Thursday 31 December 2026
Ven. Melania the Younger of Rome
Thursday of the 31st week after Pentecost
Christmastide, day 7
Saints commemorated
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Saint of the day
Ven. Melania the Younger of Rome
Melania the Younger (c. 383 – 439) was a Roman noblewoman of one of the greatest senatorial fortunes of the late empire who, with her husband Pinian, renounced the whole of it for Christ. Married against her will at fourteen and bereaved of both her children, she persuaded Pinian to a life of continence, and together they freed thousands of slaves and sold estates scattered across Italy, Sicily, Spain, Gaul, Britain, and North Africa — a renunciation so vast it entangled the Senate and the imperial court. Fleeing the Gothic sack of Rome, they passed through Sicily and Campania to North Africa, where they knew Augustine of Hippo, and thence to the Holy Land. At Jerusalem Melania founded a convent of ninety virgins on the Mount of Olives, and later a men's monastery near the place of the Ascension. A staunch opponent of Nestorius, she won her pagan uncle Volusianus to baptism at Constantinople and was honoured by the empress Eudocia. She reposed at Jerusalem on December 31, 439. She is not to be confused with her grandmother, Melania the Elder (†c. 410, kept June 8), who likewise renounced a Roman fortune and likewise founded a monastery on the Mount of Olives, and who returned to Rome in old age expressly to bring her granddaughter out of the world.
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Saint of the day
Our Holy Mother Melania the Younger of Rome (439)
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Saint Zoticus, Cherisher of the Poor and Servant of Lepers (4th c)
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St Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid (ca. 1126)
Troparia & kontakia
Troparion — Tone 8
In thee, O Mother, was the image of God preserved with exactness; for thou didst take up the Cross and follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passeth away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Therefore doth thy spirit, O venerable Melania, rejoice together with the Angels.
Readings
Epistle
James 1.19-27
19Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: 20For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. 21Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. 22But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. 23For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: 24For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. 25But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. 26If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. 27Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
Gospel
Mark 11.27-33
27And they come again to Jerusalem: and as he was walking in the temple, there come to him the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders, 28And say unto him, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority to do these things? 29And Jesus answered and said unto them, I will also ask of you one question, and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? answer me. 31And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why then did ye not believe him? 32But if we shall say, Of men; they feared the people: for all men counted John, that he was a prophet indeed. 33And they answered and said unto Jesus, We cannot tell. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.