Prophet Haggai

Saints commemorated

• Saint of the day

  Prophet Haggai

  Haggai was the tenth of the Twelve Minor Prophets and, with Zechariah, the prophet of the return from Babylon: in the second year of the Persian king Darius (520 BC) his short book records four dated oracles urging the discouraged remnant to rebuild the Temple of the Lord, which had lain in ruins since its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar. His preaching roused Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest to resume the work, and his central promise — that the glory of this second house would surpass the first, and that in it "the Desire of all nations" would come — the Church reads as a prophecy of Christ, who entered that very Temple. He is commemorated on December 16, in the weeks of the Nativity Fast that look toward the Lord's coming.

• Holy Empress and Wonderworker Theophano (893)

  Theophano (c. 866 – c. 893/897) was the first wife of the Byzantine emperor Leo VI the Wise and one of the most beloved of the imperial saints of Constantinople — venerated not for her rank but for the piety, humility and charity by which she sanctified life in the palace. Chosen from the noble Martinakios family to marry the heir to the throne, she shared his three years' imprisonment under his father Basil I and, once freed, gave herself to prayer, fasting and unwearied mercy: building and restoring churches, feeding the poor, and visiting the afflicted in plain dress. Reputed a wonderworker in her own lifetime, she died young, and her incorrupt relics rest to this day in the Patriarchal Church of St George at the Phanar in Constantinople. She is commemorated on December 16.

• Marinus of Rome

  Marinus (†c. 283) was a young Roman of senatorial family who confessed Christ in the City itself in the reign of the emperor Carinus and was crowned with martyrdom. Arrested and pressed to sacrifice to the idols, he refused; the synaxarion tells that he was hung up and cut with swords, laid on fire, set on a red-hot griddle and plunged into a boiling cauldron, yet by God's grace remained unharmed, and that the wild beasts loosed upon him — lions and bears — would not touch him. Brought at last into a pagan temple to sacrifice, he prayed instead, and the idols fell and were shattered; the enraged ruler ordered him beheaded, and so he gave up his soul to God. He is commemorated on December 16.

• Memnon of Ephesus

  Memnon (†c. 440) was archbishop (metropolitan) of Ephesus at the time of the Third Ecumenical Council, which met in his city in 431 to condemn the heresy of Nestorius. As host and one of the leaders of the Council, he stood with Cyril of Alexandria in the defence of the Theotokos and the unity of Christ, and for it he shared Cyril's deposition and imprisonment at the hands of the emperor Theodosius II, before both were vindicated and restored. He reposed in peace, and the Church honours him among the confessing hierarchs on December 16.

• Nicholas Chrysoberges

  Nicholas Chrysoberges was Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in the last decades of the tenth century, under the emperor Basil II. His patriarchate is remembered for events of lasting consequence: he is held to have received the hymn "It is Truly Meet" (Axion Estin), revealed — the Athonite tradition says — by the Archangel Gabriel; in his time the newly baptised Rus' were given their first metropolitan, Michael, sent to Kiev; and he ordained and encouraged the young Symeon, afterward the New Theologian, as abbot of the monastery of St Mamas in the capital. He reposed in peace and is commemorated on December 16.

British Isles and Ireland

• St. Beoc of Lough Derg (5th C)

Troparia & kontakia

Readings