one, thou didst put to death every mind of the flesh; and thou wast shown to be an unstinting stream of healings to those who come to thee in faith, O Barlaam our father. Entreat Christ God for the salvation of our souls.
Troparion — Tone 4
Having zealously taken up the yoke of Christ from thy youth, thou wast glorified by the wakeful labours of fasting and prayer; wherefore, when God called thee to the service of the Church in the newly-enlightened realm of Kazan, thou wast summoned together with the hierarch Gurias, and there wast shown to be the first founder of the monastery thou didst raise in the city of Sviyazhsk and a worthy successor of the first hierarch. Standing in spirit before the throne of the Master, pray, O hierarch Herman, together with the hierarch Gurias, that the Orthodox flock may grow in piety and that the darkness of false belief may be scattered by the light of the faith.
Troparion — Tone 8
In thee, O father, was preserved unimpaired that which is according to the image; for taking up thy 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. Therefore doth thy spirit rejoice with the angels, O venerable Luke.
Troparion — Tone 3
By thy confession of the divine faith the Church proclaimed thee another Paul, a zealot among the priests. Together with thee cry out to the Lord both Abel and the righteous blood of Zacharias. O venerable Father, entreat Christ God to grant us great mercy.
Readings
Epistle
Colossians 4.2-9
2Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; 3Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: 4That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak. 5Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. 6Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man. 7All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and fellowservant in the Lord: 8Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that he might know your estate, and comfort your hearts; 9With Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They shall make known unto you all things which are done here.
Gospel
Luke 11.47-12.1
47Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. 48Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres. 49Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: 50That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; 51From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation. 52Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered. 53And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things: 54Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him. 1In the mean time, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another, he began to say unto his disciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.