Ven. Benedict of Nursia

Saints commemorated

Saint of the day

Ven. Benedict of Nursia

Benedict of Nursia (c. 480 – c. 547) is honoured as the father of Western monasticism and one of the great ascetic fathers of the undivided Church. Born of a well-born Umbrian family and sent to study at Rome, he fled the corruption of the city while still young and became a hermit in a cave at Subiaco, where he was fed by the monk Romanus and slowly gathered disciples. From twelve small communities at Subiaco he passed to the mountain of Monte Cassino, where he destroyed the last shrine of Apollo, built his great monastery, and composed the Rule that bears his name — a "little rule for beginners," drawn from Scripture and from the Eastern fathers (Basil, Cassian, the anonymous Rule of the Master), which became the charter of monastic life throughout the Latin West. His life is known almost wholly from the second book of the Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great (the Dialogist), which tells of his miracles, his gift of prophecy, his yearly meetings with his sister Scholastica, and his death standing in prayer before the altar. The Byzantine calendar keeps him on March 14.
St Theognostus, Metropolitan of Kiev (1353)

Theognostus (died 1353) was a Greek of Constantinople who served for twenty-five years as Metropolitan of Kiev and All Russia, the chief hierarch of the Rus' Church, in the age when its centre was passing from Kiev to Moscow. Consecrated at Constantinople and sent north in 1328, he made Moscow his residence, confirmed the union of the metropolitan's see with the rising city, and upheld the Church's unity and its liberties against both the fragmentation of the princes and the demands of the Golden Horde, from whose khan he obtained the confirmation of the Church's ancient privileges — enduring, the tradition says, imprisonment and ill-usage rather than surrender them. He glorified his predecessor Peter as a saint and named Alexis his successor. He reposed in 1353 and is venerated among the holy hierarchs of Russia, kept on March 14.
Alexander of Pydna

Alexander (died c. 305) was a priest of Pydna, a town on the coast of Macedonia south of Thessalonica, and a hieromartyr of the last great persecution. Zealous in preaching Christ and in turning the people from the worship of idols, he was seized in the persecution under the emperor Maximian (Galerius), subjected to cruel tortures which he bore unmoved, and at the last beheaded for his confession. His memory was cherished in Macedonia and on the Holy Mountain, where his skull is venerated among the treasures of the Great Lavra of Athos. The Greek synaxaria, which sometimes style him "of Thessalonica" from the region of his labours, keep him on March 14.
Euschemon of Lampsacus

Euschemon (ninth century) was bishop of Lampsacus on the Hellespont and a confessor of the holy icons in the second iconoclast persecution. Formed from his youth in a virtuous and ascetic life, and honoured in his own day as a wonderworker, he was raised to the see of Lampsacus and, when the emperor Theophilus (829–842) renewed the war on the images, stood firm in their veneration; for this he was seized, ill-treated, and driven into banishment, in which he ended his life, a confessor who suffered for the faith without dying by the sword. He is kept on March 14.
Rostislav-Michael of Kiev

Rostislav Mstislavich (c. 1110 – 1167), called Michael in holy baptism, was Prince of Smolensk and thrice Grand Prince of Kiev, a grandson of Vladimir Monomakh and one of the most respected rulers of the divided Rus' of the twelfth century. Founder of the enduring line of the princes of Smolensk, he raised that city to greatness, established its bishopric, and adorned it with churches; as Grand Prince he laboured to keep peace among the quarrelling princes and to uphold the order of the Church, defending the rights of the metropolitan see of Kiev. Devout from his youth and longing in his last years for the monastic life, he died on his way home from Novgorod, receiving the news of his end with joy and prayer. He is venerated among the right-believing princes of Rus' and kept on March 14.

British Isles and Ireland

St. Kyrin, bishop of Ross (660)
St. Talmach, disciple of Saint Finbar (7th C)

Troparia & kontakia

Kontakion — Tone 2

Enriched with the grace of God from thy youth, thou didst flee the tumult of the world for the wilderness, and there, having planted the monastic way and raised up a fair company of ascetics, thou wast shown to be a rule of the venerable and a father of monks. Wherefore we cry to thee: Rejoice, O God-blessed Benedict.

Troparion — Tone 4

Thy martyr Alexander, O Lord, in his contest received the crown incorruptible from thee our God; for possessed of thy might, he cast down the tyrants and broke the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions save thou our souls.

Troparion — Tone 8

In thee, O Father, was the divine image faithfully preserved; for taking up thy cross thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passeth away, but to care for the soul as a thing immortal. Wherefore doth thy spirit, O venerable Benedict, rejoice together with the Angels.

Troparion — Tone 4

O God of our fathers, who dealest ever with us according to thy gentleness, take not thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of thy holy hierarch and confessor Euschemon guide our life in peace.

Troparion — Tone 4

Having lived devoutly in thy royal state, and preserved unshaken the true faith of Christ, thou didst rule thy people in justice and mercy, O right-believing prince Rostislav; and setting thy heart upon the monastic calm, thou didst pass in prayer to thy Lord. Entreat him that our souls may be saved.

Troparion — Tone 4

O God of our fathers, who dealest ever with us according to thy gentleness, take not thy mercy from us, but by the prayers of thy holy hierarch Theognostus guide our life in peace.

Readings

6th Hour

Isaiah 13.2-13

²Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain, exalt the voice unto them, shake the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles. ³I have commanded my sanctified ones, I have also called my mighty ones for mine anger, even them that rejoice in my highness. ⁴The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together: the LORD of hosts mustereth the host of the battle. ⁵They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. ⁶Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. ⁷Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man’s heart shall melt: ⁸And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames. ⁹Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. ¹⁰For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. ¹¹And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. ¹²I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir. ¹³Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.

Vespers

Genesis 8.4-21

⁴And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. ⁵And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen. ⁶And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: ⁷And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. ⁸Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; ⁹But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. ¹⁰And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; ¹¹And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. ¹²And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more. ¹³And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry. ¹⁴And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried. ¹⁵And God spake unto Noah, saying, ¹⁶Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee. ¹⁷Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth. ¹⁸And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him: ¹⁹Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark. ²⁰And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. ²¹And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

Proverbs 10.31-11.12

³¹The mouth of the just bringeth forth wisdom: but the froward tongue shall be cut out. ³²The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable: but the mouth of the wicked speaketh frowardness. ¹A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight. ²When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom. ³The integrity of the upright shall guide them: but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them. ⁴Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death. ⁵The righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way: but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness. ⁶The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them: but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness. ⁷When a wicked man dieth, his expectation shall perish: and the hope of unjust men perisheth. ⁸The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead. ⁹An hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbour: but through knowledge shall the just be delivered. ¹⁰When it goeth well with the righteous, the city rejoiceth: and when the wicked perish, there is shouting. ¹¹By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted: but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked. ¹²He that is void of wisdom despiseth his neighbour: but a man of understanding holdeth his peace.

Saints commemorated