Paschaltide, day 29 · 28 days since Pascha
Samaritan Woman
Saints commemorated
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Ven. Isaac, Founder of Dalmatian Monastery
Isaac (died c. 383) was a Syrian ascetic who left the desert for the capital in the crisis year 378 in order to stand in the road before the Arian emperor Valens as he rode out against the Goths, and to demand of him three times that the churches be given back to the Orthodox — foretelling, when he was refused, that the emperor would not come back but would perish by fire. Valens had him flung into a thorny ravine and then held under guard; within weeks he was dead in a burning farmhouse after the catastrophe at Adrianople, and the monk who had prophesied it was released a vindicated man. Under Theodosius the Great Isaac became the conscience and the spiritual father of Constantinople, and the monastery raised for him outside the walls by the officer Saturninus was the first great monastic house of the city — known ever after by the name of Isaac's successor Dalmatus, whence Isaac's own epithet "of Dalmatia". He is honoured as venerable and confessor on May 30, and again on August 3 with the fathers of his monastery.
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St Macrina, grandmother of St Basil the Great (4th c.)
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Cyprian the Righteous of Antioch
Cyprian is a saint of the Greek synaxarion of May 30, entered with two facts only: that he was of Antioch, and that he reposed in peace — that is, that he was not a martyr. No office, no century, no place of burial and no history of any kind is transmitted. Given the two celebrated Cyprians with whom the notice inevitably collides — Cyprian the bishop of Carthage, and Cyprian the former magician of Antioch who is commemorated with Justina on October 2 — the entry is best treated as a distinct commemoration of the Church of Antioch which the Constantinopolitan books preserved without its story, while recording frankly that a doubling of one of the great Cyprians cannot be ruled out.
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Emmelia
Emmelia (late third century – c. 375) was the mother of one of the most remarkable households of saints in the history of the Church. Herself the daughter of a martyr, she married Basil the Elder, a Christian rhetorician of Cappadocia, and bore ten children, of whom the Church numbers five as saints: Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea; Macrina the Younger, teacher and monastic mother; Gregory of Nyssa, the theologian; Peter of Sebaste, bishop; and, in the ascetic tradition, Naucratius (June 8). Widowed, she gave herself under her daughter Macrina's guidance to the ascetic life, turning the family estate at Annesi in Pontus into a household of prayer, and died there in Macrina's arms. She is honoured as a righteous mother whose sanctity bore the fruit of a whole company of saints; the Greek Church keeps her on May 30, and she is commemorated on January 1 together with her son Basil.
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Euplus the Martyr
Euplus is a martyr of the Greek synaxarion of May 30, known from a single line which records one thing about him beyond his name: he was wrapped or sewn into an ox hide and left exposed to the sun until he died. Neither the place, the reign, the year, the judge nor the burial is transmitted. The punishment named, however, is a real and documented one of the Roman East, and it is the whole of what survives of this martyr's passion.
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Natalius the Martyr
Natalius is a martyr of the Greek synaxarion of May 30 of whom nothing at all is transmitted except his name and the manner of his death: he was perfected by the sword (ξίφει τελειοῦται). No place, no reign, no year, no interrogation and no relics are recorded. He stands in the Byzantine calendar as one of that considerable class of saints whose entire surviving memory is a name in a list — a witness that the Church kept, and keeps, the names of martyrs whose stories she has lost.
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Photini the Samaritan Woman
Photini (first century – c. 66) is the name the Church gives to the Samaritan woman whom Christ met at Jacob's Well near Sychar and to whom, alone among all to whom he spoke, he openly declared himself the Messiah (John 4). Tradition holds that she was baptized with the name Photini, "the enlightened," and became a fearless preacher of the Gospel — carrying it, with her two sons and her five sisters, as far as Carthage and at last to Rome in the days of Nero. There, the tradition relates, the whole company confessed Christ before the emperor, converted his daughter Domnina and the officer Sebastian sent to break them, and after fearful tortures were martyred about the year 66 — Photini herself, it is said, cast at the end into a dry well, the well of her witness answering the well of her calling. She is honoured as Great-Martyr and Equal-to-the-Apostles. Her fixed commemoration is February 26; her principal feast is the movable Sunday of the Samaritan Woman, the fourth Sunday after Pascha, on which the Church reads the Gospel of the Well.
