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Monday 23 February 2026

Beginning of the Great Fast

Monday of the First Week of Lent

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Lenten Fast — No overrides Tone 4

Great Lent, day 1 · 48 days until Pascha

Beginning of the Great Fast

Saints commemorated

  • Hieromartyr Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna

    Polycarp (c. 69 – c. 155) was bishop of Smyrna, a disciple of the Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, and — with Ignatius of Antioch, whose friend and correspondent he was — one of the Apostolic Fathers, the generation that received the faith directly from the Apostles and carried it into the second century. He was the living link between the Apostles and the great teachers who followed: Irenaeus of Lyons, who heard him preach as a boy, remembered how Polycarp told of his converse with John "and with the others who had seen the Lord." His one surviving writing, the Letter to the Philippians, and above all the Martyrdom of Polycarp — a letter of the church of Smyrna that is the earliest detailed account of a Christian martyrdom outside the New Testament — made his memory imperishable. Brought into the arena at about eighty-six years of age, he answered the proconsul's demand that he curse Christ with the words, "Eighty-six years have I served him, and he has done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?" Condemned to the fire, he was not consumed by it, and was dispatched at last with a dagger. He is kept on February 23.

  • Saint Gorgonia (372)

    Gorgonia (c. 325 – c. 372) was the elder sister of Gregory the Theologian and the daughter of the holy parents Gregory the Elder, bishop of Nazianzus, and Nonna. A married laywoman, mother, and mistress of a household, she was honoured by the Church not for martyrdom or monastic withdrawal but as a model of Christian womanhood in the world — chaste, charitable, prayerful, and steadfast — and her memory is kept almost wholly through the funeral oration her brother preached over her, one of the most affecting portraits of a Christian woman to survive from the ancient Church. Gregory tells how she brought her husband and her whole house to baptism, how she was healed of a grievous injury and a mortal sickness by prayer at the holy altar, and how she foresaw her own falling-asleep and died in peace with a verse of the Psalms on her lips. She is commemorated on February 23.

  • Our Venerable Father Alexander the Unsleeping (430)

    Alexander the Sleepless (c. 350 – c. 430) was the founder of the Acoemetae (Greek Ἀκοίμητοι, "the Unsleeping" or "Sleepless Ones"), the monks who kept the praise of God unceasing day and night, dividing themselves into relays of choirs so that the Divine Office was never once silent in their churches — a literal enactment of the Apostle's command to "pray without ceasing." Born in Asia and educated at Constantinople, he abandoned a promising secular career for the Syrian desert, gave away all he had, and after years as a solitary conceived the discipline of perpetual psalmody that would make his name. Restless, uncompromising, and often at odds with the settled authorities of Church and city, he led a wandering band of ascetics through Syria and Mesopotamia before founding his monastery near Constantinople; driven out and persecuted, he died at Gomon on the Bosporus about the year 430. His community became one of the most famous of the Byzantine world and supplied the first monks of the great Monastery of Stoudios. He is commemorated on February 23.

  • Damian of Esphigmenou

    Damian (thirteenth century, † c. 1280) was a hesychast of the Monastery of Esphigmenou on Mount Athos, a disciple of the elder Cosmas who, after his teacher's repose, withdrew to the neighbouring wilderness of Mount Samareia and there passed his life in stillness, prayer, and extreme asceticism. He is honoured among the venerable fathers of the Holy Mountain, and the tradition tells that at his death a sweet fragrance filled the region for many days as a sign of his sanctity. He is commemorated on February 23.

  • The Syrian Desert Ascetics

    On February 23 the Church commemorates a group of ascetics of the Syrian desert of the fifth century — John, Antiochus, Antoninus, Moses, Zebinas, Polychronius, Moses the Second, and Damian — hermits and mountain-dwellers of the region of Antioch and Cyrrhus whose memory is preserved chiefly through the Religious History (the Philotheos Historia) of Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, the great chronicler of Syrian monasticism, who knew several of them himself. They belong to the golden age of the Syrian ascetic movement — the age of the stylites and the mountain solitaries — and are honoured together as labourers in the same desert and the same discipline of prayer, standing vigil, and severe abstinence. Of Antiochian and Syriac note, they are commemorated as a company on February 23.

British Isles and Ireland

  • St. Jurmin of East Anglia, confessor (7th C)
  • St. Milburgh, abbess of Wenlock (7th C)
  • St. Boswell, abbot of Melrose (c.661)

Troparia & kontakia

Kontakion — Tone 1

Offering to the Lord the fruits of the reason through thy godly virtues, O wise Polycarp, thou wast shown forth worthy of God, O blessed hierarch; wherefore today we who have been enlightened by thy words hymn thy praiseworthy memory, glorifying the Lord.

Troparion — Tone 8 (from the common of a venerable father)

In thee, O Father, was the divine image kept secure; 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 Alexander.

Troparion — Tone 8 (from the common of a venerable father)

In thee, O Father, was the divine image kept secure; 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 Damian.

Troparion — Tone 4

A partaker of the ways of the Apostles and a successor to their thrones, O God-inspired one, thou didst find in the active life an ascent to divine vision; wherefore, rightly dividing the word of truth, thou didst contend for the faith even unto blood, O Hieromartyr Polycarp. Intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.

Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of the holy Fathers)

O God of our Fathers, who ever dealest with us according to thy forbearance: take not thy mercy from us, but by their supplications guide our life in peace.

Readings

6th Hour

Isaiah 1.1-20

1The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. 2Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. 3The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. 4Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. 5Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 6From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. 7Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. 8And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. 9Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. 10Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. 11To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. 12When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? 13Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. 14Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. 15And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. 16Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; 17Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. 18Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 19If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: 20But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

Vespers

Genesis 1.1-13

1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. 6And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. 9And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 11And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13And the evening and the morning were the third day.

Proverbs 1.1-20

1The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel; 2To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; 3To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity; 4To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. 5A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: 6To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings. 7The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. 8My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: 9For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck. 10My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. 11If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: 12Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: 13We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: 14Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: 15My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: 16For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. 17Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. 18And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives. 19So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof. 20Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:

Great Canon