Ascensiontide, day 4 · 42 days since Pascha
Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council
Saints commemorated
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Unc. Rel. St Aleksy, Metropolitan of Kiev
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Martyr Thalelaeus at Aegae in Cilicia and those with him (327)
Thalelaeus (†284) was a young physician of Cilicia who treated the sick without payment and was martyred at the age of about eighteen in the persecution under the emperor Numerian. Born in Lebanon to a Christian officer's household, he was still a student of medicine when the prefect's search for Christians took him. Ordered to be hung head downward by ropes drawn through his bored knees, he was spared when his two executioners — Alexander and Asterius — found themselves piercing a block of wood instead, and confessed Christ on the spot and were beheaded; water and wild beasts likewise refused him, and he was at last put to the sword. Because he had healed freely, the Church numbers him among the Unmercenaries (Anargyroi), and it is under that title that he is commemorated on May 20.
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Alexander and Asterius of Aegae
Alexander and Asterius were the two men of the prefect's service in Cilicia who were ordered to bore through the knees of the young physician Thalelaeus the Unmercenary and hang him head downward, and who found when the work was done that they had pierced a block of wood and left the martyr untouched. Understanding what had been shown them, they threw down their tools, confessed Christ before the prefect Theodore, and were beheaded in the year 284 — the first fruits of the martyrdom they had been sent to inflict. The Greek synaxaria give them a notice of their own on May 20, immediately after Thalelaeus, with whom they are always commemorated.
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Alexis of Moscow
Alexis (c. 1292/1305 – 1378) was Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia and one of the great architects of Muscovite Russia — a saint remembered equally as a wonderworking hierarch and as a statesman who held the Russian land together in a perilous age. Born Eleutherius, of a boyar family of Chernigov settled at Moscow, he was a monk of the Theophany monastery for over twenty years before his elevation, and Metropolitan from 1354. Twice he journeyed to the Golden Horde; there, at the Khan's summons, he healed Taidula, the mother of the Khan, of blindness, and won by it protection and privileges for the Church. As guardian and regent for the boy-prince Demetrius Donskoy, he steadied the throne of Moscow and reconciled its warring princes. He founded the Chudov (Miracle) Monastery in the Kremlin and other houses, and reposed on February 12, 1378. His relics, uncovered incorrupt in 1431, made him one of the beloved wonderworkers of Russia and one of the Hierarchs of Moscow.
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Asclas of Egypt
Asclas (†c. 287) was a Christian of Great Hermopolis in Middle Egypt who suffered in the persecution of Diocletian under the governor Arrian of Antinoe. Hung up and torn with iron rakes until his flesh fell from him, he answered that he was still glorifying his God; and when the governor set out by boat across the Nile to continue the torments at Antinoe, the martyr prayed and the vessel stood still in mid-stream, unmoved by the oars, until Arrian had written with his own hand an acknowledgement of the one true God. Even that sign did not convert him: he had Asclas burned with torches and then drowned in the river with a stone about his neck. The martyr had told the Christians to look for his body after three days; they found it as he had said, and buried him.
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Dovmont-Timothy of Pskov
Dovmont (Lithuanian Daumantas, †1299) was a pagan Lithuanian prince of Nalšia who fled the dynastic bloodletting of his homeland in 1265, came to Pskov with some three hundred households, was baptised there with the name Timothy, and within a year was elected the city's prince. He held that office for thirty-three years — no other prince of Pskov ruled so long, or so wholly without quarrel with its assembly — and made himself the defender of the north-western frontier of Rus', beating the Lithuanians on the Dvina, standing in the front line at Rakovor in 1268, breaking the Livonian siege of Pskov in 1269, and winning his last battle on the Velikaya in the spring of 1299, a few weeks before his death. He built the fortified quarter still called Dovmont's town, laid his sword on the altar before each campaign, and was venerated at his tomb in the Trinity cathedral almost from the day of his burial; his intervention was credited with lifting the German siege of 1480.
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Lydia of Philippi
Lydia was a merchant of purple from Thyatira in Asia Minor, settled in the Roman colony of Philippi in Macedonia, and a God-fearer among the Jewish women who gathered for prayer by the river outside its gate. When the Apostle Paul came there about the year 49 or 50 — his first preaching on European soil, undertaken at the summons of the Macedonian seen in a vision at Troas — "the Lord opened her heart," and she and her whole household were baptised in the river: the first Christians of Europe. She then compelled the apostles to lodge with her, and her house became the first house-church on the continent, the place to which Paul and Silas returned after their scourging and imprisonment. The Greek Church honours her as Equal-to-the-Apostles and keeps her memory on May 20.
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Nicetas, John and Joseph of Nea Moni
Nicetas, John and Joseph were three ascetics living on the mountain of Chios in the first half of the eleventh century who found an icon of the Mother of God hanging in a myrtle bush and could not move it from the place. Crossing to Lesbos, where the future emperor Constantine IX Monomachos was living in exile, they told him he would come to the throne; he promised that if it happened he would build a church on the spot where the icon was found. He was proclaimed emperor in 1042 and kept his word: with the resources of the crown, and under the patronage of Constantine and the empresses Zoe and Theodora, the three hermits' myrtle grove became the Nea Moni — the "New Monastery" — whose mosaics are among the greatest surviving monuments of eleventh-century Byzantine art. The three are venerated at Nea Moni as its ktitores, its founders, and are commemorated together on May 20.
