Thursday 7 September 2034
Martyr Sozon of Cilicia; St John, Archbishop of Novgorod
Thursday of the 15th week after Pentecost
Saints commemorated
-
Saint of the day
Martyr Sozon of Cilicia
Sozon (†c. 304) was a young Christian shepherd of Lycaonia, named Tarasios before his baptism, who suffered martyrdom at Pompeiopolis in Cilicia during the last great persecution. Warned of his coming contest in a vision at a spring where he watered his flock, he went to Pompeiopolis, broke the golden hand from a pagan idol and gave the gold to the poor, then surrendered himself so that no one else would suffer for his deed. Tortured with iron claws, iron boots nailed to his feet, and rods, he died confessing Christ. He is the chief saint of September 7, with a proper kontakion and a full canon in the Menaion.
-
Saint of the day
St John, Archbishop of Novgorod
-
Saint of the day
Martyr Sozon of Cilicia (208/304)
-
Holy Apostles Evodus and Onesiphorus of the Seventy
Onesiphorus (1st century) is the disciple whom the Apostle Paul blesses by name in his last letter: "he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain, but when he was in Rome he sought me out diligently and found me" (2 Timothy 1:16–17). Counted among the Seventy Apostles, he is held by tradition to have served Paul at Ephesus, to have become bishop of Colophon in Asia Minor and afterwards of Corinth, and to have died a martyr at Parium on the Hellespont, where he had gone to preach Christ. He is commemorated on September 7 with the Apostle Evodus, on December 8 with six fellow apostles of the Seventy, and on January 4 with all the Seventy.
-
Holy Martyr Eupsychyius of Caesarea (2nd c.)
-
St Kassia (Kassiani) the Hymnographer (9th c.)
Kassiani (Kassia, Ikasia; c. 805/810 – c. 865) is the one woman whose hymnography stands, under her own name, in the received liturgical books of the Byzantine Church. A noblewoman of Constantinople, she is remembered in the chronicles as the candidate who lost the bride-show of the emperor Theophilos by answering him back about Eve; she is remembered in the letters of Theodore the Studite as a learned young woman who supported the imprisoned monks of the icons in the second iconoclasm, and was scourged for it; and she is remembered in the service books as the author of the doxastikon of Great and Holy Wednesday — Κύριε, ἡ ἐν πολλαῖς ἁμαρτίαις περιπεσοῦσα γυνή, "O Lord, the woman fallen into many sins" — the single most anticipated piece of chant in the Greek liturgical year. She founded and ruled a convent in the west of the capital, on the Xerolophos, the seventh hill; some two dozen of her hymns are securely hers, among them the Christmas Eve sticheron When Augustus reigned alone upon the earth and part of the canon of Great Saturday; and beside the hymns she left a body of epigrams and gnomic verses unlike anything else surviving from a Byzantine woman's hand — sharp, classicising, and often mordant. She is commemorated on September 7.
-
Eupsychius of Caesarea
Eupsychius (2nd century) was a Christian of Caesarea in Cappadocia — called in some synaxaria the son of a senator, Dionysius — who was martyred in the persecution under the emperor Hadrian. Arrested and tortured, he was healed of his wounds in prison by an angel; released, he gave away his goods to the poor, including a portion to the very informers who had denounced him. Seized again under a new governor, he was hung up, torn with iron hooks, and beheaded. He is commemorated on September 7, and is to be distinguished from the later and more famous Eupsychius of the same city, martyred under Julian (April 9) — whom many hold to be, in fact, the same martyr doubled.
-
Evodus of Antioch
Evodus (†c. 66) was one of the Seventy Apostles and the first bishop of Antioch after the Apostle Peter, the predecessor of Ignatius the God-bearer in the see from which the Patriarchate of Antioch descends. Eusebius names him first in the Antiochian succession, and a later tradition credits him with coining the name "Christians," first given to the disciples at Antioch. He is said to have shepherded the Antiochian church for some twenty-seven years and to have died a martyr, under Nero by the most common account. His writings, among them a book called The Star, are lost. He is commemorated on September 7 with the Apostle Onesiphorus, and with all the Seventy on January 4.
-
Alcmund of Hexham
Alcmund (†780/781) was the seventh bishop of Hexham in Northumbria, holding the see of Wilfrid, John of Beverley and Acca from his consecration in 767 until his death on September 7, 780 or 781. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records his death to the day, and nothing of his acts is recorded beyond the annals of his episcopate; his sanctity is attested instead by his cultus at Hexham, where he was buried beside St Acca, and by the eleventh-century elevation of his relics into the church after — the Durham tradition says — he appeared in a vision commanding it. He is commemorated with his successor Tilbert on September 7.
