Holy Week, day 2 · 7 days until Pascha
About Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem →
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Saints commemorated
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Martyrs Agathopedes, Theodulus and Their Companions
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Our Holy Father Mark of Trache (ca. 400)
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Agathopodes and Theodulus
Agathopodes, an aged deacon, and Theodulus, a young reader, were clergy of the church of Thessalonica who during the Great Persecution of Diocletian refused to surrender the sacred Scriptures or to deny Christ, and were drowned in the sea with stones about their necks about the year 303. The elder and the youth, united in one confession and one death, are honoured together as martyrs of the Thessalonian church.
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Argyra of Prussa
Argyra was a young married woman of Prussa (Bursa) in Bithynia who, having refused the advances of a Turkish official's son and refused with them the invitation to apostatise, was denounced on a false charge, flogged, and shut up in prison at Constantinople, where she spent seventeen years under repeated interrogation, beating and the abuse of her fellow prisoners without yielding, sustained by fasting and prayer. She died in her cell on 5 April 1721, aged about thirty-three. Some years later her body was found whole and incorrupt and fragrant, and on 30 April 1735 her relics were translated with the blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarch to the church of St Paraskeve, where they are still venerated. She is commemorated on April 30, the day of the translation.
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Job of Moscow
Job was the first Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, raised to that dignity in 1589 by Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople, and the last great churchman of the house of Rurik's Muscovy. Born at Staritsa of a tradesman's family, he rose through the northern monasteries to the metropolitan throne, and as patriarch organised the new Russian patriarchate, canonised a company of Russian saints, and sent missions to Siberia and Georgia. In the Time of Troubles he refused to acknowledge the pretender known as the False Dmitri, and for that refusal was stripped of his patriarchal vesture in the Dormition Cathedral by the pretender's men and driven into exile at Staritsa, where he died blind on 19 June 1607. His relics, found incorrupt, were carried to Moscow in 1652, and he was glorified by the Russian Church in 1989.
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Mark the Athenian
Mark, called "the Athenian" from his native city, is honoured as one of the most extreme of the desert solitaries: the tradition tells that he lived ninety-five years utterly alone on a wild mountain beyond the deserts of Egypt (the "Mountain of Thrace" or of Ethiopia), never in all that time seeing the face of a man, until at the very end of his life the monk Serapion was led to him by God to witness his repose. His story, like that of Onuphrius or Paul of Thebes, celebrates the hidden saints known to God alone.
British Isles and Ireland
- St. Began, abbot of Kill-Beggan (6th C)
- St. Derfel-Gadarn, hermit of Llanderfel (6th C)
- SS. Probus and Grace
- St. Ethelburga (Æthelburh) abbess of Lyminge (c.647)
Troparia & kontakia
Apolytikion — Tone 1
Giving assurance of the common resurrection before thy Passion, thou didst raise up Lazarus from the dead, O Christ God. Wherefore we also, like the children, bear the emblems of victory and cry aloud to thee, the Conqueror of death: Hosanna in the highest; blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a woman martyr)
Thou wast a lamb of Christ, O Argyra, and didst cry aloud in thy contest: I am the bride of my Bridegroom, and Him alone will I confess. Neither flattery nor beating nor the long years of the prison could sever thee from Him; wherefore He hath crowned thee with an incorruptible crown, and hath glorified thy body with incorruption. By thine intercessions save our souls.
Apolytikion — Tone 5
First-enthroned among the patriarchs of the Russian land, and first also in suffering for the truth, thou wast stripped of thy throne but not of thy confession, O holy father Job; and being deprived of the light of thine eyes, thou didst see the more clearly the will of God. Intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Kontakion — Tone 6 (plagal of the second)
Borne upon a throne in heaven and upon a colt on earth, O Christ God, thou didst accept the praise of the angels and the hymn of the children as they cried aloud to thee: Blessed art thou that comest to call Adam back again. Since thou hast bound Hades, O Immortal One, and put death to death, and raised up the world, with palms the infants praised thee, O Christ, crying out to thee this day as to a victor: Hosanna to the Son of David! For no longer, he says, shall babes be slain for the sake of the babe of Mary; but for all, infants and elders alike, thou alone art crucified. No longer shall the sword come against us: for thine own side shall be pierced with a lance. Wherefore, rejoicing, we say: Blessed art thou that comest to call Adam back again.
Second
Buried together with thee through baptism, O Christ our God, we have been accounted worthy of deathless life by thy Resurrection; and singing praise we cry aloud: Hosanna in the highest; blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
The
Astride a colt is he who by a word stretched out the vault of heaven; he seeks to loose mortals from unreason.
The
**ὩΣΑΝΝΑ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΥΛΟΓΗΜΕΝΟΣ ΘΕΟΣ** — *Hosanna! Christ, blessed, is God.* God is the Lord and hath appeared unto us: keep the feast, and come, let us exult and magnify Christ, with palms and branches crying aloud in hymns: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, our Saviour.
The
O Lord our God, who sittest upon the Cherubim, who hast raised up thy might and sent thy only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to save the world by his Cross and burial and Resurrection: when he came to Jerusalem unto his voluntary Passion, the people that sat in darkness and the shadow of death took the emblems of victory, the branches of trees and the fronds of palms, and foretold the Resurrection. Do thou thyself, O Master, preserve us also, who in imitation of them carry palms and branches of trees in our hands on this fore-festal day; and keep us, as those crowds and those children offered thee the Hosanna, that in hymns and spiritual songs we may be counted worthy of the life-giving Resurrection on the third day, in Christ Jesus our Lord…
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of two martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their sufferings 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 intercessions save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable ascetic)
By a flood of tears thou didst make the barren desert fruitful, and thy longing for God brought forth fruit a hundredfold; thou becamest a shining lamp, illumining the whole world by thy miracles, O Mark our father. Intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Readings
Vespers
Genesis 49.1-2, 8-12
1And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days. 2Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father. 8Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee. 9Judah is a lion’s whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up? 10The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. 11Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes: 12His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.
Zephaniah 3.14-19
14Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. 15The LORD hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the king of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more. 16In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack. 17The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing. 18I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden. 19Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.
Zechariah 9.9-15
9Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. 10And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace unto the heathen: and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth. 11As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water. 12Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even to day do I declare that I will render double unto thee; 13When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man. 14And the LORD shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and the Lord GOD shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south. 15The LORD of hosts shall defend them; and they shall devour, and subdue with sling stones; and they shall drink, and make a noise as through wine; and they shall be filled like bowls, and as the corners of the altar.
Matins Gospel
Matthew 21.1-11, 15-17
1And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, 2Saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me. 3And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them. 4All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, 5Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass. 6And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them, 7And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon. 8And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way. 9And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest. 10And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? 11And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. 15And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased, 16And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? 17And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and he lodged there.
Epistle
Philippians 4.4-9
4Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. 5Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. 6Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. 7And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. 8Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. 9Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.
Gospel
John 12.1-18
1Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. 2There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. 3Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. 4Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray him, 5Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? 6This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. 7Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. 8For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always. 9Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there: and they came not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead. 10But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death; 11Because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus. 12On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, 13Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord. 14And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written, 15Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass’s colt. 16These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him. 17The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record. 18For this cause the people also met him, for that they heard that he had done this miracle.