Ascensiontide, day 4 · 42 days since Pascha
Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council
Saints commemorated
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Ven. Simeon the Stylite
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Ven. Nikita the Stylite
Nicetas of Pereyaslavl (†1186) was a tax-farmer of the newly founded Russian city of Pereyaslavl-Zalessky who grew rich by extortion, was converted by a verse of Isaiah and by a terrible vision in his own kitchen, and became the first and most famous stylite of the Russian land — though his "pillar" was a pit dug in the earth, in which he stood in heavy iron chains and a stone cap, with a covered passage to the monastery church. He was murdered by night on 24 May 1186 by kinsmen who mistook his polished chains for silver. The recovery of the chains from the Volga, the incorrupt relics uncovered under Metropolitan Photius, and the devotion of Ivan the Terrible made the Nikitsky monastery one of the notable shrines of Muscovite Russia.
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St Vincent of Lerins (445)
Vincent of Lérins (†c. 445) was a Gallic monk and priest of the island monastery of Lérins off the coast of Provence, and the author of the Commonitorium — the short treatise, written about 434 under the pen-name Peregrinus, "the Pilgrim," which laid down the most famous of all rules for distinguishing the apostolic faith from innovation: what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. With it he set out, no less importantly, the principle that the faith may genuinely grow while never changing — profectus, non permutatio. He wrote three years after the Council of Ephesus and in its defence, upholding the title Theotokos against Nestorius. The Orthodox Church commemorates him on May 24.
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Meletius Stratelates and Companions
Meletius, called Stratelates ("the General"), was by the synaxarial tradition a Christian military commander in Galatia in Asia Minor in the second century, under the emperor Antoninus Pius, who with the soldiers of his command destroyed the idol-temples of the province and was put to death for it by the governor Maximian, together with an immense company — the tribunes Stephen and John, a long roll of named soldiers, the women Marciana, Susanna and Palladia, the infants Kyriakos and Christian, the Egyptian Serapion, and the converted sorcerer Callinicus. The transmitted number of those who suffered with him is 1,218, though some notices give figures as high as eleven thousand. The company is commemorated with the Antiochene stylite on May 24.
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Symeon the Stylite of the Wonderful Mountain
Symeon of the Wonderful Mountain (521–596), called the Younger to distinguish him from his great namesake, is the supreme ascetic of the Antiochene church in the sixth century: a Syrian who mounted a pillar as a child of seven and stood on one for sixty-eight years, the last of them on the Wonderful Mountain (Θαυμαστὸν Ὄρος, Mons Admirabilis) above the road between Antioch and Seleucia Pieria, where a great monastery and one of the chief pilgrimage shrines of Syria grew up around his column. Orphaned by the earthquake of 526, raised by his mother St Martha (July 4), ordained deacon and then priest on the column itself, he was a wonderworker of vast reputation — healing, reading hearts, foretelling earthquake, plague and Persian invasion — whose blessing-tokens of clay travelled the whole Mediterranean. His enormous Life, written by an eyewitness disciple, is one of the richest documents surviving from sixth-century Syria.
Troparia & kontakia
Kontakion — Tone 2
Set as a lamp upon the Wonderful Mountain, thou didst shine upon Antioch and upon all the Syrian land; from childhood thou didst make the pillar thy dwelling, and standing between earth and heaven thou wast made a priest of the Most High. O Symeon, wonderworker and intercessor, pray unceasingly for those who honour thee.
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest 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 4
Enlightened from on high by the words of the prophet, thou didst turn from robbery to repentance, and hast washed away with tears the wrong thou didst thy brethren; bound in iron and hidden in the earth, thou didst stand unshaken in prayer, and wast made a fountain of healings. O Nicetas, our venerable father, entreat Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 1
Thou didst become a pillar of patience, O God-bearing father, and didst rival the forefathers: Job in his sufferings and Joseph in his temptations, living as one of the bodiless powers while yet in the flesh. O Symeon, our venerable father, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)
O guardian of the faith delivered to the saints, thou didst teach the Church to know her own voice: what is believed everywhere, from the beginning, and by all. Dwelling on the island of Lérins as a pilgrim and a stranger, thou didst confess the Word made flesh of the Theotokos. O Vincent, our venerable father, entreat Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Readings
Vespers
Genesis 14.14-20
14And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. 15And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. 16And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. 17And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him, at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king’s dale. 18And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. 19And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: 20And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.
Deuteronomy 1.8-11, 15-17
8Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them. 9And I spake unto you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear you myself alone: 10The LORD your God hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude. 11(The LORD God of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as ye are, and bless you, as he hath promised you!) 15So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes. 16And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him. 17Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God’s: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it.
Deuteronomy 10.14-21
14Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. 15Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. 16Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked. 17For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: 18He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. 19Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. 20Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name. 21He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen.
10th Matins Gospel
John 21.1-14
1After these things Jesus shewed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise shewed he himself. 2There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples. 3Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing. 4But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. 5Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, No. 6And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes. 7Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher’s coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea. 8And the other disciples came in a little ship; (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits,) dragging the net with fishes. 9As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread. 10Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught. 11Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken. 12Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? knowing that it was the Lord. 13Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise. 14This is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead.
Epistle
Acts 20.16-18, 28-36
16For Paul had determined to sail by Ephesus, because he would not spend the time in Asia: for he hasted, if it were possible for him, to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost. 17And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church. 18And when they were come to him, he said unto them, Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons, 28Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. 29For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. 30Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. 31Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. 32And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. 33I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. 34Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. 35I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive. 36And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all.
Gospel
John 17.1-13
1These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: 2As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. 3And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. 4I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. 5And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. 6I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. 7Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. 8For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. 9I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. 10And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. 11And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. 12While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.