Saturday 4 December 2027
Hieromartyr Alexander Hotovitzky
Saturday of the 24th week after Pentecost
Nativity Fast, day 20
Hieromartyr Alexander Hotovitzky
Saints commemorated
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Saint of the day
Alexander Hotovitzky
Alexander Hotovitzky (1872 – autumn 1937), protopresbyter, was the builder-priest of Orthodox New York and, in his last years, the right hand of Patriarch Tikhon at the cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow — a double service, American and Russian, sealed with a martyr's end in the Terror of 1937. For nineteen years he served the New York parish that became Saint Nicholas Cathedral, which he built; he founded parishes across the eastern states, edited the mission's journal, and was wounded by a fanatic's knife for his preaching. Recalled at last to Moscow, he stood by the Patriarch through the confiscations, was imprisoned and exiled repeatedly, and after a final arrest in the autumn of 1937 disappeared — presumed shot, on a date God alone keeps. The Church of Russia glorified him on 4 December 1994.
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Antiochian commemoration
Holy Great Martyr Barbara (290)
Barbara the Great-martyr (†c. 306) is one of the most beloved of the virgin-martyrs of the early Church, honoured throughout East and West. The daughter of a wealthy pagan, Dioscorus, who shut her in a tower to guard her beauty and her idolatry, she reasoned her way from the created world to the one God, was secretly baptised, and confessed the Holy Trinity by having a third window cut into the bathhouse her father was building. Denounced by Dioscorus himself, she was tortured under the prefect Martianus at Heliopolis; the martyr Juliana, a bystander moved to confess Christ, suffered with her. At the last her own father struck off her head — and was consumed by lightning as he came down from the mountain. From this Barbara is invoked against sudden and unprovided death, and is the patroness of miners, gunners, and artillerymen. She is commemorated on December 4.
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Our Righteous Father John of Damascus (760)
John of Damascus (c. 675/676–c. 749) is the last of the Greek Fathers of the Church and her greatest theologian-hymnographer: an Arab Christian of Damascus, born into the family of the Mansur that administered the finances of the Umayyad caliphate, who left a high court office to become a monk of the Great Lavra of Saint Sabbas in the Judean desert. From beyond the reach of the iconoclast emperors he wrote the three Orations Against Those Who Attack the Holy Images — the classic Orthodox defence of the veneration of icons, grounded in the Incarnation — for which the tradition tells that his severed right hand was restored by the Mother of God, the origin of the "Three-handed" icon. His Fountain of Knowledge, whose third part, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, is the first systematic summa of Christian theology, shaped the dogmatic teaching of both East and West. Called Chrysorrhoas, the "Golden Stream," for the grace of his eloquence, he is the master of Byzantine hymnography — the Paschal Canon "The Day of Resurrection," the funeral idiomela, and, by tradition, the ordering of the Octoechos are his. He reposed at Mar Saba about 749 and is commemorated on December 4.
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Saint Gennadius, Archbishop of Novgorod (1505)
Troparia & kontakia
Kontakion — Tone 4
Following after Him who is devoutly hymned in Trinity, thou didst forsake the worship of idols, O venerable prize-winner; and contending in the midst of the arena, O Barbara, thou wast not dismayed by the threats of the tyrants, but, valiant of soul, didst cry aloud without ceasing with a great voice: I worship the Trinity, the one Godhead.
Kontakion — Tone 4
Let us all sing the praise of John, the venerable hymnographer and revealer of God, the teacher and luminary of the Church who withstood her every foe: for by the might of the Cross he cast down the heresies of the heretics, and was shown to be an unassailable rampart of the Orthodox.
Troparion — Tone 4
As a wise builder of churches beyond the sea and a faithful fellow-labourer of the confessor-patriarch, thou wast found worthy at the last of the martyrs' hidden crown, O hieromartyr Alexander: pray to Christ God, whose cathedral thou didst serve and whose cup thou didst drink, that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 8
Let us honour the holy Barbara, for she broke the snares of the enemy, and like a sparrow was delivered out of them by the help and the weapon of the Cross, she who is all-revered.
Troparion — Tone 8
Guide of Orthodoxy, teacher of piety and holiness, luminary of the world, God-inspired adornment of monastics, O wise John: by thy teachings thou hast enlightened all, O lyre of the Spirit. Intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.
Readings
Epistle
2 Corinthians 11.1-6
1Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me. 2For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 3But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 4For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him. 5For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles. 6But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; but we have been throughly made manifest among you in all things.
Hebrews 13.7-16 (St Alexander)
7Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. 8Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. 9Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein. 10We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. 11For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. 12Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. 13Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. 14For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come. 15By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. 16But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Gospel
Luke 12.32-40
32Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. 34For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 35Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; 36And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. 37Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. 38And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. 39And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through. 40Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not.
Luke 12.32-40 (St Alexander)
32Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. 34For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 35Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; 36And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. 37Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. 38And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. 39And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through. 40Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not.