Martyrs Acepsimus, Joseph, Aithalas

Saints commemorated

Saint of the day

Martyrs Acepsimus, Joseph, Aithalas

Akepsimas, Joseph and Aithalas were leaders of the Church in Persia — a bishop, a priest, and a deacon — martyred under the Sassanid king Shapur II around the year 378, near the end of the forty-year persecution he waged against the Christians of his realm. Akepsimas, bishop of the city of Naeson, was arrested an old man of eighty and held three years in prison with the seventy-year-old priest Joseph and the deacon Aithalas; when all three refused to worship the sun and fire, the bishop was beheaded and the priest and deacon stoned to death. They are commemorated together on November 3.
Holy Virgin Martyr Winefride of Treffynnon (Holywell), Wales (7th c.)
George the Great Martyr

George the Trophy-bearer (†303) is the most universally venerated of the martyrs of the East, honoured from Ethiopia to England as Μεγαλομάρτυς and Τροπαιοφόρος — "great-martyr" and "trophy-bearer," the soldier who carried off the prize. Born in Cappadocia of a martyred father and a Palestinian mother from Lydda, he rose young to the rank of comes in the guard of Diocletian, and when the persecuting edict was published at Nicomedia in 303 he gave away his goods, freed his slaves, and denounced the emperor's decree to his face before the council. There followed the long cycle of tortures for which his passion is famous — the spiked wheel, the pit of quicklime, the red-hot iron shoes, the poison of the magician Athanasius — through which the martyr was preserved, so that the sorcerer himself, and the Empress Alexandra, and many of the court confessed Christ. He was beheaded on 23 April 303 and buried at Lydda (Diospolis) in Palestine, where his shrine became one of the great pilgrimage places of Christendom. To him the later tradition attached the celebrated miracle of the dragon, and he is the patron of Georgia, England, Greece, Ethiopia, Portugal and Catalonia, of the city of Beirut and of Christian soldiers everywhere.

British Isles and Ireland

St. Winifred of Treffynon (Holywell) (7th C)
St. Elerius, abbot (6th C)
St. Clodock, hermit (6th C)
St. Wulgan of Canterbury, confessor (8th C)
St. Romwold of Northumbria, confessor (7th C)
St. Cristiolus (7th C) brother of St. Sulian and founder of churches
St. Englatius of Tarves, Aberdeenshire (966)
St. Vulganius hermit in Arras (c.704)

Troparia & kontakia

Apolytikion — Tone 4

As the deliverer of captives and defender of the poor, physician of the sick and champion of kings, O Trophy-bearer and Great-martyr George, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Wisely and blamelessly didst thou minister the divine Mysteries, and thou wast shown to be a sacrifice acceptable to God, O God-blessed one; for gloriously thou didst drink the cup of Christ, O holy Akepsimas, together with thy fellow-sufferers, praying without ceasing for us all.

Kontakion — Tone 4

Tilled by God, thou wast shown forth as the most honoured husbandman of true religion, gathering for thyself the sheaves of the virtues; for having sown in tears, thou reapest with rejoicing, and having contended even unto blood, thou hast won Christ. By thine intercessions, O holy one, thou grantest to all forgiveness of their offences.

Troparion

As the deliverer of captives and defender of the poor, physician of the sick and champion of kings, O victorious Great-Martyr George, intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.

Troparion — Tone 4 (from the 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.

Readings

Epistle

1 Thessalonians 1.6-10

⁶And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost: ⁷So that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. ⁸For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing. ⁹For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; ¹⁰And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

Gospel

Luke 11.34-41

³⁴The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. ³⁵Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. ³⁶If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light. ³⁷And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat. ³⁸And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first washed before dinner. ³⁹And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. ⁴⁰Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without make that which is within also? ⁴¹But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you.

Saints commemorated