Tuesday 24 May 2033
Ven. Simeon the Stylite; Ven. Nikita the Stylite
Tuesday of the 5th Sunday of Pascha
Paschaltide, day 31 · 30 days since Pascha
Saints commemorated
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Saint of the day
Ven. Simeon the Stylite
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Saint of the day
Ven. Nikita the Stylite
Nicetas of Pereyaslavl (†1186) was a tax-farmer of the newly founded Russian city of Pereyaslavl-Zalessky who grew rich by extortion, was converted by a verse of Isaiah and by a terrible vision in his own kitchen, and became the first and most famous stylite of the Russian land — though his "pillar" was a pit dug in the earth, in which he stood in heavy iron chains and a stone cap, with a covered passage to the monastery church. He was murdered by night on 24 May 1186 by kinsmen who mistook his polished chains for silver. The recovery of the chains from the Volga, the incorrupt relics uncovered under Metropolitan Photius, and the devotion of Ivan the Terrible made the Nikitsky monastery one of the notable shrines of Muscovite Russia.
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St Vincent of Lerins (445)
Vincent of Lérins (†c. 445) was a Gallic monk and priest of the island monastery of Lérins off the coast of Provence, and the author of the Commonitorium — the short treatise, written about 434 under the pen-name Peregrinus, "the Pilgrim," which laid down the most famous of all rules for distinguishing the apostolic faith from innovation: what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all. With it he set out, no less importantly, the principle that the faith may genuinely grow while never changing — profectus, non permutatio. He wrote three years after the Council of Ephesus and in its defence, upholding the title Theotokos against Nestorius. The Orthodox Church commemorates him on May 24.
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Meletius Stratelates and Companions
Meletius, called Stratelates ("the General"), was by the synaxarial tradition a Christian military commander in Galatia in Asia Minor in the second century, under the emperor Antoninus Pius, who with the soldiers of his command destroyed the idol-temples of the province and was put to death for it by the governor Maximian, together with an immense company — the tribunes Stephen and John, a long roll of named soldiers, the women Marciana, Susanna and Palladia, the infants Kyriakos and Christian, the Egyptian Serapion, and the converted sorcerer Callinicus. The transmitted number of those who suffered with him is 1,218, though some notices give figures as high as eleven thousand. The company is commemorated with the Antiochene stylite on May 24.
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Symeon the Stylite of the Wonderful Mountain
Symeon of the Wonderful Mountain (521–596), called the Younger to distinguish him from his great namesake, is the supreme ascetic of the Antiochene church in the sixth century: a Syrian who mounted a pillar as a child of seven and stood on one for sixty-eight years, the last of them on the Wonderful Mountain (Θαυμαστὸν Ὄρος, Mons Admirabilis) above the road between Antioch and Seleucia Pieria, where a great monastery and one of the chief pilgrimage shrines of Syria grew up around his column. Orphaned by the earthquake of 526, raised by his mother St Martha (July 4), ordained deacon and then priest on the column itself, he was a wonderworker of vast reputation — healing, reading hearts, foretelling earthquake, plague and Persian invasion — whose blessing-tokens of clay travelled the whole Mediterranean. His enormous Life, written by an eyewitness disciple, is one of the richest documents surviving from sixth-century Syria.
Readings
Epistle
Acts 12.25-13.12
25And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem, when they had fulfilled their ministry, and took with them John, whose surname was Mark. 1Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. 3And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. 4So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. 5And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews: and they had also John to their minister. 6And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-jesus: 7Which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God. 8But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. 9Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, 10And said, O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? 11And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand. 12Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord.
Gospel
John 8.51-59
51Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. 52Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. 53Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself? 54Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God: 55Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying. 56Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. 57Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? 58Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. 59Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
Troparia & kontakia
Kontakion — Tone 2
Set as a lamp upon the Wonderful Mountain, thou didst shine upon Antioch and upon all the Syrian land; from childhood thou didst make the pillar thy dwelling, and standing between earth and heaven thou wast made a priest of the Most High. O Symeon, wonderworker and intercessor, pray unceasingly for those who honour thee.
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of martyrs)
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest 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 — Tone 4
Enlightened from on high by the words of the prophet, thou didst turn from robbery to repentance, and hast washed away with tears the wrong thou didst thy brethren; bound in iron and hidden in the earth, thou didst stand unshaken in prayer, and wast made a fountain of healings. O Nicetas, our venerable father, entreat Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 1
Thou didst become a pillar of patience, O God-bearing father, and didst rival the forefathers: Job in his sufferings and Joseph in his temptations, living as one of the bodiless powers while yet in the flesh. O Symeon, our venerable father, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)
O guardian of the faith delivered to the saints, thou didst teach the Church to know her own voice: what is believed everywhere, from the beginning, and by all. Dwelling on the island of Lérins as a pilgrim and a stranger, thou didst confess the Word made flesh of the Theotokos. O Vincent, our venerable father, entreat Christ God that our souls may be saved.