Pre-Lenten Triodion, day 6 · 65 days until Pascha
Saints commemorated
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Saint of the day
Righteous Simeon the Godbearer and Anna the Prophetess
Anna the Prophetess (Ἄννα ἡ Προφῆτις) is the aged widow of the tribe of Asher who, with the righteous Symeon, witnessed to the infant Christ at his Presentation in the Temple (Luke 2:36–38). "A prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel," she had lived with a husband seven years and remained a widow to a great age, "which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day." Coming forward at the very hour Symeon held the Child, "she gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem." She is one of the few women the Scriptures call a prophetess, and the Church honours her as the last prophetess of the Old Covenant and the first evangelist of the Temple, proclaiming the Redeemer to the waiting remnant. With Symeon the God-receiver she leads the afterfeast of the Meeting, commemorated on February 3. She is not to be confused with Anna the mother of the Theotokos, nor with Hannah the mother of Samuel.
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Our Father among the Saints, Nikolai (Nicholas), Archbishop and Enlightener of Japan (1912)
Nicholas of Japan (Ivan Dmitrievich Kasatkin, 1836–1912) was the founder and first hierarch of the Orthodox Church in Japan, honoured as Equal-to-the- Apostles for a missionary labour of half a century. A Russian priest who came to the consulate at Hakodate in 1861, he gave himself to the language, literature, and mind of Japan so completely that he rendered the Scriptures and the whole round of the services into Japanese, and gathered from nothing a native Church of tens of thousands, served by Japanese clergy and catechists. As bishop and then archbishop he built the great Holy Resurrection Cathedral in Tokyo — known to the city as Nikolai-do, "Nicholas's house" — and through the Russo-Japanese War he remained at his post, bidding his Japanese flock pray for their own country and its soldiers even as he, a Russian, kept silence. He reposed in Tokyo on February 3, 1912, and was glorified as a saint in 1970. He is one of the great apostolic missionaries of the modern age.
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Adrian and Eubulus
Adrian and Eubulus were two Christians of the region of Batanea who, at the height of the Diocletianic persecution, came to Caesarea to visit and comfort the confessors imprisoned there and were themselves seized. Brought before the governor Firmilian and refusing to sacrifice, they were cruelly tortured and condemned to the beasts of the amphitheatre: Adrian, after being given to a lion that did not finish him, was dispatched by the sword; Eubulus, offered his freedom if only he would sacrifice, chose death and suffered two days later — by the tradition preserved in Eusebius, the very last of the martyrs of Caesarea in that persecution. They are commemorated on February 3, and their courage in seeking out the imprisoned made them a byword for the works of mercy that the persecution could not extinguish.
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Azariah the Prophet
Azariah, son of Oded, is the Old-Testament prophet who, "the Spirit of God coming upon him," went out to meet King Asa of Judah as he returned from victory and summoned him to reform: "The Lord is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you" (2 Chronicles 15:1–7). His word moved the king to purge idols from Judah and Benjamin, to restore the altar of the Lord, and to gather the people to a great covenant, so that "they sought God with their whole desire, and he was found of them." Azariah flourished in the early ninth century before Christ; the Church commemorates him on February 3. He is not to be confused with Azarias, one of the Three Holy Youths in the furnace, nor with the many other bearers of this common Hebrew name.
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Blaise of Caesarea
Blaise the Herdsman (Βλάσιος ὁ Βουκόλος, "the cowherd") was a simple keeper of cattle near Caesarea in Cappadocia who, in the persecutions of the third century, was seized for confessing Christ and refusing to sacrifice to the idols. Tortured, hung upon a tree and his flesh torn with iron, he endured with the constancy of the great martyrs, and — the tradition holds — was attended even by the beasts of his herd, which followed him and would not leave him; he was at last beheaded. He is commemorated on February 3. He is to be distinguished carefully from the more famous Blaise (Vlasios) the Bishop of Sebaste (February 11), the physician-hieromartyr with whom, sharing both name and an association with animals, he is very frequently confused.
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Symeon the God-receiver
Symeon the God-receiver (Θεοδόχος, "he who received God") is the righteous and aged elder of Jerusalem who, "just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel," took the forty-day-old Christ-child into his arms in the Temple and knew him for the Salvation of God (Luke 2:25–35). To him the Holy Spirit had revealed "that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ"; and holding the Infant he sang the last of the Gospel canticles — "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace… for mine eyes have seen thy salvation" — the Nunc Dimittis that the Church prays at every Vespers. He blessed the Mother and foretold to her the sword that should pierce her own soul. A cherished tradition numbers him among the Seventy translators of the Septuagint, kept alive across centuries until the prophecy he had doubted — the Virgin who should conceive — was fulfilled before his eyes. With Anna the Prophetess he leads the afterfeast of the Meeting, commemorated on February 3.
British Isles and Ireland
- St. Caellainn of Roscommon (6th C)
- Holy Martyr Ia (Ives) of Cornwall (450)
- St. Werburgh of Chester, abbess of Hanbury (700)
- St. Werburgh, abbess of Bardney (c.785)
- St. Anatoolius, Scots bishop (9th C)
Readings
Epistle
1 John 2.7-17
7Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. 8Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. 9He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. 11But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. 12I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake. 13I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. 14I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. 15Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
Gospel
Mark 14.3-9
3And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head. 4And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? 5For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her. 6And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me. 7For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always. 8She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying. 9Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.
Troparia & kontakia
Canticle
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. (Luke 2:29–32)
Kontakion — Tone 1
Thou who by thy birth didst sanctify the Virgin womb, and as was fitting didst bless the hands of Symeon, hast now come and saved us, O Christ our God. Give peace amid wars unto thy commonwealth, and strengthen those whom thou hast loved, O only Lover of mankind.
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy martyrs, O Lord, in their contest received incorruptible crowns from thee our God; for possessed of thy might, they cast down the tyrants and shattered the powerless boldness of the demons. By their prayers, O Christ our God, save thou our souls.
Troparion — Tone 1
In thee, O mother, was the divine image surely preserved; for thou didst take up the cross and 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 thy spirit, O righteous Anna, rejoiceth with the angels.
Troparion — Tone 2
Keeping the memory of thy prophet Azariah, O Lord, through him we beseech thee: save thou our souls.
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy martyr Blaise, O Lord, in his contest received an incorruptible crown from thee our God; for possessed of thy might, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the powerless boldness of the demons. By his prayers, O Christ our God, save thou our souls.
Troparion — Tone 1
Rejoice, O Virgin Theotokos, full of grace, for from thee has dawned the Sun of Righteousness, Christ our God, enlightening those in darkness. Be glad, O righteous Elder, thou who didst receive in thine arms the Deliverer of our souls, who granteth unto us the resurrection.