Paschaltide, day 36 · 35 days since Pascha
Blind Man
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Saints commemorated
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Virgin Martyr Theodosia of Tyre
Theodosia was a nun of the monastery of the Martyr Anastasia at Constantinople who, when soldiers of the emperor Leo III the Isaurian came to take down the venerated image of Christ that hung above the great bronze Chalke Gate of the imperial palace, ran with other women of the city, shook the ladder until the officer on it fell to his death, and was seized, beaten through a week of imprisonment, dragged to the Forum of the Ox and killed by a ram's horn driven into her throat. She is honoured as the first martyr of the iconoclast persecution — a monastic woman who met the first act of official iconoclasm with her own hands — and her shrine at the church of St Euphemia en to Petrio, afterwards renamed for her, became one of the great healing-shrines of Byzantine Constantinople. She is not Theodosia of Tyre, the maiden martyred in Palestine in 307, with whom the calendars constantly confuse her.
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Rep. Bl. John of Ustiug
John of Ustyug (†29 May 1494) is the second of the two great fools-for-Christ of Great Ustyug in the Russian north, and one of the purest examples of the type: a young man of peasant stock who fasted from childhood, went barefoot and in rags through the Ustyug winters, slept on dung-heaps, prayed the nights through in a hut beside the city's Dormition cathedral, and bore the mockery of the town as his ascetic labour. He died young, and his tomb by the cathedral at once became a place of healing; the Russian Church honours him as a wonderworker and as an intercessor in the wars and invasions of the northern lands. He is the direct successor in that city of Procopius of Ustyug (†1303), the first Russian holy fool, with whom he is venerated as one of the Ustyug wonderworkers.
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Commemoration of the First Ecumenical Council (325)
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The Fall of Constantinople (1453); "Blessed Constantine XII, last of the Byzantine emperors, martyred by the Turks (1453)"
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Alexander of Alexandria
Alexander, archbishop and pope of Alexandria from 313 until his death, is the hierarch who first identified and condemned the heresy of Arius — a priest of his own city and of his own clergy — and who thereby began the struggle that produced the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325 and the Creed of the Church. He deposed Arius in synod, circulated encyclical letters that put the whole episcopate on notice, went up to Nicaea as the chief accuser, and left as his successor his deacon and secretary Athanasius the Great, whom he had formed. He reposed within a few years of the Council, and the Church keeps his memory on May 29, close by the commemoration of the Fathers whose work he began.
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Hypomone the Empress
Hypomone — "Patience" — was the monastic name of Helena Dragaš, the Serbian-born empress of Manuel II Palaiologos, mother of two Byzantine emperors and grandmother of none, who after her husband's death took the veil in the convent of Kyra Martha at Constantinople and lived out her life there as a nun while remaining the moral centre of the imperial house. She bore John VIII and Constantine XI, the last emperor, who took her family name and reigned as Constantine Dragases Palaiologos; she governed as regent in the interval between their reigns; and she held firmly against the union of Florence. She died on 23 March 1450, three years before the City fell, and the Greek Church keeps her memory on May 29 — the day of the fall — so that the mother is commemorated with the son and the end of the empire.
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Luke of Simferopol
Luke of Simferopol — in the world Valentin Felixovich Voino-Yasenetsky (1877–1961) — was one of the foremost surgeons of the Russian twentieth century and, at the same time, a bishop who spent eleven years in Soviet prisons and exile for refusing to be silent. He pioneered regional anaesthesia, wrote the Essays on the Surgery of Purulent Infections that trained generations of Russian surgeons, operated in a cassock with an icon in the theatre, was tonsured and consecrated in secret in 1923, was arrested three times, ran the military hospitals of Krasnoyarsk as an exile through the Second World War, was given the Stalin Prize in 1946 and gave most of it away, governed the see of Simferopol and Crimea from 1946, went blind in his last years and went on preaching, and died on 29 May (civil 11 June) 1961. His relics were uncovered in 1996 and he is venerated with extraordinary warmth in Russia, Ukraine and above all in Greece, where he is invoked before surgery as the physician-hierarch of the modern world.
