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Saturday 20 December 2025

Saturday before Nativity; Repose of St. John of Kronstadt

Saturday of the 28th week after Pentecost

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Nativity Fast — Wine and Oil are Allowed Tone 2

Nativity Fast, day 36

Saturday before Nativity; Repose of St. John of Kronstadt

Saints commemorated

  • Saint of the day

    Repose of Our Holy Father John of Kronstadt (1908)

    John of Kronstadt (1829–1908) was the most celebrated Russian pastor of his age — a married parish priest of the naval city of Kronstadt, near Saint Petersburg, who for over half a century served the daily Liturgy, gave himself without reserve to the poor and the outcast, and became known across the Russian Empire as a wonderworker whose prayers healed the sick and to whom thousands came for confession and counsel. From his cathedral of Saint Andrew he founded a great House of Industry for the destitute, drew crowds so vast that he introduced a form of general confession aloud, and made frequent Communion the heart of his teaching; his spiritual diary, My Life in Christ, became a classic of Orthodox devotion. He reposed on December 20, 1908, and was glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in 1964 and by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1990.

  • Antiochian commemoration

    Ignatius of Antioch

    Ignatius the God-bearer (c. 35 – c. 107) was bishop of Antioch — the third to hold the see, after the Apostle Peter and Evodus — and, with Polycarp of Smyrna, a disciple of the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian. Tradition identifies him with the child whom Christ set in the midst of the disciples, and reads his name "Theophoros," God-bearer, in both its senses: one borne in the arms of God, and one who bore God in his heart. Arrested under the emperor Trajan and condemned to the beasts, he was sent under military guard across Asia Minor to Rome — a journey on which, chained to "ten leopards," he wrote the seven letters that are his enduring monument: a foundational witness to the bishop's office, to the Eucharist as "the medicine of immortality," and to a martyrdom he embraced with longing — "I am the wheat of God, and I am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ." He was devoured by beasts in the amphitheatre at Rome about the year 107. His relics were carried back to Antioch — the first stage of their journey — and later translated to Rome, to the Basilica of San Clemente, where they rest. He is kept on December 20, and on January 29 for the translation of his relics.

  • Forefeast of Nativity

  • Hieromartyr Ignatius the Godbearer

  • Philogonius of Antioch

    Philogonius (†c. 324) was bishop of Antioch from about 319 to 324, a defender of the Nicene faith at the very outset of the Arian controversy and a confessor who had stood firm through the last of the pagan persecutions. A lawyer before his episcopate — famed, the tradition says, for defending the poor, the widow, and the orphan — he was raised to the See of Antioch after the death of his wife, and governed it in the difficult years when Arius's teaching first divided the East, opposing the heresy before the Council of Nicaea had met. He is remembered above all because John Chrysostom, preaching at Antioch some sixty years later, delivered a celebrated homily in his praise. He is commemorated on December 20, together with Ignatius the God-bearer.

British Isles and Ireland

  • St. Urscinus, disciple of St. Columbanus and abbot of St. Ursanne (625)

Troparia & kontakia

Kontakion — Tone 3

The radiant day of thy shining contests proclaims to all men Him who was born of the Virgin; for thirsting to delight in him out of love, thou didst hasten to be devoured by the wild beasts. Therefore wast thou called God-bearer, O glorious Ignatius.

Sticheron

A living pillar and a breathing icon — thy yearly feast is come, O God-bearer Ignatius, proclaiming thy hidden mysteries and thy noble deeds, thy standing for the faith even unto blood, and that blessed and famous cry of thine, which said: **"I am the wheat of God, and I am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts."** Wherefore, having become an imitator of Christ, intercede that our souls may be saved.

Troparion — Tone 4

As one who shared in the ways of the Apostles and succeeded to their thrones, thou didst find in thy labours, O God-inspired one, an ascent to divine vision; wherefore, rightly dividing the word of truth, thou didst contend for the faith even unto blood, O Hieromartyr Ignatius. Intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.

Troparion — Tone 4

O God of our fathers, who dealest ever with us according to thy gentleness, take not thy mercy from us, but through the prayers of Philogonius the hierarch guide our lives in peace.

Readings

Epistle

Ephesians 1.16-23

16Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; 17That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: 18The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, 19And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, 20Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, 21Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: 22And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

Galatians 3.8-12 (Saturday before Nativity)

8And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. 9So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. 10For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. 11But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. 12And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.

Gospel

Luke 14.1-11

1And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him. 2And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy. 3And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day? 4And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go; 5And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day? 6And they could not answer him again to these things. 7And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them, 8When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; 9And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. 10But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. 11For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

Luke 13.18-29 (Saturday before Nativity)

18Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it? 19It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it. 20And again he said, Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? 21It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. 22And he went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem. 23Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, 24Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. 25When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: 26Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. 27But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. 28There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out. 29And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God.