Pre-Lenten Triodion, day 5 · 66 days until Pascha
Saints commemorated
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Saint of the day
St Tarasius, Abp. of Constantinople
Tarasius (c. 730 – 806) was Patriarch of Constantinople from 784 to his death — a layman and imperial secretary raised in a single week through all the grades of the priesthood to the patriarchal throne, on the one condition that an ecumenical council be summoned to heal the Church of the iconoclast heresy. With the Empress Irene he convened and presided over the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicaea II, 787), which condemned iconoclasm and restored the veneration of the holy icons, teaching that the honour paid to the image passes to its prototype. A gentle and moderate shepherd who received repentant iconoclasts back into communion, he governed the Church for twenty-two years under three sovereigns, resisted the emperor Constantine VI in the "adulterous marriage" affair, and was renowned as a great almsgiver who spent his fortune on the poor, the aged, widows and orphans, serving them at table with his own hands. He reposed in peace on 25 February 806 and was buried in the monastery he had founded on the Bosphorus, where miracles were worked at his tomb.
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Reginos of Skopelos
Reginos (late 3rd century – 362) was Bishop of Skopelos, the island of the Northern Sporades in the Aegean, and a hieromartyr of the reign of Julian the Apostate. Born at Livadeia in Boeotia of Christian parents, he was a defender of the Nicene faith who, the tradition holds, distinguished himself at the Council of Sardica (343) by his skill in refuting the Arians, and was afterwards acclaimed bishop of Skopelos by its people. When the emperor Julian set out to restore paganism and turned against the confessors of Christ, Reginos was arrested and, on 25 February 362, beheaded — with, the synaxarion adds, some forty others. He is the patron saint of Skopelos, where a monastery bears his name and guards his relics, and where his feast is kept as the island's own holiday; a portion of his relics is venerated at the church of the Archangel Michael Trypiotis in Nicosia, Cyprus.
British Isles and Ireland
- St. Ethelbert, King of Kent (616)
- St. Walburga the Myrrh-Giver, abbess of Heidenheim (779)
Troparia & kontakia
Kontakion — Tone 4
Like a great sun, by the radiance of thy doctrines and thy wonders, thou dost forever give light to the whole fullness of the inhabited earth, O initiate of heaven's mysteries, all-blessed Tarasius.
Troparion — Tone 4
O God of our fathers, who ever dealest with us according to thy gentleness: take not thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of the Hieromartyr Reginos direct our lives in peace.
Troparion — Tone 4
A rule of faith and an image of meekness, a teacher of temperance, the truth of things revealed thee to thy flock; therefore by lowliness thou didst win the things on high, and by poverty the things of wealth. O Father and Hierarch Tarasius, intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.
Readings
Epistle
1 John 1.8-2.6
8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 1My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. 3And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. 4He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. 6He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
Gospel
Mark 13.31-14.2
31Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. 32But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. 33Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. 34For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. 35Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: 36Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. 37And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch. 1After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death. 2But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar of the people.