Great Lent, day 1 · 48 days until Pascha
Beginning of the Great Fast
Saints commemorated
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Martyr Agapius and Seven with Him
Agapius and his companions (†c. 303) were a band of young men of Palestine — Agapius, Plesius, Timolaus, Romulus, two named Dionysius and two named Alexander, eight in all — who gave themselves up to martyrdom at Caesarea in Palestine during the Great Persecution of Diocletian. Their martyrdom is not a synaxarion legend but a scene witnessed and recorded by Eusebius of Caesarea in his Martyrs of Palestine: at a public spectacle in which Christians were being thrown to the beasts, six of them stepped forward with their own hands bound before the governor Urbanus, declaring themselves Christians and demanding to share the martyrs' lot; imprisoned, they were joined by Agapius — already a confessor hardened by earlier torments — and by another Dionysius who had ministered to them. All eight were beheaded together on one day. The Church keeps their memory on March 15, honouring in them a martyrdom sought rather than merely endured.
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Holy Martyr Alexander (270-275)
Alexander (†c. 270–275) was a priest of Side, the port-city of Pamphylia on the southern coast of Asia Minor, who suffered martyrdom in the persecution under the emperor Aurelian. Arrested for his bold preaching of Christ and brought before the governor Antoninus, he confessed the faith without flinching and was put through a succession of savage torments; through them, the synaxarion relates, the Lord upheld him beyond nature, so that the tortures failed of their purpose. At the last he was beheaded, and — in the received account — the very judge who had condemned him was moved by what he had seen. He is commemorated on March 15.
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Aristobulus of Britain
Aristobulus (1st century) was one of the Seventy Apostles and, by the tradition of the East, the brother — or kinsman — of the Apostle Barnabas of Cyprus. Paul greets "those of the household of Aristobulus" (Romans 16:10), and the Church numbers him among the fellow-labourers of the Apostle, ordained bishop and sent to preach the Gospel in the far West. He is honoured as the first apostle of Britain, carrying Christ to the islands at the edge of the world, where — among a fierce and unbelieving people who beat and mocked him — he founded the Church, made many converts, and, in the received Eastern account, reposed in peace among those he had won. He is commemorated in his own right on March 15 (Greek usage; the Slavic and American calendars keep him on March 16), and again with a company of his fellow apostles of the Seventy on October 31, and among them all in the Synaxis of the Seventy on January 4.
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Manuel of Crete
Manuel the Cretan (†1792) was a new martyr of the Ottoman period. Born a Christian in Crete in the eighteenth century, he was taken captive as a child by the Turks and compelled to accept Islam. Grown to manhood and unable to bear the denial of his baptism, he openly confessed himself a Christian once more, and for this "apostasy" from Islam — a capital crime under Ottoman law — he was beheaded on the island of Chios in the year 1792. He is numbered among the company of new martyrs who, under the yoke, washed away a forced conversion in their own blood, and is commemorated on March 15.
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Nicander of Egypt
Nicander (†c. 302) was a Christian of Egypt — remembered in the tradition as a physician — who suffered martyrdom in the Great Persecution under Diocletian. His crime, in the eyes of the persecutors, was an act of mercy: he sought out the bodies of the martyrs who had been put to death and left unburied, and gave them honourable burial, and he ministered to the confessors held in prison. Seized in the very act of caring for the dead, he refused to renounce Christ and was put to death — flayed alive, the synaxarion says. He is commemorated on March 15.
Troparia & kontakia
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their courageous contest received incorruptible crowns from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength, they cast down the tyrants and broke the feeble insolence of the demons. By their intercessions, O Christ God, save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of a hieromartyr)
As one who shared in the ways of the Apostles and succeeded to their thrones, thou didst find in thy labours, O God-inspired one, an ascent to divine vision; wherefore, rightly dividing the word of truth, thou didst contend for the faith even unto blood, O Hieromartyr Alexander. Intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 3 (from the common of apostles)
Holy Apostle Aristobulus, intercede with the merciful God, that he may grant to our souls the forgiveness of transgressions.
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of a martyr)
Thy martyr, O Lord, in his courageous contest received an incorruptible crown from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and broke the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions, O Christ God, save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of a martyr)
Thy martyr, O Lord, in his courageous contest received an incorruptible crown from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and broke the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions, O Christ God, save our souls.
Readings
6th Hour
Isaiah 1.1-20
1The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. 2Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. 3The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. 4Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. 5Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. 6From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. 7Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. 8And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. 9Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. 10Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. 11To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. 12When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? 13Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. 14Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. 15And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. 16Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; 17Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. 18Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 19If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: 20But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
Vespers
Genesis 1.1-13
1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. 6And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. 9And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 10And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 11And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. 12And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 13And the evening and the morning were the third day.
Proverbs 1.1-20
1The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel; 2To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; 3To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity; 4To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. 5A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: 6To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings. 7The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. 8My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: 9For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck. 10My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. 11If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: 12Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: 13We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: 14Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: 15My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: 16For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. 17Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. 18And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives. 19So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof. 20Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:
Great Canon