Paschaltide, day 6 · 5 days since Pascha
The Life-Giving Spring of the Most-holy Theotokos
About The Life-Giving Fountain →
Saints commemorated
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Ven. Zosima of Solovetsk
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Hieromartyr Simeon, Bishop in Persia, and those with him (343)
Simeon bar Sabbae (Shemʿon), Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the capital of the Persian empire, was the head of the Church of Persia and the great hieromartyr of the fierce persecution under Shapur II. On Great and Holy Friday of the year 344, with a company of clergy and faithful — a hundred and more priests, deacons and others, whom later tradition swelled to a thousand and more martyrs — he was beheaded for refusing to worship the sun and to betray his flock to the tax laid on the Christians. With him is remembered the aged eunuch Usthazanes, his own foster-father, who had lapsed and, recalled to repentance by Simeon's reproach, confessed Christ and died before him.
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Acacius the Confessor
Acacius the Confessor was bishop of Melitene in Armenia in the middle of the third century. Arrested in the persecution of Decius (249–251) and brought before the governor Marcianus, he confessed Christ boldly under torture but was not put to death; released, he bore the marks of his sufferings for the rest of his life and died in peace. His memory is kept on March 31, and the uncovering of his relic — whose year is not transmitted — on September 15.
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Alexander of Svir
Alexander of Svir (1448–1533) is the great luminary of monasticism in the forests of the Russian north-east, and the one saint of the Russian Church to whom the tradition ascribes an appearance of the Holy Trinity in three Persons, as to Abraham at the oak of Mamre. Born of peasants on the river Oyat and named Amos at baptism, he fled a marriage arranged for him and made his way at nineteen to Valaam; after some twenty years there he withdrew into the wilderness by the Svir, where he lived seven years alone before disciples found him. Out of that solitude grew the Trinity monastery on the Svir, a mother-house of the whole Olonets and Karelian north, and a company of disciples — Athanasius of Syandem, Gennadius and Nicephorus of Vasheozero, Macarius of Oredezh, Adrian of Ondrusov, Gennadius of Kostroma — who carried his rule outward. His incorrupt relics, uncovered in 1641, were seized by the Bolsheviks in 1918 and held for eighty years in a Petrograd medical academy before being identified and returned in 1998.
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Zosimas of Solovki
Zosimas (†17 April 1478) is the founder of the great monastery of Solovki in the White Sea and the father of coenobitic monasticism in the Russian far north. Born at Tolvui by Lake Onega, he gave away his inheritance, was tonsured, and went looking for a desert; at the mouth of the Suma he met Herman, who told him of an uninhabited island where he had spent six years with Sabbatius. About 1436 the two crossed the sea to the Solovetsky islands, and Zosimas, seeing in the air a vision of a shining church, built there the wooden Transfiguration church that became the Lavra of the north. He brought Sabbatius's relics from the Vyg in 1465, was made abbot by the brethren when the igumens sent from Novgorod could not endure the climate, foretold at Martha Boretskaya's table the beheading of six Novgorod boyars, and is honoured as the patron of beekeepers. His relics were translated with Sabbatius's on August 8, 1566, which is his second commemoration.
British Isles and Ireland
- Hieromartyr Donnan of Eigg and fifty-two monks with him (c.616)
Troparia & kontakia
Exapostilarion
Thou art in very truth the fount of living water, O Lady; therefore thou dost wash away the grievous sicknesses of souls and of bodies by thy touch alone, who pourest forth Christ, the water of salvation.
Kontakion — Tone 8 (to the automelon *Τῇ ὑπερμάχῳ*)
Out of thine inexhaustible Fountain, O thou who art graced of God, thou bestowest upon me the waters of thy grace, which stream forth unfailingly and beyond all speech; for as thou didst bear the Word past all understanding, I entreat thee to bedew me with thy grace, that I may cry to thee: Rejoice, O water of salvation.
Kontakion — Tone 8
Thou didst flee the marriage of this world and find the wilderness of the Svir a bridal chamber; and there, in the light that has no evening, the Three came in to thee as of old to Abraham. Wherefore thy monastery calls thee father, and we cry to thee: Rejoice, Alexander, lamp of the northern forests.
Megalynarion
Let us honour with faith the life-flowing water of the Fountain, which poureth out the immortal dew, the manna, the divine nectar, the strange ambrosia, the honey out of the rock.
Oikos — Tone 8
O immaculate Theotokos, who ineffably didst bear the pre-eternal Word of the Father, enlarge my mouth, O pure one, and take me with thee unto thy praise, that I may sing thy Fountain and cry aloud: Rejoice, fount of unceasing gladness; rejoice, stream of beauty past telling. Rejoice, undoing of every sickness; rejoice, flood that drowns the manifold passions. Rejoice, clearest current, that makest the faithful whole; rejoice, most gracious water, to them that are many times diseased.
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of a hierarch)
A rule of faith and an image of meekness, a teacher of temperance did the truth of things show thee to thy flock; therefore thou didst gain by humility the things on high, by poverty the things that are rich: O Father and hierarch Acacius, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 4
From thy youth thou didst love Christ, O blessed one, and taking upon thee His easy yoke thou didst show thyself a dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit; wherefore the Trinity, whom thou didst serve, was pleased to appear unto thee. Entreat, O venerable Alexander, that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a hieromartyr and companions)
Having shared in the ways of the apostles and sat upon their thrones, thou didst find the path to divine contemplation, O inspired Simeon; and, contending for the faith even unto blood with thy holy company, thou didst enter into the joy of thy Lord. Entreat Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 4
Having left the world and its cares, thou didst seek out an island in the cold sea, and there, where the vision of the church was shown thee, thou didst raise up a house of the Transfiguration of Christ; and gathering a brotherhood, thou wast a father to them in labour and in want. O venerable Zosimas, entreat the Saviour that our souls may be saved.
Readings
Epistle
Acts 3.1-8
1Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. 2And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple; 3Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms. 4And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us. 5And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them. 6Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. 7And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ancle bones received strength. 8And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.
Philippians 2.5-11 (Theotokos)
5Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 10That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Gospel
John 2.12-22
12After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days. 13And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, 14And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: 15And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; 16And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise. 17And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. 18Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? 19Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. 20Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? 21But he spake of the temple of his body. 22When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.
Luke 10.38-42, 11.27-28 (Theotokos)
38Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. 39And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word. 40But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. 41And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: 42But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. 27And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. 28But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.