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Romanus, Teletius and Christina of Nicomedia
A company of martyrs of Nicomedia in Bithynia — Romanus, Teletius (also transmitted as Meletius) and Christina, together with what the Greek notice calls "the multitude of the saints burned at Nicomedia" — who were perfected by fire. No year, no judge, no interrogation and no burial is recorded: the synaxarion gives the place, the names, the manner of death, and one rubric of cultus, that their synaxis was celebrated at the martyrion of Saint Euphemia at Constantinople. Two of the same company, Eusebius and Charalampus, entered the books again under the following day, May 31, and are commemorated there; some manuscripts add Aphrodisius and Agapius to the roll of May 30. They are commemorated on May 30.
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Venantius of Gaul
Venantius was a young nobleman of Gaul, the elder brother of Honoratus, the founder of the great island monastery of Lérins, who with his brother and their spiritual father Caprasius abandoned rank and inheritance and sailed from Marseilles for the East, meaning to see the holy places of Palestine and to live under the ascetics of Syria and Egypt. He died on the voyage, at Methone in the Peloponnese, before reaching the desert he had set out for; his brother turned back and founded Lérins instead. He is one of the very few saints of the Latin West whom the Greek synaxarion receives in its own right, keeping him on May 30 as "Venandios" who was born in Gaul and "fell asleep in peace in Greece."
British Isles and Ireland
- St. Walstan of Bawburgh, confessor (1016)
Troparia & kontakia
Apolytikion — Tone 8
With the streams of thy tears thou didst make the barren desert to bring forth, and with sighs from the depths thou didst render thy labours fruitful a hundredfold; thou becamest a beacon shining upon the world by miracles, O Isaac our father: intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Thou didst leave the silence of the desert and stand in the road before an emperor, crying, Give back the churches of the Orthodox to God; and being cast into the pit of thorns thou wast not silenced, but didst foretell the fire that took him. Wherefore, O confessor Isaac, father of the monks of the City, pray that we too may fear God and not men.
Troparion — Tone 8 (from the common of a righteous man)
The image of God was preserved in thee with exactness, O father; for taking up thy cross thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to look past the flesh, which passes away, and to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Wherefore, O righteous Cyprian, thy spirit rejoices with the angels.
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of a martyr)
Thy martyr Euplus, O Lord, in his contest received an incorruptible crown from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered 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 Natalius, O Lord, in his contest received an incorruptible crown from Thee, our God; for possessing Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions, O Christ God, save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy ewe-lamb, O Jesus, cries out with a great voice: O my Bridegroom, thee I love, and seeking thee I struggle, and I am crucified and buried together with thee in thy baptism; I suffer for thy sake, that I may reign with thee; I die for thee, that I may live in thee. Receive me as a spotless sacrifice, offered to thee with love. By her intercessions save thou our souls, O thou who art merciful.
Troparion — Tone 4 (from the common of several 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, O Christ God, save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 8 (from the common of an ascetic father)
Thou didst leave thy house and thy kindred and the rank of this world, and didst take ship to seek the deserts of the Fathers; and the Lord, receiving thy purpose for the deed, gave thee thy rest in a strange harbour. O venerable Venantius, pray that we too may set out and not turn back.
Readings
7th Matins Gospel
John 20.1-10
1The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. 2Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. 3Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. 4So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. 5And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. 6Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, 7And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. 8Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. 9For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead. 10Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.
Epistle
Acts 11.19-26, 29-30
19Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only. 20And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus. 21And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord. 22Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem: and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch. 23Who, when he came, and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. 24For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord. 25Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul: 26And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. 29Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judæa: 30Which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.
Gospel
John 4.5-42
5Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. 7There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. 8(For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) 9Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. 10Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. 11The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? 12Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? 13Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: 14But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. 15The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. 16Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. 17The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: 18For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly. 19The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. 20Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. 21Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. 23But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. 25The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. 26Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. 27And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her? 28The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, 29Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? 30Then they went out of the city, and came unto him. 31In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. 32But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. 33Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat? 34Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. 35Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. 36And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. 37And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. 38I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. 39And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did. 40So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days. 41And many more believed because of his own word; 42And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.