Ven. Simeon the Stylite; Ven. Nikita the Stylite

Saints commemorated

Saint of the day

Ven. Simeon the Stylite
Saint of the day

Ven. Nikita the Stylite

Nicetas of Pereyaslavl (†1186) was a tax-farmer of the newly founded Russian city of Pereyaslavl-Zalessky who grew rich by extortion, was converted by a verse of Isaiah and by a terrible vision in his own kitchen, and became the first and most famous stylite of the Russian land — though his "pillar" was a pit dug in the earth, in which he stood in heavy iron chains and a stone cap, with a covered passage to the monastery church. He was murdered by night on 24 May 1186 by kinsmen who mistook his polished chains for silver. The recovery of the chains from the Volga, the incorrupt relics uncovered under Metropolitan Photius, and the devotion of Ivan the Terrible made the Nikitsky monastery one of the notable shrines of Muscovite Russia.
St Vincent of Lerins (445)

Vincent of Lérins (†c. 445) was a Gallic monk and priest of the island monastery of Lérins off the coast of Provence, and the author of the Commonitorium — the short treatise, written about 434 under the pen-name Peregrinus, "the Pilgrim," which laid down the most famous of all rules for distinguishing the apostolic faith from innovation: what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. With it he set out, no less importantly, the principle that the faith may genuinely grow while never changing — profectus, non permutatio. He wrote three years after the Council of Ephesus and in its defence, upholding the title Theotokos against Nestorius. The Orthodox Church commemorates him on May 24.
Meletius Stratelates and Companions

Meletius, called Stratelates ("the General"), was by the synaxarial tradition a Christian military commander in Galatia in Asia Minor in the second century, under the emperor Antoninus Pius, who with the soldiers of his command destroyed the idol-temples of the province and was put to death for it by the governor Maximian, together with an immense company — the tribunes Stephen and John, a long roll of named soldiers, the women Marciana, Susanna and Palladia, the infants Kyriakos and Christian, the Egyptian Serapion, and the converted sorcerer Callinicus. The transmitted number of those who suffered with him is 1,218, though some notices give figures as high as eleven thousand. The company is commemorated with the Antiochene stylite on May 24.
Symeon the Stylite of the Wonderful Mountain

Symeon of the Wonderful Mountain (521–596), called the Younger to distinguish him from his great namesake, is the supreme ascetic of the Antiochene church in the sixth century: a Syrian who mounted a pillar as a child of seven and stood on one for sixty-eight years, the last of them on the Wonderful Mountain (Θαυμαστὸν Ὄρος, Mons Admirabilis) above the road between Antioch and Seleucia Pieria, where a great monastery and one of the chief pilgrimage shrines of Syria grew up around his column. Orphaned by the earthquake of 526, raised by his mother St Martha (July 4), ordained deacon and then priest on the column itself, he was a wonderworker of vast reputation — healing, reading hearts, foretelling earthquake, plague and Persian invasion — whose blessing-tokens of clay travelled the whole Mediterranean. His enormous Life, written by an eyewitness disciple, is one of the richest documents surviving from sixth-century Syria.

Troparia & kontakia

Kontakion — Tone 2

Set as a lamp upon the Wonderful Mountain, thou didst shine upon Antioch and upon all the Syrian land; from childhood thou didst make the pillar thy dwelling, and standing between earth and heaven thou wast made a priest of the Most High. O Symeon, wonderworker and intercessor, pray unceasingly for those who honour thee.

Troparion — Tone 4 (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.

Troparion — Tone 4

Enlightened from on high by the words of the prophet, thou didst turn from robbery to repentance, and hast washed away with tears the wrong thou didst thy brethren; bound in iron and hidden in the earth, thou didst stand unshaken in prayer, and wast made a fountain of healings. O Nicetas, our venerable father, entreat Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Troparion — Tone 1

Thou didst become a pillar of patience, O God-bearing father, and didst rival the forefathers: Job in his sufferings and Joseph in his temptations, living as one of the bodiless powers while yet in the flesh. O Symeon, our venerable father, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)

O guardian of the faith delivered to the saints, thou didst teach the Church to know her own voice: what is believed everywhere, from the beginning, and by all. Dwelling on the island of Lérins as a pilgrim and a stranger, thou didst confess the Word made flesh of the Theotokos. O Vincent, our venerable father, entreat Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Readings

Epistle

Acts 10.1-16

¹There was a certain man in Cæsarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, ²A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway. ³He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius. ⁴And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God. ⁵And now send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter: ⁶He lodgeth with one Simon a tanner, whose house is by the sea side: he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do. ⁷And when the angel which spake unto Cornelius was departed, he called two of his household servants, and a devout soldier of them that waited on him continually; ⁸And when he had declared all these things unto them, he sent them to Joppa. ⁹On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour: ¹⁰And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance, ¹¹And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: ¹²Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. ¹³And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. ¹⁴But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. ¹⁵And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. ¹⁶This was done thrice: and the vessel was received up again into heaven.

Gospel

John 6.56-69

⁵⁶He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. ⁵⁷As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. ⁵⁸This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. ⁵⁹These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum. ⁶⁰Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? ⁶¹When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? ⁶²What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? ⁶³It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. ⁶⁴But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. ⁶⁵And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. ⁶⁶From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. ⁶⁷Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? ⁶⁸Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.

Saints commemorated