Sunday 18 May 2031

6th Sunday of Pascha

No Fast Tone 5

Paschaltide, day 36 · 35 days since Pascha

Blind Man

About Passion Icon of the Mother of God →

Saints commemorated

  • Martyr Theodotus of Ancyra

    Theodotus was an innkeeper of Ancyra in Galatia — a married layman, a wine-seller, whose tavern became in the Great Persecution the hiding-place of the hunted Church, the house where the Liturgy was served when the churches were pulled down, and the office from which the bodies of the martyrs were ransomed and buried. With him are honoured seven aged consecrated virgins — Tecusa his own aunt, Alexandra, Claudia, Phaina, Euphrasia, Matrona and Julitta — who were seized under the governor Theoteknos, refused to serve as priestesses at the washing of the images of Artemis and Athena, were handed over to be violated and preserved their purity, and were at last drowned in the lake outside the city with stones tied to them. Theodotus recovered their bodies by night and buried them, and for that act was betrayed, tortured and beheaded, about the year 303–304. Their passion, told by an eyewitness named Nilus, is one of the most vivid and most disputed documents of the Diocletianic persecution in Asia Minor.

  • Holy Martyrs Peter, Dionysius, Christina, Andrew, Paul, Benedimus, Paulinus, and Heraclius (250)

    These eight are the company whose names open the Byzantine notice for May 18: Peter, Dionysius, Christina the virgin, Andrew, Paul, Benedimus, Paulinus and Heraclius, martyred in the persecution of the emperor Decius (249–251). They are in fact two separate companies joined in one commemoration: five who suffered on the Hellespont, at Lampsacus and Troas, under a proconsul the acts name Optimus — Peter broken on a wheel and beheaded for refusing to bow to Aphrodite, the two soldiers Andrew and Paul stoned to death with Dionysius, and the sixteen-year-old Christina beheaded after she had cried out in open court against an apostate; and three who suffered at Athens — Heraclius, Paulinus and Benedimus, preachers against the idols, who were cast into a burning furnace. The Greek Menaion places all eight in a single notice, and this collection follows it.

  • David and Tarichan of Georgia

    David and Tarichan were two Georgian boys, the children of the nobleman Vardan and his wife Tagine, kinsfolk of the royal house, murdered in the year 693 by their own uncle Theodosius because they would not leave the faith of their baptism. Theodosius, a pagan, had seized their dead father's estate and tried to secure it by adopting the boys into his own religion — offering them sweets, an inheritance and the affection of a father; they answered that they were content with the faith of their father and would keep it until their souls left their bodies. Their mother fled with them to the province of Tao, where they kept sheep on a mountainside; there Theodosius ambushed them and stabbed them both. The Georgian tradition surrounds their deaths with wonders — David's shepherd's staff struck root and became a tree, the murderer was struck blind on the spot, and Tagine restored his sight with earth soaked in her son's blood, forgiving him — and the story ends not with vengeance but with the uncle's baptism and the building of two churches over the boys' graves.

  • Potamon of Heraclea

    Potamon, Bishop of Heraclea in Egypt, is the rare saint who was twice a martyr's victim: maimed by the pagans and killed by fellow Christians. In the persecution of Maximinus Daia, about the year 310, he confessed Christ, was mutilated — he lost an eye and was crippled — and was sent to the mines; he came to the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325 with his wounds on him, one of the scarred confessors whose presence gave that council its moral authority, and there stood against Arius. Ten years later, at the Synod of Tyre, it was Potamon who rose and challenged Eusebius of Caesarea to his face to explain how he had come out of the same prison whole. He remained to the end a defender of Athanasius; and when the Arian intruder Gregory and the prefect Philagrius were breaking the Egyptian Church by force, the old confessor was beaten with clubs and left for dead, and died of it about the year 341 — a hieromartyr, as Athanasius himself records, at the hands of Christians.

  • Simeon, Isaac and Bachtisius of Persia

    Simeon, Isaac and Bachtisius were Christians of the Persian empire who died for refusing to renounce Christ and to conform to the state religion of the Sasanians. Brought before their judges and required to worship the fire and the sun, they answered that they would not turn from the Creator of all things to reverence His creatures; they were tortured, shut up in prison and left seven days without food, and at the last beheaded. Their names are Syriac and Persian rather than Greek — Bachtisius represents the Syriac Bokhtishoʿ, "Jesus has delivered" — and they belong to the vast company of the martyrs of the Church of the East under Shapur II, whose forty-year persecution (from about 339) produced more martyrs than any single Roman persecution and of whom the Byzantine calendar preserves only a fraction, often reduced, as here, to a name and a manner of death.

British Isles and Ireland

  • St. Elgiva, mother of St. Edgar and abbess of Shaftesbury (944)
  • St. Feredarius, abbot of Iona (c.863)

Troparia & kontakia

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of several martyrs)

Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contests 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 supplications, O Christ God, save our souls.

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of several martyrs)

Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contests 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 supplications, O Christ God, save our souls.

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a hieromartyr)

As a sharer in the ways and a successor to the thrones of the Apostles, O divinely-inspired one, thou didst find in contemplation the means to ascend to divine heights; rightly dividing the word of truth, thou didst struggle for the faith even unto blood, O hieromartyr Potamon: intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of several martyrs)

Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contests 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 supplications, O Christ God, save our souls.

Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of several martyrs)

Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contests 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 supplications, O Christ God, save our souls.

Kontakion — Tone 8

Beholding the cross and the lance borne by the angels, the Child turned to thee and took thy hand, O Virgin; and thou didst hold him fast, knowing what was to come. Wherefore hold us also in the hour of our fear, and let us not be shaken.

Kontakion — Tone 2 (common of martyrs)

O athletes who shone forth as stars in the firmament of the Church, ye did not spare your bodies for the love of the Master; the wine-seller and the seven aged virgins are glorified together, for the lake became for them a font, and the grave a fountain of healing.

Troparion — Tone 4

Today the faithful keep radiant festival, overshadowed by thy coming, O Mother of God; and gazing upon thy most pure image we cry with compunction: shelter us beneath the precious veil of thy protection, and deliver us from every ill, entreating thy Son, Christ our God, to save our souls.

Readings

8th Matins Gospel

John 20.11-18

11But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, 12And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. 13And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. 14And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. 15Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. 16Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. 17Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. 18Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.

Epistle

Acts 16.16-34

16And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying: 17The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. 18And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour. 19And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers, 20And brought them to the magistrates, saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, 21And teach customs, which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to observe, being Romans. 22And the multitude rose up together against them: and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. 23And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely: 24Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks. 25And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. 26And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed. 27And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. 28But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. 29Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, 30And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? 31And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. 32And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. 33And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. 34And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.

Gospel

John 9.1-38

1And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. 2And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? 3Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. 4I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. 6When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, 7And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing. 8The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? 9Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he. 10Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened? 11He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight. 12Then said they unto him, Where is he? He said, I know not. 13They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind. 14And it was the sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes. 15Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see. 16Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them. 17They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet. 18But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him that had received his sight. 19And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see? 20His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind: 21But by what means he now seeth, we know not; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself. 22These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. 23Therefore said his parents, He is of age; ask him. 24Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner. 25He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. 26Then said they to him again, What did he to thee? how opened he thine eyes? 27He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear it again? will ye also be his disciples? 28Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses’ disciples. 29We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is. 30The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. 31Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. 32Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. 33If this man were not of God, he could do nothing. 34They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out. 35Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? 36He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? 37And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. 38And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.