Nativity Fast, day 6
Saints commemorated
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Saint of the day
Ven. Gregory Decapolites
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Our Holy Father Proclus, Archbishop of Constantinople (447)
Proclus (died 446 or 447) was Archbishop of Constantinople from 434, a disciple and secretary of John Chrysostom whose gifts as a preacher placed him at the centre of the greatest doctrinal crisis of the fifth century. His homily on the Mother of God, delivered in the great church before the patriarch Nestorius, became a public defence of the title Theotokos and helped open the controversy that the Council of Ephesus (431) would settle. As archbishop he brought the relics of his master Chrysostom home to Constantinople in triumph, governed with a gentleness that quieted the divided city, and left a body of homilies and doctrinal letters — above all the Tome to the Armenians — that made him a teacher of the Church. He is commemorated on November 20.
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Dasius of Dorostorum
Dasius was a Christian of Dorostorum on the lower Danube who was beheaded for Christ, by tradition on November 20 of about the year 303, in the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian. His Passion tells that he was chosen by lot to play the mock-king of a pagan Saturn-festival — a youth honoured and indulged for a month and then sacrificed to the god — and that he refused the whole blasphemous rite, declaring that if he must die he would die as a Christian for Christ rather than as a victim for an idol. He confessed his faith openly, was tortured, and was put to the sword. His Passion is a document of unusual interest for the light it throws on the survival of the Roman Saturnalia among the soldiers of the Danube frontier. He is commemorated on November 20.
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Gregory of Decapolis
Gregory the Decapolite (c. 780–c. 842) was one of the great wandering ascetics of the age of the second iconoclasm, a monk of the Decapolis of Isauria who spent his life on the roads of the Byzantine world — Ephesus and Constantinople, Rome and Corinth, Sicily and Thessalonica — preaching the veneration of the holy icons and confirming the persecuted Orthodox. Gifted, his Life relates, with prophecy and healing, he reposed at Constantinople shortly before the Triumph of Orthodoxy. His incorrupt relics, carried out of the fallen capital and bought in 1498 by the Ban of Wallachia, rest to this day at the Bistrița Monastery in Romania, where he is among the most beloved of saints. He is commemorated on November 20.
British Isles and Ireland
- St. Edmund, King of East Anglia and Martyr (869)
- St. Eval, bishop of Cornwall (6th C)
Troparia & kontakia
Kontakion — Tone 3
As a radiant sun the Church knoweth thee, O favourite of Christ, who enlightenest all by the beauty of thy virtues and the rays of thy healings. Therefore we keep thy honoured memory and venerate thy struggles, O all-blessed and most-wise father Gregory.
Kontakion — Tone 4
Worthily this day doth the most honoured of all cities keep high festival at thy precious repose, O father of fathers, wise Proclus.
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy martyr Dasius, O Lord, in his contest received the crown of incorruption from Thee our God; for, possessed of Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the powerless boldness of the demons. By his intercessions, O Christ God, save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 4
O God of our Fathers, who ever dealest with us according to Thy forbearance: take not Thy mercy from us, but by their supplications govern our life in peace.
Troparion — Tone 4
O God of our Fathers, who ever dealest with us according to Thy forbearance: take not Thy mercy from us, but by their supplications govern our life in peace.
Readings
Epistle
1 Timothy 1.8-14
8But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; 9Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; 11According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. 12And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; 13Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. 14And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
Gospel
Luke 17.26-37
26And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. 27They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. 28Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; 29But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. 30Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. 31In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. 32Remember Lot’s wife. 33Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. 34I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. 35Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. 36Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. 37And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.