St Bucolus, Bishop of Smyrna

Saints commemorated

• Saint of the day

  St Bucolus, Bishop of Smyrna

  Bucolus (Boukolos, †c. 100) was the first bishop of Smyrna in Asia Minor and a disciple of the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian. Set over the church of Smyrna by his teacher, he laboured among a still largely pagan city, and by his preaching and the grace of God brought many to Christ and baptised them, governing his flock with wisdom and meekness through the last years of the apostolic age. His enduring glory is his successor: the tradition holds that Bucolus ordained, or handed his see to, the great Polycarp of Smyrna, the disciple of John and martyr, so that through Bucolus the apostolic charge of the Theologian passed to the man who carried it into the middle of the second century. Bucolus reposed in peace, and — the tradition adds — a myrtle tree sprang up over his grave that gave healing. He is commemorated on February 6, within the afterfeast of the Meeting.

• St Photios, patriarch of Constantinople (891)

  Photius the Great (c. 810–891) was Patriarch of Constantinople, twice on the throne (858–867 and 877–886), and the foremost scholar-hierarch of the Byzantine middle age — "the Church's far-gleaming beacon." Sprung from a noble icon-venerating family that had suffered for the holy images, he was the most learned man of his century: first imperial secretary, ambassador, and teacher, whose Bibliotheca (Myriobiblos) preserves the memory of hundreds of ancient books now lost. Raised in six days from layman to patriarch, he became the Church's great defender against the innovations pressed from the Frankish and Roman West — above all the addition of the Filioque to the Creed, which he refuted in the classic Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit. He sent the mission to the Slavs under Cyril and Methodius, baptised the Bulgarians, and presided over the great reconciling council of 879–880, reckoned by many Orthodox the Eighth Ecumenical Council. Deposed at last by his former pupil the emperor Leo VI, he reposed in monastic exile on February 6, and is honoured as a pillar of Orthodoxy and an ecumenical teacher.

• Sts Barsanuphius and John the Prophet, monks of Palestine (6th c.)

  Barsanuphius the Great (†after 543) and John the Prophet (†mid-6th century) were two hesychast elders of the monastery of Abba Seridus at Thavatha near Gaza, in Palestine, in the age of Justinian — the "Great Old Man" and the "Other Old Man." Both lived in strict enclosure, seeing almost no one; Barsanuphius, an Egyptian by birth, passed some fifty years walled in his cell in unbroken silence, and John dwelt eighteen years in the cell his master had left him. Yet from their reclusion they became the most sought spiritual fathers of their region, directing hundreds of monks and layfolk entirely by written answers, dictated through the abbot Seridus. That correspondence — the great Book of Questions and Answers, some eight hundred and fifty letters — is one of the treasures of Orthodox ascetic literature, a manual of discernment, humility, and unceasing prayer whose disciples included Dorotheus of Gaza and the young martyr Dositheus. The two elders are commemorated together on February 6.

• Dorothea of Caesarea

  Dorothea (†c. 304) was a Christian maiden of Caesarea in Cappadocia, martyred in the persecution of Diocletian and celebrated for her beauty, her wisdom, and her steadfast confession. Brought before the governor and refusing to sacrifice, she was given over to two lapsed Christian sisters, Christina and Callista, to be turned from the faith; instead she won them back to Christ, and they were martyred with her. Led out to death, she was mocked by a scholar named Theophilus, who asked her in jest to send him fruits from the garden of her heavenly Bridegroom; after her beheading, in the frost of February, a child brought Theophilus a basket of roses and apples from paradise, and at that miracle he confessed Christ and was himself martyred. The story of the roses of Saint Dorothy has made her one of the best-loved of the virgin-martyrs, East and West. She is commemorated on February 6.

• Julian of Emesa

  Julian (†c. 284) was a young Christian physician of Emesa in Syria (modern Homs), martyred for the faith in the persecutions of the late third century. The tradition remembers him as a healer of both body and soul, who used his art as an open door for the Gospel, secretly tending the Christians imprisoned for Christ and bringing many of the sick and the pagan to baptism. Seized for his confession and refusing to sacrifice, he was put to death by a cruel torture — nails driven into his head, hands, and feet — and so received the martyr's crown. His memory was cherished at Emesa, where a church of Saint Elian rose over the place of his death and still guards his tomb; he is honoured as a patron of physicians and of the sick. He is commemorated on February 6, within the afterfeast of the Meeting.

British Isles and Ireland

• SS Mael and Mun, bishops and nephews of St. Patrick (c.488)
• Martyr Tanco, Irish bishop of Werden

Troparia & kontakia

Readings