26th Sunday after Pentecost

Saints commemorated

• Prophet Zephaniah

  Zephaniah (in the Greek of the Septuagint and the Byzantine service books, "Sophonias") was the ninth of the Twelve Minor Prophets, active in the kingdom of Judah in the later seventh century before Christ, during the reign of the reforming King Josiah and as a contemporary of Jeremiah and the prophetess Huldah. His short book is the great prophecy of the Day of the Lord — "the great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast" — a searching oracle of judgment on Judah and the nations that turns at its close into one of the most radiant songs of joy in all the prophets: "Sing, O daughter of Zion… the Lord thy God is in the midst of thee." He is commemorated on December 3.

• Ven. Savva of Zvenigorod

  Sabbas of Storozhevsk (Savva of Zvenigorod, †1406) was one of the first and closest disciples of Sergius of Radonezh, tonsured by him in his youth at the Trinity Lavra, where he later served as father confessor to the whole brotherhood and, for a time, as Sergius's successor in the abbacy. At the request of Prince Yuri of Zvenigorod, whose spiritual father he was, he withdrew about 1398 to a wooded hill called Storozhi above the Moskva river and there founded the Savvino-Storozhevsky monastery, which became one of the great houses of Muscovite Russia. A man of extreme silence, simplicity, and humility, he was glorified as a wonderworker; his incorrupt relics were uncovered in 1652. He is commemorated on December 3.

• Our Venerable Father John the Silent, Bishop of Colonia (558)

  John the Silent, called the Hesychast (c. 454–558), was a bishop who became a hidden monk. Consecrated Bishop of Colonia in Armenia while still a young man, he fled the quarrels of the world, concealed his episcopal rank, and entered the Great Lavra of Sabbas the Sanctified near Jerusalem as a simple novice. When his secret was revealed and he could no longer be ordained, the Patriarch bade him live in silence — and in silence he remained for the rest of an extraordinarily long life, in his cell, in the desert (where a lion is said to have guarded him from the Saracens), and again at the Lavra, where he stood among the defenders of Orthodoxy against Origenism. He reposed at the age of 104 and is commemorated on December 3.

• Angelis of Argos

  Angelis (Aggelis) was a devout Greek physician of Argos in the Peloponnese who longed for martyrdom in the last generation of the Ottoman yoke. Provoked to zeal by an impious Frenchman, and then despondent when the confrontation cost him nothing, he took the terrible step of denying Christ and professing Islam in the hope of winning a martyr's death by later recanting. Exiled to Chios, he came to his senses, wept in repentance, and openly confessed himself a Christian before the Turkish authorities. After brutal beatings and imprisonment, he was beheaded on December 3, 1813, and his body cast into the sea. The Church honours him as a New Martyr on December 3.

• Theodulus the Eparch

  Theodulus was the eparch — the imperial city-prefect — of Constantinople in the early fifth century, one of the highest civil dignitaries of the Eastern capital. Unwilling to be entangled in worldly affairs, he resigned his office; and when his wife died, he distributed his wealth to the poor and became a monk. Travelling to Edessa in Mesopotamia, he mounted a pillar and lived as a stylite for some thirty years, eating only once a week, until his repose about the year 440. The Church remembers him as a great man of the world who exchanged rank and riches for the pillar of the ascetics, and commemorates him on December 3.

British Isles and Ireland

• St. Birinus, bishop of Dorchester and Apostle of Wessex (650)
• St. Lucius of Britain (c.200)
• St. Ethernan (c.699)
• St. Sola, disciple of St. Boniface (794)

Troparia & kontakia

Readings