-
Balin
Balin (Balloin, Balanus; 7th century) was an Englishman who became a monk in Ireland: a brother of St Gerald of Mayo, and one of four brothers — Gerald, Balin, Berikert and Hubritan — who, the Irish tradition records, came from England to Ireland after the middle of the seventh century, in the generation when St Colman of Lindisfarne withdrew to Connaught with his English monks. Balin settled at Tech-Saxan, "the House of the Saxons," in what is now the parish of Athenry, County Galway, in the diocese of Tuam. The Irish martyrologies record his festival on September 3; the York calendar and Orthodox England commemorate him on September 7.
-
Tilbert of Hexham
Tilbert (Tilberht; †789) was the eighth bishop of Hexham in Northumbria, consecrated in the autumn of 780 or 781 in succession to Alcmund and holding the see until his death in 789. The record of him is a handful of annal lines: his consecration on October 2, his presence at the consecration of Aldulf, bishop of the Saxon monastery of Mayo, at Corbridge in 786, and his subscription at the Northumbrian synod of Pincanheale in 788. Nothing else of his acts survives. He is venerated with Alcmund on September 7, the pair carried together by the Benedictine martyrologies and by the modern Orthodox calendars of Britain.
British Isles and Ireland
- Holy martyr Grimonia (4th C)
Readings
Epistle
Galatians 3.23-4.5
23But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 24Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. 26For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. 27For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. 29And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. 1Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; 2But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. 3Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: 4But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Gospel
Mark 6.30-45
30And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. 31And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. 32And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. 33And the people saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him. 34And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things. 35And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed: 36Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat. 37He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat? 38He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes. 39And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. 40And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties. 41And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all. 42And they did all eat, and were filled. 43And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes. 44And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men. 45And straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side before unto Bethsaida, while he sent away the people.
Troparia & kontakia
Kontakion — Tone 2
Thou didst appear to the world as a bright and undeceiving star, heralding Christ the Sun by thy radiance, O sufferer for Christ Eupsychius; and thou didst quench all delusion, and dost give light to us, praying unceasingly for us all.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Thou didst answer the emperor and wast passed over, and having found the Bridegroom who passeth none by, thou didst give him thy whole mind; and putting on the habit of mourning, thou wast made an instrument of the Spirit, and out of thy silence gavest the Church her sweetest words. Therefore we cry to thee: Rejoice, O Kassiani, voice of the penitent.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Assembling today, let us with loud voices praise the true and divinely wise martyr, the proven champion of godliness, Sozon, the initiate of grace, the most bountiful giver of healings; for he prays to Christ God for us all.
The
O Lord, the woman who had fallen into many sins, perceiving thy Godhead, took upon herself the office of a myrrhbearer, and lamenting brought thee myrrh before thy burial. "Woe is me," she cried, "for night is upon me, the goad of licentiousness, a love of sin murky and moonless. Receive the fountains of my tears, thou who drawest up the water of the sea into the clouds; bend thyself to the groanings of my heart, thou who didst bow down the heavens by thine unutterable self-emptying. I will kiss thy spotless feet, and wipe them again with the hair of my head — those feet at whose sound Eve, in Paradise at eventide, hid herself for fear. The multitude of my sins and the depths of thy judgements, who shall trace them out, O Saviour of souls, my Saviour? Do not overlook me, thy servant, thou who hast mercy without measure."
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy martyr Eupsychius, O Lord, in his contest received the crown of incorruption from thee, our God; for possessing thy strength he cast down the tyrants and broke the feeble insolence of the demons. By his prayers, O Christ God, save our souls.
Troparion — Tone 3
Holy Apostle Evodus, intercede with the merciful God, that he grant to our souls the forgiveness of offences.
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable woman)
In thee, O Mother, was the divine likeness surely preserved: for taking up the Cross, thou didst follow after Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to overlook the flesh, for it passeth away, but to care rather for the soul, a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Kassiani, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Troparion — Tone 3
Holy Apostle Onesiphorus, intercede with the merciful God, that he grant to our souls the forgiveness of offences.
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy martyr Sozon, O Lord, in his contest received the crown of incorruption from thee, our God; for possessing thy strength he cast down the tyrants and broke the feeble insolence of the demons. By his prayers, O Christ God, save our souls.