Nativity Fast, day 1
Saints commemorated
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Saint of the day
Begin Nativity Fast
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Our Venerable Father Paisius Velichkovsky (1794)
Paisius Velichkovsky (1722–1794) was the Ukrainian-born, Athonite and Moldavian elder who, more than any other single figure, revived Orthodox hesychasm and the tradition of eldership (starchestvo) on the eve of the modern age. Born Peter Velichkovsky at Poltava and formed on Mount Athos and in the sketes of Moldavia and Wallachia, he gathered a great multilingual brotherhood at the monasteries of Dragomirna, Secu and Neamț, where he restored obedience to a spiritual father, unceasing practice of the Jesus Prayer, and the disciplined copying and correcting of the patristic texts of prayer. His crowning labour was the translation of the Greek Philokalia into Church Slavonic — the Dobrotolyubie, printed at Moscow in 1793 — whose diffusion through Russia seeded the Optina eldership and the whole nineteenth-century spiritual renewal.
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Gurias, Samonas and Abibus
Gurias, Samonas and Abibus are the three great martyr-confessors of Edessa in Syria (Mesopotamia), venerated together though they died sixteen years apart: the laymen Gurias and Samonas, preachers of the word, were tortured and beheaded about 306 in the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian, while Abibus, a deacon of the same city, was burned alive about 322 under Licinius. Buried in one tomb, they became the patrons of Edessa. The most famous of their posthumous wonders — the deliverance of the maiden Euphemia, betrayed by a Gothic soldier who had sworn faithfulness to her over their graves — made the three the guardians of oaths and the heavenly patrons of honourable marriage, under which title they are invoked to this day.
British Isles and Ireland
- St. Machell, founder of the monastery of Llanfechell (7th C)
- St. Fintan, monk and hermit (879)
Troparia & kontakia
Kontakion — Tone 2
Having received grace from on high, O all-praised and wise ones, ye stand by those who are in trials; wherefore ye delivered a maiden from a bitter death. For ye are in truth the glory of Edessa and the joy of the world.
Troparion — Tone 5
Having granted us the wonders of Thy holy Martyrs as an unassailable wall, O Christ God, by their entreaties scatter the counsels of the heathen and strengthen Thy holy Church, for Thou alone art good and the Lover of mankind.
Readings
Epistle
Colossians 2.13-20
13And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it. 16Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: 17Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. 18Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God. 20Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
Gospel
Luke 14.12-15
12Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee. 13But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: 14And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. 15And when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.