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Martyred Fathers and Mothers of Atchara
The Martyred Fathers and Mothers of Atchara are the Christians — men and women, and by the name of the commemoration chiefly the elderly — of the mountainous Georgian province on the Black Sea coast who, through the long generations of Ottoman rule, were put to death for refusing to renounce Christ and accept Islam. They are venerated as a company rather than as named individuals: the hangings and beheadings were carried out village by village over roughly a century, with the year 1790 transmitted as the culminating persecution, and the bridge over the Atcharistsqali river — the medieval "Bridge of Queen Tamar" — remembered as the chief place of execution. The Georgian Church canonised them collectively, and keeps their memory on May 29.
Troparia & kontakia
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a hierarch)
The truth of things hath shown thee to thy flock as a rule of faith, an image of meekness and a teacher of temperance; therefore thou hast attained the heights by humility and riches by poverty. O father and hierarch Alexander, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Apolytikion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable woman)
In thee, O mother, the image of God was preserved with exactness; for taking up the Cross, thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, which passeth away, and to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Hypomone, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a hierarch)
The truth of things hath shown thee to thy flock as a rule of faith, an image of meekness and a teacher of temperance; therefore thou hast attained the heights by humility and riches by poverty. O father and hierarch Luke, intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
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
Thou didst discern the wolf in the sheepfold and didst not spare him, O wise hierarch, but didst cast down the blasphemy that made the Word a creature; and having summoned the shepherds of the whole earth to the judgement of the truth, thou didst leave Athanasius as thine heir. O father Alexander, pray for us who honour thee.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Thou wast crowned in the Great Church as empress and didst lay the crown down for the black habit, and thy very name became thy labour; for thou didst endure the ruin of the City's hope, and didst keep the faith undivided when others would have bartered it. O venerable mother Hypomone, teach us thy patience.
Kontakion — Tone 8
From thy childhood thou didst fast, and in thy youth thou didst cast away the honour of men; thou hadst a hut for thy cell and the dung-heap for thy bed, and the city that laughed at thee now runs to thy tomb for healing. Rejoice, O blessed John, boast of Ustyug and helper in the day of invasion.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Thou didst take the knife to heal and the cross to preach, and neither prison nor the northern ice could part thee from either; blind at the last, thou didst see more than thy persecutors. O holy hierarch and physician Luke, stretch out thy hand over those who lie under the surgeon's knife, and pray for our souls.
Kontakion — Tone 2
The fathers and mothers of Atchara would not sell Christ for their fields and their peace, and being grey-headed they were led to the bridge over the river and slain; their names are written in no book of ours, but in the book of life. O holy martyrs of Atchara, pray for the land that the Apostle first hallowed.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Thou didst spend thy patrimony upon the holy images, and for an image thou didst give thy blood; for when the destroyer set his hand to the Saviour's likeness above the gate, thou didst cast him down, O bride of Christ, and didst receive the ram's horn as a crown. Wherefore, O venerable martyr Theodosia, pray that our souls may be kept in the true faith.
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.
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a fool-for-Christ)
Thou didst hear the Apostle crying, *We are fools for Christ's sake*, and didst make his word thy whole life; naked and mocked thou didst walk the streets of thy city, and in the ashes of the furnace thou wast not burned, for the fire of the Spirit was within thee. O blessed John, pray to Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of several 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 (common of a woman-martyr)
Thy lamb, O Jesus, crieth with a loud voice: Thee, O my Bridegroom, do I love, and seeking Thee I pass through many sufferings; I am crucified and buried with Thee in Thy baptism, and I suffer for Thy sake that I may reign with Thee; I die for Thee that I may live in Thee. Accept me as a spotless sacrifice offered in love. By her prayers, O merciful One, 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.