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Zabulon and Sosanna
Zabulon and Sosanna were the parents of Nina, the Equal-to-the-Apostles and Enlightener of Georgia, and are venerated for what they gave up as much as for what they were. Zabulon was a Cappadocian nobleman and an officer of the Roman army who, having captured a king of the Franks in battle, obtained the baptism of the prisoners and stood godfather to them, and then their release — so that a whole people came to Christ by his intercession. Renouncing his rank, he went to Jerusalem, served the patriarch, and married Sosanna, the patriarch's sister; their only child Nina was born to them in Cappadocia. When the girl was about twelve they sold all they had and returned to the Holy City, where Zabulon withdrew to the wilderness as a solitary and Sosanna was set to the service of the poor and the sick, and they never saw each other or their daughter again in this life. The Church of Georgia glorified them in 1996; their feast is May 20.
British Isles and Ireland
- St. Ethelbert, King of East Anglia and Martyr (c.793)
Troparia & kontakia
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of martyrs)
Thy martyrs Alexander and Asterius, O Lord, in their contest received the crowns of incorruption from Thee our God; for possessing Thy strength, they cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By their intercessions save our souls.
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a martyr)
Thy martyr Asclas, O Lord, in his contest received the crown of incorruption from Thee our God; for possessing Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions save our souls.
Apolytikion — Tone 4
Illumined by the word of Paul beside the flowing river, thou wast the first in Europe to be washed in the font of grace, O all-honoured Lydia; and opening thy house to the heralds of the Gospel, thou didst make it the first temple of the West. Wherefore, as equal to the apostles, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a martyr)
Thy martyr Thalelaeus, O Lord, in his contest received the crown of incorruption from Thee our God; for possessing Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions save our souls.
Kontakion — Tone 8
Let us all the faithful people faithfully hymn, and with love call blessed, the divine and most honoured hierarch of Christ, the new wonderworker Alexis, as a great shepherd, a servant, and a most wise teacher of the land of Russia. Today, running together to his memory, let us joyfully cry out a song to the God-bearer: since thou hast boldness before God, deliver us from manifold afflictions, that we may cry to thee: Rejoice, O confirmation of our city.
Kontakion — Tone 8
Thou wast given to Pskov instead of a sword, and thy sword was given to Christ; the Germans fled from thy face in thy lifetime, and after thy repose thy holy pall put their armies to flight. O blessed prince Timothy, cease not to defend the city that received thee.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Thou didst sell the purple of the merchants, O Lydia, and didst buy the purple of the Blood of Christ; the Lord opened thy heart, and by thee He opened Europe to the preaching. Cease not to pray for us who keep thy holy memory.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Thou didst take no silver for thy healing, O wise Thalelaeus, and therefore the Physician of souls took thee for His own; the augers of the tormentors pierced the wood and not thy limbs, and they that bore them were made thy brethren in the crown. Heal us who honour thee, and ask forgiveness for our souls.
Troparion — Tone 8
As one enthroned together with the Apostles, a most excellent physician and a well-pleasing servant, we run to thy precious shrine, O God-wise hierarch Alexis, O wonderworker; gathered together in love, we keep thy memory in brightness, rejoicing in psalms and hymns and glorifying Christ, who hath given thee such grace of healings, and to thy city a great confirmation.
Troparion — Tone 8
Coming a stranger out of a strange land, thou didst find in the font of Pskov a fatherland that endureth, O right-believing Dovmont, named Timothy in the grace of holy baptism; and laying thy sword upon the altar of the Holy Trinity, thou didst guard thy city as a wall unshaken. Wherefore, standing now before the King of all, pray for the people that keep thy memory.
Troparion — Tone 8
Ye found the Queen of heaven hidden in the myrtle, O blessed Nicetas, John and Joseph, and she would not be moved from the place she had chosen; wherefore ye told a king that he should reign, and the reigning of an earthly king built a house for the King of all. As founders and dwellers of that holy place, pray for us who honour your memory.
Troparion — Tone 4
Noble in birth and nobler in mercy, thou didst buy the lives of thine enemies with thy prayers, O Zabulon, and thou, O Sosanna, wast a mother of mercy to the poor of the Holy City; ye offered your only daughter and one another to God, and He gave you a nation for your children. O holy parents of Nina, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Readings
Vespers
Genesis 14.14-20
14And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. 15And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. 16And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. 17And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him, at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king’s dale. 18And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. 19And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: 20And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.
Deuteronomy 1.8-11, 15-17
8Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them. 9And I spake unto you at that time, saying, I am not able to bear you myself alone: 10The LORD your God hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude. 11(The LORD God of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as ye are, and bless you, as he hath promised you!) 15So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes. 16And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him. 17Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God’s: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it.
Deuteronomy 10.14-21
14Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. 15Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. 16Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked. 17For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: 18He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. 19Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. 20Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name. 21He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen.
10th Matins Gospel
John 21.1-14
1After these things Jesus shewed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise shewed he himself. 2There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples. 3Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing. 4But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. 5Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, No. 6And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes. 7Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher’s coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea. 8And the other disciples came in a little ship; (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits,) dragging the net with fishes. 9As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread. 10Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught. 11Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken. 12Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? knowing that it was the Lord. 13Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise. 14This is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead.
Epistle
Acts 20.16-18, 28-36
16For Paul had determined to sail by Ephesus, because he would not spend the time in Asia: for he hasted, if it were possible for him, to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost. 17And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the church. 18And when they were come to him, he said unto them, Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons, 28Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. 29For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. 30Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. 31Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. 32And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified. 33I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. 34Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me. 35I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive. 36And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all.
Gospel
John 17.1-13
1These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: 2As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. 3And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. 4I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. 5And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. 6I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. 7Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. 8For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. 9I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. 10And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. 11And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. 12While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.