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Saturday 5 April 2031

Lazarus Saturday

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Lenten Fast — Wine, Oil and Caviar are Allowed

Holy Week, day 1 · 8 days until Pascha

Saints commemorated

  • Martyrs Agathopedes, Theodulus and Their Companions

  • Our Holy Father Mark of Trache (ca. 400)

  • Agathopodes and Theodulus

    Agathopodes, an aged deacon, and Theodulus, a young reader, were clergy of the church of Thessalonica who during the Great Persecution of Diocletian refused to surrender the sacred Scriptures or to deny Christ, and were drowned in the sea with stones about their necks about the year 303. The elder and the youth, united in one confession and one death, are honoured together as martyrs of the Thessalonian church.

  • Argyra of Prussa

    Argyra was a young married woman of Prussa (Bursa) in Bithynia who, having refused the advances of a Turkish official's son and refused with them the invitation to apostatise, was denounced on a false charge, flogged, and shut up in prison at Constantinople, where she spent seventeen years under repeated interrogation, beating and the abuse of her fellow prisoners without yielding, sustained by fasting and prayer. She died in her cell on 5 April 1721, aged about thirty-three. Some years later her body was found whole and incorrupt and fragrant, and on 30 April 1735 her relics were translated with the blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarch to the church of St Paraskeve, where they are still venerated. She is commemorated on April 30, the day of the translation.

  • Job of Moscow

    Job was the first Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, raised to that dignity in 1589 by Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople, and the last great churchman of the house of Rurik's Muscovy. Born at Staritsa of a tradesman's family, he rose through the northern monasteries to the metropolitan throne, and as patriarch organised the new Russian patriarchate, canonised a company of Russian saints, and sent missions to Siberia and Georgia. In the Time of Troubles he refused to acknowledge the pretender known as the False Dmitri, and for that refusal was stripped of his patriarchal vesture in the Dormition Cathedral by the pretender's men and driven into exile at Staritsa, where he died blind on 19 June 1607. His relics, found incorrupt, were carried to Moscow in 1652, and he was glorified by the Russian Church in 1989.

  • Lazarus of the Four Days

    Lazarus of Bethany, "the Four-Days-Dead" (ὁ τετραήμερος) and "the friend of Christ," is the man whom the Lord raised from the tomb four days after his death (John 11) — the last and greatest sign before the Passion, and the Church's pledge of the general resurrection. Brother of Martha and Mary, he afterwards fled the plots of the high priests, was made first bishop of Kition in Cyprus by the apostles, shepherded that church some thirty years, and reposed in peace about the year 63. His principal feast is the movable Lazarus Saturday, the eve of Palm Sunday; October 17 commemorates the translation of his relics from Kition to Constantinople by the emperor Leo VI the Wise in 898.

  • Mark the Athenian

    Mark, called "the Athenian" from his native city, is honoured as one of the most extreme of the desert solitaries: the tradition tells that he lived ninety-five years utterly alone on a wild mountain beyond the deserts of Egypt (the "Mountain of Thrace" or of Ethiopia), never in all that time seeing the face of a man, until at the very end of his life the monk Serapion was led to him by God to witness his repose. His story, like that of Onuphrius or Paul of Thebes, celebrates the hidden saints known to God alone.

British Isles and Ireland

  • St. Began, abbot of Kill-Beggan (6th C)
  • St. Derfel-Gadarn, hermit of Llanderfel (6th C)
  • SS. Probus and Grace
  • St. Ethelburga (Æthelburh) abbess of Lyminge (c.647)

Troparia & kontakia

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a woman martyr)

Thou wast a lamb of Christ, O Argyra, and didst cry aloud in thy contest: I am the bride of my Bridegroom, and Him alone will I confess. Neither flattery nor beating nor the long years of the prison could sever thee from Him; wherefore He hath crowned thee with an incorruptible crown, and hath glorified thy body with incorruption. By thine intercessions save our souls.

Apolytikion — Tone 5

First-enthroned among the patriarchs of the Russian land, and first also in suffering for the truth, thou wast stripped of thy throne but not of thy confession, O holy father Job; and being deprived of the light of thine eyes, thou didst see the more clearly the will of God. Intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Apolytikion

Giving us before thy Passion an assurance of the general resurrection, thou didst raise Lazarus from the dead, O Christ God; wherefore we also, like the children, bearing the tokens of victory, cry to thee, the vanquisher of death: Hosanna in the highest; blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

Kontakion

Like a most radiant star, thy precious relics have risen from Cyprus, O Lazarus, hallowing the Imperial City, gladdening the Christ-loving emperor and enriching his people, bestowing through thee the grace of healings on them that faithfully cry to thee: Rejoice, O Lazarus, friend of God.

Troparion — Tone 4 (common of two martyrs)

Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their sufferings received incorruptible crowns 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.

Troparion

As a great treasure and wealth that none can steal, thou art come to us from Cyprus, O Lazarus, by the providence of the God of all and the command of a right-believing emperor, bestowing on those who honour thee the gift of healings, delivering from perils and from every harm them that cry to thee with faith: save us all by thy prayers, O Lazarus our father.

Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable ascetic)

By a flood of tears thou didst make the barren desert fruitful, and thy longing for God brought forth fruit a hundredfold; thou becamest a shining lamp, illumining the whole world by thy miracles, O Mark our father. Intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Readings

Epistle

Hebrews 12.28-13.8

28Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: 29For our God is a consuming fire. 1Let brotherly love continue. 2Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. 3Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body. 4Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. 5Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. 6So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. 7Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. 8Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

Gospel

John 11.1-45

1Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. 2(It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.) 3Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. 4When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. 5Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. 6When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was. 7Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judæa again. 8His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again? 9Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. 10But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him. 11These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. 12Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. 13Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. 14Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. 15And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him. 16Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellowdisciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him. 17Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already. 18Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off: 19And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. 20Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house. 21Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. 22But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. 23Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. 24Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. 25Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: 26And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? 27She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world. 28And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee. 29As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto him. 30Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him. 31The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there. 32Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. 33When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, 34And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. 35Jesus wept. 36Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! 37And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? 38Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. 39Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. 40Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? 41Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. 42And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. 43And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. 44And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. 45Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.