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Monday 5 March 2029

Martyr Conon of Isauria

Monday of the Third Week of Lent

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Lenten Fast Tone 6

Great Lent, day 15 · 34 days until Pascha

Saints commemorated

  • Saint of the day

    Martyr Conon of Isauria

    Conon of Isauria (first–second century) was an apostolic-age wonderworker of the village of Bidana near Isauria in Asia Minor, a region evangelised by the Apostle Paul. Guarded from childhood, the tradition holds, by the Archangel Michael, he was married against his will and persuaded his bride Anna to keep virginity with him; he then converted his household and, after their deaths, gave himself wholly to prayer and asceticism. God granted him such authority over demons that he is said to have compelled them to labour and sealed them beneath his house, and he converted much of his region by his preaching and miracles. In old age he was seized and tortured in a persecution, but the people of his country rose in arms and rescued him; he lived some two years more and reposed in peace. The Church keeps him on March 5, styling him martyr — indeed hosiomartyr — for the confession and sufferings he endured.

  • St Mark of Athens (4th c.)

  • St Mark the Ascetic (5th c.)

    Mark the Ascetic — also called Mark the Faster and Mark the Monk (fourth– fifth century) — was one of the great spiritual teachers of the desert and, in the witness of the tradition, a disciple of John Chrysostom. He is remembered above all as a writer on the ascetic life: his short treatises On the Spiritual Law and On Those Who Think They Are Made Righteous by Works are foundational texts of the Philokalia, weighing with rare balance the roles of grace and of human effort in salvation. Tradition holds that he knew the whole of Scripture by heart, was gentle and pure of soul, and lived to a very great age as a solitary. So highly were his writings valued that a Byzantine proverb ran, "Sell all, and buy Mark." He is commemorated on March 5.

  • Adrian of Poshekhonye

    Adrian of Poshekhonye (†1550) was a Russian monk, iconographer, and monastic founder, and a venerable-martyr. A disciple of Cornelius of Komel — under whom he was tonsured and learned the painting of icons — he was led, after his master's death, by a mysterious elder to a remote place in the forests of Poshekhonye near Yaroslavl, where in 1540 he and the elder Leonid settled and founded a monastery dedicated to the Dormition of the Mother of God. Ordained priest and made abbot by Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow, he governed the house in strict observance and continued to paint icons, keeping a hermitage for solitude a little way off. On 5 March 1550, during Great Lent, armed robbers broke into the monastery seeking its money, beat him, and killed him. His relics were found incorrupt in 1626, and many miracles were worked at his grave; the monastery he founded bore his name thereafter.

  • Conon the Gardener

    Conon the Gardener (martyred about the year 251) was a simple and guileless labourer of the town of Mandon in Pamphylia — a native of Nazareth of Galilee who tended a garden and lived, the synaxarion says, "God-fearing, sincere in heart, and without malice." When the persecution of the emperor Decius reached his country he was denounced as a Christian and refused to sacrifice to the idols; the tortures inflicted on him were fitted to his humble calling and his humble constancy — nails were driven through his feet, and he was made to run before the governor's chariot until he fell exhausted, and, praying, gave up his soul. He is one of the most beloved of the calendar's plain, unlettered martyrs, kept on March 5 together with the wonderworker Conon of Isauria, from whom he must be carefully distinguished.

  • Luke of Simferopol

    Luke of Simferopol — in the world Valentin Felixovich Voino-Yasenetsky (1877–1961) — was one of the foremost surgeons of the Russian twentieth century and, at the same time, a bishop who spent eleven years in Soviet prisons and exile for refusing to be silent. He pioneered regional anaesthesia, wrote the Essays on the Surgery of Purulent Infections that trained generations of Russian surgeons, operated in a cassock with an icon in the theatre, was tonsured and consecrated in secret in 1923, was arrested three times, ran the military hospitals of Krasnoyarsk as an exile through the Second World War, was given the Stalin Prize in 1946 and gave most of it away, governed the see of Simferopol and Crimea from 1946, went blind in his last years and went on preaching, and died on 29 May (civil 11 June) 1961. His relics were uncovered in 1996 and he is venerated with extraordinary warmth in Russia, Ukraine and above all in Greece, where he is invoked before surgery as the physician-hierarch of the modern world.

British Isles and Ireland

  • St. Ladoca of Cornwall, virgin and missionary (5th C)
  • St. Ciaran of Saighir (Ossory) (c.530)
  • St. Caron of Tregaron
  • St. Carthage the Elder, bishop of Ossory (c.540)
  • St. Piran, hermit of Cornwall (c.480)
  • St. Colman of Armagh (5th C)

Troparia & kontakia

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a hierarch)

The truth of things hath shown thee to thy flock as a rule of faith, an image of meekness and a teacher of temperance; therefore thou hast attained the heights by humility and riches by poverty. O father and hierarch Luke, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Thou didst take the knife to heal and the cross to preach, and neither prison nor the northern ice could part thee from either; blind at the last, thou didst see more than thy persecutors. O holy hierarch and physician Luke, stretch out thy hand over those who lie under the surgeon's knife, and pray for our souls.

Troparion — Tone 8 (from the common of a venerable one)

With the streams of thy tears thou didst till the barrenness of the desert, and by thy sighing from the depths thou didst make thy labours bear fruit a hundredfold; and thou becamest a luminary to the whole world, shining forth with miracles, O Adrian our venerable father. Intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.

Troparion — Tone 4

Counted worthy of an angelic vision, thou wast led into the faith of Christ and didst receive the power of wonders, O wise one; wherefore thou didst humble the arrogance of the demons and, contending, didst quench the flame of error. O Venerable-Martyr Conon, O champion, make the Friend of mankind gracious unto us.

Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a martyr)

Thy Martyr Conon, O Lord, in his contest received from Thee our God the crown of incorruption; for, having Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions, O Christ God, save our souls.

Troparion — Tone 8 (from the common of a venerable one)

In thee, O Father, was the divine image kept secure; for, taking up thy cross, thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passes away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Therefore, O venerable Mark, thy spirit rejoices together with the Angels.

Readings

6th Hour

Isaiah 8.13-9.7

13Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. 14And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken. 16Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. 17And I will wait upon the LORD, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him. 18Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion. 19And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? 20To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. 21And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward. 22And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness. 1Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. 2The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. 3Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. 4For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. 5For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire. 6For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 7Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

Vespers

Genesis 6.9-22

9These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. 10And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 11The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. 13And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. 14Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. 15And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. 16A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. 17And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die. 18But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee. 19And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. 20Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. 21And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them. 22Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.

Proverbs 8.1-21

1Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? 2She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths. 3She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. 4Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man. 5O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart. 6Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things. 7For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips. 8All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them. 9They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge. 10Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold. 11For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it. 12I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions. 13The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate. 14Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength. 15By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. 16By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth. 17I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me. 18Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness. 19My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold; and my revenue than choice silver. 20I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment: 21That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures.