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Friday 19 June 2026

Holy Apostle Jude, Brother of the Lord

Friday of the 3rd week after Pentecost

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Apostles Fast Tone 1

Apostles' Fast, day 12

Holy Apostle Jude, Brother of the Lord

Saints commemorated

  • Saint of the day Antiochian commemoration

    Jude the Apostle

    Jude — called also Thaddaeus and Lebbaeus, and in the Gospel lists simply "Jude of James" — is one of the Twelve, and in the Eastern tradition one of the "brethren of the Lord," a son of Joseph the Betrothed. He speaks once in the Gospels, at the Mystical Supper, where the Evangelist takes care to identify him as "Judas, not Iscariot" (John 14:22); he is the author of the short catholic Epistle of Jude, in which he calls himself not the Lord's brother but "the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James." After Pentecost he preached in Judea, Samaria, Idumea, Syria, Mesopotamia and Persia, and came at length to Armenia, where about the year 80 he was crucified and shot through with arrows near Mount Ararat. He is not to be confused with Thaddaeus of the Seventy (August 21), the apostle of Edessa, with whom the tradition has conflated him since antiquity.

  • Our Holy Father Païsius the Great of Egypt (400)

    Paisius the Great was an Egyptian ascetic of the Nitrian desert, a disciple of the elder Pambo, and one of the fathers whose austerity the desert itself thought extraordinary: he is said to have gone three years with his eyes fixed on the ground, to have fasted for weeks and at last for seventy days together, and to have received in his cell a vision of Christ promising that the wilderness he had chosen would be peopled with monks. He is remembered above all as the physician of the fallen — for the two disciples whom he won back, one from doubt of Christ's divinity and one from open apostasy, by taking their sin upon himself in prayer. He reposed in extreme old age, and his relics were laid by Isidore of Pelusium beside those of his friend Paul. He is honoured in the Coptic Church as Anba Bishoy, "the beloved of our good Saviour."

  • Barlaam of Shenkursk

    Barlaam — Vasily Stepanovich Svoezemtsev in the world — was a Novgorod boyar and posadnik of the city who owned great estates on the northern river Vaga, in the country around what is now Shenkursk. In 1426 he founded there a monastery dedicated to St John the Theologian, endowing it from his own lands; thirty years later, at the end of a long public life, he was tonsured in it himself, taking the name Barlaam, and lived as a monk for six years. He reposed on 19 June 1462 and was buried beside the church he had built. His relics were found incorrupt in the next century and became the centre of a strong local veneration in the Russian North.

  • 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.

  • John the Solitary of Jerusalem

    John the Solitary was a hermit of the sixth century who lived in a cave in the wilderness near Jerusalem, owning nothing but an icon of the Mother of God and the lamp that burned before it. His memory has come down as a single sustained image rather than a biography: that whenever he went off on pilgrimage — to the holy places of Jerusalem, to the tombs of the martyrs, to Sinai — he left the lamp burning, and returned weeks or months later to find it still alight and still full of oil. He is remembered also for the lion that reared up and stood aside to let him pass on a narrow track, and for the answer he gave a visitor who pitied his poverty: that the cave held riches greater than any on earth.

  • Paisius of Hilendar

    Paisius was a hieromonk of the Bulgarian brotherhood at the monastery of Hilendar on Mount Athos who, in 1762, finished writing a small book called the Istoriya Slavyanobolgarskaya — the Slavo-Bulgarian History — and then carried it on foot through the Bulgarian lands to be copied. It was not a work of scholarship so much as a summons: an account of the Bulgarian kings, patriarchs and saints, written for a people who had lived under Ottoman rule for three and a half centuries and under Greek ecclesiastical administration for one, addressed to those who were ashamed of their own name. The book circulated for eighty years in manuscript, was the seed of the Bulgarian National Revival, and made its author, in the judgement of his nation, the man who began modern Bulgaria. He reposed on the road in 1773, and was glorified by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in 1962.

  • Zosimas the Soldier

    Zosimas was a soldier of the Roman army, a native of Apollonia in Thrace, who in the persecution under Trajan laid down his arms, was baptised, and gave himself to prayer and the care of the poor. Brought to trial at Antioch of Pisidia, he refused to sacrifice and was tortured with a deliberate cruelty aimed at a soldier's body — laid on a bed of heated copper, shod in iron sandals driven through with nails, and starved in prison — and was at last beheaded, about the year 116. His memory is a synaxarion notice of a few lines, kept on June 19 under the office of the Apostle Jude.

Troparia & kontakia

Apolytikion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)

By a flood of tears thou didst make the barren desert to bring forth; with sighs from the depths thou didst make thy labours bear fruit a hundredfold; and thou wast made a beacon for the whole world, shining with miracles, O Barlaam our father. Intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

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.

Apolytikion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)

By a flood of tears thou didst make the barren desert to bring forth; with sighs from the depths thou didst make thy labours bear fruit a hundredfold; and thou wast made a beacon for the whole world, shining with miracles, O John our father. Intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Apolytikion — Tone 1

Knowing thee to be a kinsman of Christ, O Jude, and a steadfast martyr, we praise thee with sacred hymns: for thou didst trample down error and keep the faith. Wherefore, as we celebrate today thy most holy memory, we receive by thy prayers the loosing of our sins.

Apolytikion — Tone 4

Adorned with the monastic life on the Holy Mountain, thou didst take up the pen as a weapon, O father Paisius, and didst call a forgetful people back to the knowledge of itself and of God; wherefore Bulgaria honoureth thee as her awakener and boast, and we cry: intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Apolytikion — Tone 8

By a flood of tears thou didst make the barren desert to bring forth; with sighs from the depths thou didst make thy labours bear fruit a hundredfold; and thou wast made a beacon for the whole world, shining with miracles, O Paisius our father. Intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a martyr)

Thy martyr Zosimas, O Lord, in his contest received an incorruptible crown from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions save our souls.

Kontakion — Tone 1

Out of a glorious root thou didst spring up for us, a branch given of God, O eyewitness of the Lord, apostle and brother of God, all-wise herald of Christ; thou dost feed the whole world with the fruits of thy words, teaching the Orthodox faith of the Lord, as one initiated into grace.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Thou didst dwell in the wilderness as in a paradise, O all-blessed one, and didst tame the passions by long fasting; and taking upon thyself the sin of thy brother, thou wast shown to be a true father. Wherefore we cry to thee: cease not to pray for us who honour thy memory, O Paisius, glory of the ascetics.

Readings

Vespers

Jude 1-10

1Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called: 2Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied. 3Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. 4For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. 5I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. 6And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. 7Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. 8Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. 9Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. 10But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.

Jude 11-16

11Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. 12These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; 13Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. 14And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, 15To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. 16These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.

Jude 17-25

17But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; 18How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. 19These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. 20But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, 21Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. 22And of some have compassion, making a difference: 23And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. 24Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, 25To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Matins Gospel

John 21.15-25

15So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. 16He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. 17He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. 18Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. 19This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me. 20Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? 21Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? 22Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me. 23Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? 24This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. 25And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.

Epistle

Romans 9.6-19

6Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: 7Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. 8That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. 9For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son. 10And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; 11(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) 12It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. 13As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. 14What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. 15For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 16So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. 17For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. 18Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. 19Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

Jude 1-10 (St Jude)

1Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called: 2Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied. 3Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. 4For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. 5I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. 6And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. 7Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. 8Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. 9Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. 10But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.

Gospel

Matthew 10.32-36, 11.1

32Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. 33But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. 34Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 36And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. 1And it came to pass, when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities.

John 14.21-24 (St Jude)

21He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. 22Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? 23Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. 24He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.