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Saints commemorated
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Saint of the day
Synaxis of Archangel Gabriel
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Holy Martyr Golinduc of Persia (6th c.)
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Saint Julian, Bishop of Cenomanis (Le Mans) (1st c.)
Julian is honoured as the first bishop of Cenomanis — Le Mans, on the Sarthe in what is now western France — and as the apostle of the Cenomani. The tradition received in the East makes him a disciple sent into Gaul by the Apostle Peter himself: he preached to a wholly pagan people, healed the sick, brought water from dry ground by striking it with his staff, gave sight to a blind man at the gate of the local prince, and after a fast of three days baptised the prince and his household, so that idolatry was uprooted from the country. He reposed in extreme old age, and the great cathedral of Le Mans bears his name to this day. Historians, working from the ninth-century episcopal chronicle that is the earliest witness to his life, place him some two or three centuries later than the tradition does. The Byzantine calendars keep his memory on July 13; the West keeps him on January 27.
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Repose of Photios Kontoglou (1965) (June 30 OC)
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Marcian of Iconium
Marcian was a young Christian of Iconium — the city of Lycaonia where Paul and Barnabas preached and where the Church had stood since the apostolic generation — who preached Christ so openly that the pagans of the city, unwilling to make a martyr at home, sent him away into Cappadocia. There the governor Perennius tried first persuasion and then threats to make him deny the faith; Marcian answered by denouncing the governor's own worship of idols, was tortured savagely, and was at last beheaded while at prayer, in the year 258. His memory is kept on July 13.
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Sarah of Sketis
Sarah is one of the three women — with Theodora and Synkletike — whose sayings were gathered into the alphabetical collection of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, and she is the sharpest voice of the three. An ascetic of Sketis, the settlement in the salt desert west of the Nile Delta that was the classical home of Egyptian monasticism, she lived some sixty years in a cell above a river without once turning to look at it; fought the spirit of fornication for thirteen years without ever praying that the war should stop, but only for strength to fight it; and, when two celebrated anchorites came to humble her, answered them with the single sentence for which she is remembered — that she was a woman by nature but not in her thoughts. The calendars commemorate her on July 13 and title her, following an old geographical usage, "of Libya."
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Serapion the Martyr
Serapion is a martyr of the persecution under the emperor Septimius Severus, put to death about the year 205 by burning. The synaxarion notice which is all that survives of him relates that he was arrested and tried before a judge named Achilles, endured his tortures with an open confession of Christ, was thrown into prison broken by them, and was there healed by Christ himself; that when he was produced a second time and found sound and whole, the court, taking the healing for contempt, condemned him to the fire; and that he gave up his soul in the flames. His memory is kept on July 13.
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Stephen of Mar Sabbas
Stephen the Sabbaite, called the Wonderworker, was the nephew and spiritual heir of John of Damascus. Brought as a boy of about ten to the Great Lavra of Saint Sabbas in the Judaean desert, he never left it: for some sixty years he divided his life between the community and the naked wilderness beyond it, spending the working week alone in the desert and returning to the Lavra for the Saturday and Sunday services. He was given the gifts of healing, of driving out unclean spirits, and of reading the thoughts of those who came to him, and he foreknew the day of his death, which fell in 794. His life was written down by his disciple Leontius of Damascus — one of the earliest and most substantial works of Arabic-speaking Melkite hagiography — and the Church keeps his memory on July 13.
British Isles and Ireland
- Hieromartyr Dogfan of Dyfed (6th C)
- St. Mildred, abbess of Minster in Thanet (c.700)
- St. Just of Penwith (5th C)
Troparia & kontakia
Apolytikion — Tone 4
O commander of the heavenly hosts, we the unworthy beseech thee that by thy prayers thou wilt encompass us with the shelter of the wings of thine immaterial glory, guarding us who fall down before thee and fervently cry: Deliver us from dangers, O prince of the powers on high.
Apolytikion — Tone 4
O God of our fathers, who dealest with us ever according to thy gentleness: take not thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of thy hierarch Julian, guide our life in peace.
Apolytikion — Tone 4
Thy martyr Marcian, O Lord, in his struggle received an incorruptible crown from thee our God; for possessed of thy strength he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble boldness of the demons. By his prayers, O Christ God, save our souls.
