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Sunday 18 March 2029

Fourth Sunday of Lent

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Lenten Fast — Wine and Oil are Allowed Tone 8

Great Lent, day 28 · 21 days until Pascha

St John Climacus

Saints commemorated

  • St Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem

    Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 313 – 386) was Archbishop of Jerusalem for some thirty-five years and one of the great catechists and teachers of the early Church. His Catechetical Lectures — a set of instructions delivered in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to those preparing for baptism at Pascha, together with the five Mystagogical Catecheses given to the newly baptised in Bright Week — are the fullest surviving witness to how the fourth-century Church initiated her members: the renunciation of Satan, the threefold immersion, the anointing with holy myron, and above all the celebration of the Eucharist, with the earliest clear description of the invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the gifts. Ordained in the years of the Arian storm, Cyril was thrice driven from his see by the Arians and their allies and spent some sixteen years in exile, yet at the last he stood vindicated as a confessor of the Nicene faith and took his seat among the fathers of the Second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 381. He reposed at Jerusalem in 386 and is kept on March 18. He is not to be confused with Cyril of Alexandria, the Christological doctor.

  • Rep. St Nikolaj of Zhicha

  • St Ananias (Aninus) the Wonderworker (?)

  • Saint Nikolai (Velimirovic), Bishop of Ochrid and Zica, Serbia (1956)(March 5 OC)

    Nikolai Velimirović (1880/81 – 1956), Bishop of Ohrid and of Žiča, was the most celebrated Serbian churchman of the twentieth century — preacher, poet, theologian, and missionary, called in his own lifetime "the Serbian Chrysostom" for his golden eloquence. Rising from a peasant family of western Serbia through the seminaries of Belgrade and the universities of Europe, he became a monk and bishop, the tireless renewer of Serbian Orthodox piety, and the author of the Prologue of Ohrid, a synaxarion and daily devotional read across the Orthodox world, and of the lyrical Prayers by the Lake. Interned by the Nazis and in 1944 imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp, he survived to emigrate to America, where he taught in the Orthodox seminaries and reposed at South Canaan, Pennsylvania, on March 18, 1956. His relics were translated to his native Lelić in 1991, and he was glorified by the Serbian Orthodox Church in 2003. He is commemorated on March 18.

  • Aninas of the Euphrates

    Aninas the Wonderworker (fifth century) was a hermit of the Syrian frontier, venerated for a life of extreme asceticism and an abundance of miracles. Born at Chalcedon into a Christian family, he withdrew at the age of fifteen into a monastery and afterwards into the deep solitude of the desert by the Euphrates, the river that there divides Syria from Mesopotamia, where he lived in a small cell beside a well he had dug. The tradition surrounds him with wonders — a wild lion that came to serve him and to carry water for his guests, healings and deliverances from demons, and a gift of foreknowledge — and tells that he reposed at the great age of a hundred and ten, an angel or, some say, the Prophet Elijah having forewarned him of his end. He is kept on March 18; some Greek notices mark him also on March 13 and 16.

  • Edward the Martyr

    Edward the Martyr (c. 962 – 978) was King of the English for less than three years, and a saint of the undivided Church of the West before the Great Schism. The elder son of the reforming King Edgar the Peaceable, he came young to the throne in 975 amid a bitter succession dispute, and on 18 March 978 was murdered at Corfe in Dorset, at the estate of his stepmother Ælfthryth — cut down by armed retainers as he sat unsuspecting on his horse, having ridden to visit his young half-brother Æthelred, who succeeded him. Buried without honour at Wareham, his body was found incorrupt and translated with great reverence to Shaftesbury Abbey, which became the centre of a fervent cult; miracles were reported at his tomb, and within a generation the murdered king was venerated throughout England as a martyr. The Orthodox Church keeps him on March 18, honouring him among the passion-bearers — an innocent whose unjust death was borne, and crowned, as a witness. He is not to be confused with Edward the Confessor (†1066), the later English king-saint.

  • Ten Thousand Martyrs

    The Ten Thousand Martyrs are a company of holy martyrs commemorated on March 18, of whom the Greek synaxarion records only that they were beheaded for Christ — "the Holy Ten Thousand Martyrs, whose necks were cut through." Neither their place, their persecution, nor the year of their suffering is transmitted; the number, in the manner of such collective commemorations, expresses the greatness of the company rather than a counted roll. The Church keeps their memory with the other martyrs of the day.

  • Trophimus and Eucarpion

    Trophimus and Eucarpion (died c. 300) were soldiers of Nicomedia in the reign of the emperor Diocletian, commissioned to hunt down and arrest the Christians of the city in the great persecution. According to their martyrdom, while they were engaged in this pitiless work a vision of divine light and a heavenly voice overtook them, and the two persecutors were converted on the spot: renouncing their commission, they confessed Christ, gave themselves up in place of those they had been sent to seize, and were put to death by fire. The Church keeps their memory on March 18, together with the other martyrs of the day.

British Isles and Ireland

  • St. Egbert of Ripon, Confessor (c.720)

Troparia & kontakia

Kontakion — Tone 1

By thy God-inspired tongue, O wise one, thou didst enlighten thy people to honour the one Trinity, undivided in nature yet divided in Persons. Therefore, rejoicing, we keep thine all-holy memory, setting thee forth as our intercessor before God.

Troparion — Tone 4

A rule of faith and an image of meekness, a teacher of temperance did the truth of things reveal thee to thy flock; therefore thou hast gained by lowliness the things that are exalted, and by poverty the things that are rich. O Father and Hierarch Cyril, intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.

Readings

8th Matins Gospel

John 20.11-18

11But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, 12And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. 13And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. 14And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. 15Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. 16Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. 17Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. 18Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.

Epistle

Hebrews 6.13-20

13For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, 14Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. 15And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. 16For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. 17Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: 18That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: 19Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; 20Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

Ephesians 5.8-19 (St John)

8For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: 9(For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) 10Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. 11And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. 12For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. 13But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. 14Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. 15See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, 16Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. 17Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. 18And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; 19Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;

Gospel

Mark 9.17-31

17And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; 18And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not. 19He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me. 20And they brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming. 21And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child. 22And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us. 23Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. 24And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. 25When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. 26And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead. 27But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose. 28And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out? 29And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting. 30And they departed thence, and passed through Galilee; and he would not that any man should know it. 31For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day.

Matthew 4.25-5.12 (St John)

25And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan. 1And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: 2And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, 3Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. 5Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. 6Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. 7Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. 8Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 9Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. 10Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. 12Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.