Saints commemorated
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Saint of the day
Prophet Hosea
Hosea son of Beeri prophesied in the northern kingdom of Israel in the eighth century before Christ and stands first among the Twelve Minor Prophets. At God's command he made his own broken marriage the living sign of Israel's unfaithfulness and of God's unconquerable love: he took "a wife of whoredoms," Gomer, and gave their children names that were oracles — Jezreel, "Not-pitied," "Not-my-people" — and then bought his estranged wife back, as God would buy back his estranged people. The Fathers heard in his book the great texts of the Gospel before the Gospel: "Out of Egypt I called my son," "I desire mercy and not sacrifice," "After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up," and "O death, where is thy sting?"
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Holy Martyrs Cosmas and Damian, the Unmercenaries of Cilicia (4th c.)
Cosmas and Damian of Arabia (†c. 287) are the third of the three pairs of holy unmercenary physicians of that name whom the Byzantine calendar venerates. Arab brothers and physicians who healed freely in the name of Christ, they travelled through the cities and villages preaching as they healed, until they were seized in Cilicia and brought before the governor Lysias. Refusing to sacrifice, they were beaten and cast into the sea, and, delivered unharmed, were finally beheaded together with their three brothers Leontius, Anthimus and Eutropius. They are commemorated on October 17, and are not to be confused with the unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian of Mesopotamia (November 1) or of Rome (July 1).
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Andrew of Crete the Martyr
Andrew of Crete (†767), called "of Krisis" after the quarter of Constantinople where his relics came to rest, was a Cretan monk who gave his life for the holy icons under the iconoclast emperor Constantine V Copronymus. Hearing that the emperor was imprisoning the pious as if they were criminals, he came to the capital and denounced the persecutor to his face in the church of the martyr Mamas, answering the charge of wood-worship with the confession that whoever suffers for the icon of Christ suffers for Christ himself. Scourged and dragged through the streets to execution, he died when a fanatic cut off his foot. He is not to be confused with his earlier namesake, Andrew of Crete the hymnographer of the Great Canon (†740, July 4).
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Etheldreda of Ely
Etheldreda — Æthelthryth in her own tongue, Audrey in the mouths of later Englishmen — was a princess of the royal house of East Anglia who passed through two marriages without surrendering the virginity she had vowed, was for twelve years queen of Northumbria, and at last obtained her husband's leave to take the veil. In 673 she founded the double monastery of Ely on the island in the fens that had come to her as a marriage gift, and ruled it as abbess with a severity she imposed first on herself: one meal a day, wool rather than linen, and prayer from the night office until daybreak. She died on 23 June 679 of a tumour in the neck, which she received as the just penalty for the necklaces of her girlhood. Sixteen years later her sister Seaxburh raised her body and found it incorrupt, the surgeon's incision healed to a scar. Bede, who tells her story at length and adds a hymn of his own composition in her honour, made her the most celebrated of Anglo-Saxon women saints; Ely remained her city, and her name survives, by an odd descent, in the English word tawdry.
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Lazarus of the Four Days
Lazarus of Bethany, "the Four-Days-Dead" (ὁ τετραήμερος) and "the friend of Christ," is the man whom the Lord raised from the tomb four days after his death (John 11) — the last and greatest sign before the Passion, and the Church's pledge of the general resurrection. Brother of Martha and Mary, he afterwards fled the plots of the high priests, was made first bishop of Kition in Cyprus by the apostles, shepherded that church some thirty years, and reposed in peace about the year 63. His principal feast is the movable Lazarus Saturday, the eve of Palm Sunday; October 17 commemorates the translation of his relics from Kition to Constantinople by the emperor Leo VI the Wise in 898.
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Sexburga of Ely
Sexburga was a daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles, one of the most remarkable saint-bearing families of the English Church, and became Queen of Kent by her marriage to Eorcenberht. Widowed in 664, she founded the monastery of Minster-in-Sheppey on the Thames estuary and took the veil there. She afterwards went to Ely, where her sister Æthelthryth (Etheldreda) was abbess, and on her sister's death succeeded her in the rule. In 695 she carried out the translation of Æthelthryth's body, which was found incorrupt sixteen years after burial — the episode Bede records at length, and one of the foundation narratives of English monastic veneration. She reposed at Ely on 6 July 699.
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Shushanik of Georgia
Shushanik — the Slavic books call her Susanna — was an Armenian noblewoman, daughter of the general Vardan Mamikonian who fell at Avarayr, and wife of Varsken, the pitiakhsh or viceroy of the Georgian march of Gugark. When Varsken went to the court of the Persian king Peroz and there apostatised to Zoroastrianism, promising to bring his wife and four children over with him, she left the palace, shut herself in a cell beside the church at Tsurtavi, and would not be moved. Her husband beat her, dragged her by the hair, chained her, and finally shut her in a fortress prison, where she lay six years, ministering by her prayers to the sick who were brought to her window, and died of her treatment on 17 October 475. The account of it was written within a decade by her confessor, the priest Iakob Tsurtaveli, who saw the whole thing: The Martyrdom of Shushanik is the oldest surviving work of Georgian literature and one of the most immediate martyr-acts in any language. Her relics were translated to the Metekhi church at Tbilisi in 578.
British Isles and Ireland
- SS Ethelred (Ailred) and Ethelbert, Princes of Kent (c.640)
- St. Regulus (Rule), who brought the relics of St. Andrew to Scotland (4th C)
- St. Colman, abbot-bishop of Kilroot (5th C)
- St. Louthiern, bishop (6th C)
- St. Nothelm, 10th archbishop of Canterbury (739)
Troparia & kontakia
Another
Enlightened by the Spirit, thy pure heart became a vessel of most radiant prophecy, for thou seest things far distant as though they were present; therefore we honour thee, O blessed and glorious prophet Hosea.
Apolytikion — Tone 8
In thee, O mother, was the divine image preserved with exactness; for taking up the cross, thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passes away, and to care rather for the soul, a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Etheldreda, thy spirit rejoices with the angels.
Apolytikion
Giving us before thy Passion an assurance of the general resurrection, thou didst raise Lazarus from the dead, O Christ God; wherefore we also, like the children, bearing the tokens of victory, cry to thee, the vanquisher of death: Hosanna in the highest; blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Apolytikion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable woman)
In thee, O mother, was the divine image preserved unimpaired; for taking up the cross thou didst follow after Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, which passes away, and to care for the soul, which is a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Sexburga, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Kontakion — Tone 3
The Imperial City keepeth festival today, the most radiant feast of thy light-bearing memory, and calleth every city and country to it; for she rejoiceth as one possessing a great treasure, thy much-suffering body, O martyr Andrew, beacon of Orthodoxy.
Kontakion — Tone 2
A king's daughter and a king's wife, thou didst keep thy virginity unspoiled in the midst of the palace, and didst exchange the crown of Northumbria for the veil; and founding thy monastery in the fen, thou wast made a mother of many daughters. Wherefore the Lord glorified thy body with incorruption, O righteous Etheldreda; entreat him that our souls may be saved.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Following the commandments of thy Lord in straight paths, O prophet Hosea, thou wast filled with the Holy Spirit, and receiving the gift of prophecy didst proclaim to Israel the coming of Christ that should be in the latter days, rebuking the people who had strayed from the right way and guiding them onto the path that leads to Jerusalem on high, where now, standing before God, pray unceasingly for us all.
Kontakion
Like a most radiant star, thy precious relics have risen from Cyprus, O Lazarus, hallowing the Imperial City, gladdening the Christ-loving emperor and enriching his people, bestowing through thee the grace of healings on them that faithfully cry to thee: Rejoice, O Lazarus, friend of God.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Thou wouldst not go down with thy husband into the darkness he had chosen, O noble Shushanik, but wast shut up six years in a prison for the confession of Christ, and there didst heal the sick who came to thy window; wherefore Georgia honoureth thee as her first martyr-queen, and Armenia as the daughter of her champion.
Magnification
We magnify thee, O Hosea, prophet of God, and we honour thy holy memory, for thou prayest for us to Christ our God.
Troparion — Tone 4
Trained first in asceticism upon the mountain, with the whole armour of the Cross thou didst destroy the spiritual arrays of the enemy, O all-blessed one; and again thou didst manfully strip for the contest of martyrdom, slaying Copronymus with the sword of faith; and for both struggles thou hast been crowned by God, O venerable-martyr Andrew, ever-memorable.
Troparion — Tone 8
O holy Unmercenaries and wonderworkers, visit our infirmities: freely ye have received, freely give unto us.
Troparion — Tone 2
Celebrating the memory of thy prophet Hosea, O Lord, through him we entreat thee: save our souls.
Troparion
As a great treasure and wealth that none can steal, thou art come to us from Cyprus, O Lazarus, by the providence of the God of all and the command of a right-believing emperor, bestowing on those who honour thee the gift of healings, delivering from perils and from every harm them that cry to thee with faith: save us all by thy prayers, O Lazarus our father.
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy lamb, O Jesus, crieth aloud with a great voice: Thee, my Bridegroom, do I love, and seeking Thee I contend, and am crucified and buried with Thee in Thy baptism; I suffer for Thy sake that I may reign with Thee, and I die for Thee that I may live in Thee. Accept me as a spotless sacrifice, who with longing am offered unto Thee. By her prayers, O merciful one, save our souls.
Readings
Epistle
2 Corinthians 1.8-11
8For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: 9But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: 10Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us; 11Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf.
Gospel
Luke 6.1-10
1And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. 2And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath days? 3And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not read so much as this, what David did, when himself was an hungred, and they which were with him; 4How he went into the house of God, and did take and eat the shewbread, and gave also to them that were with him; which it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone? 5And he said unto them, That the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. 6And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that he entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a man whose right hand was withered. 7And the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against him. 8But he knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth. 9Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing; Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it? 10And looking round about upon them all, he said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other.