St Gregory of Nyssa; St Theophan the Recluse

Saints commemorated

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  St Gregory of Nyssa

  Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – c. 395) was Bishop of Nyssa in Cappadocia and the youngest of the three great Cappadocian Fathers — the brother of Basil the Great and of Macrina the Younger, the son of Emmelia, and the friend of Gregory the Theologian. The subtlest and most speculative theological mind of the three, he began as a teacher of rhetoric, was drawn by his brother Basil into the Church's service, and was consecrated bishop of the little town of Nyssa in 372 to hold it for the Nicene faith against the Arian court. Deposed and exiled under the emperor Valens, he returned in triumph after 378, and at the Second Ecumenical Council (Constantinople, 381) stood as one of the pillars of the Nicene settlement, so honoured for his orthodoxy that a later age styled him "Father of the Fathers." He left a body of writing of the first rank — On the Making of Man, the Great Catechism, the Life of Moses, the books Against Eunomius and Against Apollinarius, the dialogue On the Soul and the Resurrection set at his sister's deathbed, and the Life of Macrina — in which the doctrine of the infinite God, of the soul's endless ascent from glory to glory, and of the final restoration of all things receives its classic Greek expression. He reposed about the year 395 and is kept on January 10, within the afterfeast of the Theophany.

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  St Theophan the Recluse

  Theophan the Recluse (1815 – 1894) — born George Vasilievich Govorov — was a Russian bishop, ascetic, and spiritual writer, and one of the most influential teachers of the inner life in the modern Orthodox world. The son of a priest, educated at the Kiev Theological Academy, he was tonsured a monk, taught and governed as rector and then as bishop of Tambov and of Vladimir, and in 1866 laid down his see to withdraw to the Vysha Hermitage, where from 1872 until his death he lived in complete reclusion for twenty-two years, seeing almost no one, serving the Liturgy alone in a chapel he built in his cell, and pouring out a vast correspondence and a library of spiritual works. He gave the Russian Church its great translation of the Philokalia (the Dobrotolubiye), the classic manual The Path to Salvation, and the adaptation of Unseen Warfare, teaching above all the "keeping of the heart" and the standing before God in the mind descended into the heart. He reposed on January 6, 1894, the feast of the Theophany, and was glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1988; his feast is kept on January 10.

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• Saint of the day

  Our Holy Father Theophan the Recluse (1894)

• Dometian of Melitene

  Dometian (c. 550 – 601) was Bishop of Melitene in Armenia Minor, a kinsman of the emperor Maurice and one of the most trusted churchmen and statesmen of his reign. Married in his youth and soon widowed, he embraced the monastic life and was chosen bishop of Melitene while still only about thirty, governing his church with a wisdom and zeal for the Nicene faith that made him famous throughout the East. The emperor employed him repeatedly on affairs of the greatest weight — above all in Persia, where Dometian's diplomacy helped restore the exiled king Chosroes II to his throne and opened the way for Christian influence at the Persian court. Beloved and generous, distributing to the poor the rich gifts that were showered on him, he died at Constantinople in 601 and was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles. He is kept on January 10, together with Gregory of Nyssa, within the afterfeast of the Theophany.

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• Marcian the Oikonomos

  Marcian (early fifth century – c. 471) was a presbyter and the oikonomos (steward, treasurer, and administrator) of the Great Church of Constantinople in the age of the patriarch Gennadius. Born at Rome and educated at Constantinople, he inherited great wealth and spent the whole of it, together with the offerings that passed through his hands as steward, on the building, rebuilding, and adorning of churches — chief among them the great church of Saint Anastasia and the church of Saint Irene by the sea — so that he is remembered as one of the notable church-builders of the imperial city. A man of prayer, almsgiving, and personal austerity beneath the cares of his great office, he was glorified by God with wonders, and reposed about the year 471. He is kept on January 10, within the afterfeast of the Theophany.

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• Paul of Obnora

  Paul of Obnora (1317 – 1429) was one of the great hermit-founders of the northern Russian forests, a disciple of Saint Sergius of Radonezh and among the most severe ascetics of his age. Born at Moscow to wealthy parents, he fled a proposed marriage to become a monk, and after long years of obedience came to Sergius of Radonezh, in whose Trinity monastery he served, then withdrew fifteen years into a hermit's cell, and at last wandered north into the wilderness of Vologda. In the Komel forest, by the river Obnora, he lived three years in silence in the hollow of a great linden tree, at peace with the wild creatures, before gathering disciples and founding, in his old age, the Trinity monastery of Obnora. He reposed on January 10, 1429, at the age of one hundred and twelve, and was numbered among the saints; he is remembered for his extreme stillness, his gentleness toward the birds and beasts, and his counsel, "Flee, keep silence, and be still."

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• Theosebia the Deaconess

  Theosebia (fourth century – c. 385) was a deaconess of the church of Nyssa in Cappadocia, closely bound to the household of the great Cappadocian saints and honoured for a life of virginity, service to the poor and the sick, and care of the Church. The Orthodox tradition numbers her among the children of Emmelia — the sister of Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Macrina, and Peter of Sebaste — while much modern scholarship holds rather that she was the wife of Gregory of Nyssa, married before his episcopate; the question turns on a single ambiguous word in the letter Gregory the Theologian wrote to console Gregory of Nyssa at her death. Under either reading she was a woman of the first standing in the Church, whom Gregory the Theologian mourned as "the glory of the Church and the ornament of Christ." She is commemorated on January 10, together with Gregory of Nyssa.

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British Isles and Ireland

• St. Diarmaid, abbot of Innis-Clotran (6th C)
• St. Thomian, Archbishop of Armagh (c.660)
• St. Sethrid of East Anglia, abbess in France (7th C)

Readings

Troparia & kontakia