Apolytikion — Tone 8
In thee, O mother, was preserved unimpaired that which is according to the image; 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. Wherefore, O venerable Sarah, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Apolytikion — Tone 4
Thy martyr Serapion, O Lord, in his struggle received an incorruptible crown from thee our God; for possessed of thy strength he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble boldness of the demons. By his prayers, O Christ God, save our souls.
Apolytikion — Tone 8
In thee, O Father, was preserved unimpaired that which is according to the image; 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. Wherefore, O venerable Stephen, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Apolytikion — Tone 4
O commander of the heavenly hosts, we the unworthy beseech thee that by thy prayers thou wilt encompass us with the shelter of the wings of thine immaterial glory, guarding us who fall down before thee and fervently cry: Deliver us from dangers, O prince of the powers on high.
Apolytikion — Tone 4
O God of our fathers, who dealest with us ever according to thy gentleness: take not thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of thy hierarch Julian, guide our life in peace.
Apolytikion — Tone 4
Thy martyr Marcian, O Lord, in his struggle received an incorruptible crown from thee our God; for possessed of thy strength he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble boldness of the demons. By his prayers, O Christ God, save our souls.
Apolytikion — Tone 8
In thee, O mother, was preserved unimpaired that which is according to the image; 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. Wherefore, O venerable Sarah, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Apolytikion — Tone 4
Thy martyr Serapion, O Lord, in his struggle received an incorruptible crown from thee our God; for possessed of thy strength he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble boldness of the demons. By his prayers, O Christ God, save our souls.
Apolytikion — Tone 8
In thee, O Father, was preserved unimpaired that which is according to the image; 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. Wherefore, O venerable Stephen, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Kontakion — Tone 8
O Gabriel, thou minister of the mystery hidden from the ages, who didst stand of old before the Virgin and cry to her "Rejoice": intercede that we who honour thee may be delivered from all affliction and may cry to God, Alleluia.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Sent to a people that knew not God, thou didst open to them the fountain of the faith, O holy Julian, and by thy staff didst bring forth water from the dry ground and light to the eyes of the blind; wherefore the land of the Cenomani, made a garden by thy labours, crieth out to thee: Rejoice, O father and first shepherd.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Sixty years thou didst dwell above the waters and never turn thine eyes to them, O mother Sarah, and thirteen years thou didst stand in the battle asking not that it cease but that thou be strengthened; wherefore, having conquered in Christ, thou dost teach the faithful that valour is of the soul and not of the flesh.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Thou didst dwell in the wilderness as in a paradise, O God-bearing Stephen, and from the stillness thou didst bring forth healings for the sick and freedom for the possessed; thou didst read the hearts of them that came to thee and didst foresee thine own end. Wherefore we cry: Rejoice, boast of the Lavra of Sabbas.
Kontakion — Tone 8
O Gabriel, thou minister of the mystery hidden from the ages, who didst stand of old before the Virgin and cry to her "Rejoice": intercede that we who honour thee may be delivered from all affliction and may cry to God, Alleluia.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Sent to a people that knew not God, thou didst open to them the fountain of the faith, O holy Julian, and by thy staff didst bring forth water from the dry ground and light to the eyes of the blind; wherefore the land of the Cenomani, made a garden by thy labours, crieth out to thee: Rejoice, O father and first shepherd.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Sixty years thou didst dwell above the waters and never turn thine eyes to them, O mother Sarah, and thirteen years thou didst stand in the battle asking not that it cease but that thou be strengthened; wherefore, having conquered in Christ, thou dost teach the faithful that valour is of the soul and not of the flesh.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Thou didst dwell in the wilderness as in a paradise, O God-bearing Stephen, and from the stillness thou didst bring forth healings for the sick and freedom for the possessed; thou didst read the hearts of them that came to thee and didst foresee thine own end. Wherefore we cry: Rejoice, boast of the Lavra of Sabbas.
Readings
Epistle
Romans 10.11-11.2
11For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. 12For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. 13For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. 14How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? 15And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! 16But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? 17So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. 18But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. 19But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you. 20But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. 21But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. 1I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 2God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying,
Gospel
Matthew 11.16-20
16But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, 17And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. 18For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. 19The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children. 20Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not: