Tuesday, 20 February 2024

75 days before Pascha · Tone 4 · Liturgy · No Fast

Saints commemorated

Saint Agatho, pope of Rome

Saint Agatho was born of Greek parents in Sicily towards the end of the sixth century. From his youth he embraced the monastic life and entered the monastery of Saint Hermas in Palermo, where he was distinguished for his humility, his learning and his gentleness. After many years of monastic labour he was called to the service of the Roman Church and elected to the apostolic see, succeeding Pope Donus on 27 June 678. His brief pontificate was crowned by the Sixth Ecumenical Council, which was convened at Constantinople in 680 at the request of the emperor Constantine IV to deal with the heresy of Monothelitism, which taught that there was only one will in Christ. Saint Agatho sent his legates to the council together with a dogmatic epistle in which he confessed, in the name of the apostolic see, the traditional faith of the Church in the two wills and two natural operations of the incarnate Word. His letter was read at the council and was received by the assembled fathers as agreeing with the teaching of the holy apostles, the ecumenical synods and the great fathers. The council, completing its work in September 681, condemned Monothelitism and anathematised those who had taught it. Saint Agatho did not live to see the conclusion, having reposed peacefully in Rome on 10 January 681. He is honoured as a saint in both the Eastern and Western Churches; in the Greek calendar his memory is kept on this day.

Saint Leo, Bishop of Catania

He lived at the time of the first persecutions of the holy icons. He was born in Ravenna to a noble family, and became bishop of his native city. Soon his reputation as a true shepherd of Christ’s flock spread, and he was elected Bishop of Catania in Sicily. As is so often true even today, the city, though nominally Christian, was plagued by superstition and paganism. The holy bishop set about to turn the people away from error: by his prayers he caused a pagan temple to collapse and built a church on its site, dedicated to the Forty Maryrs of Sebaste. At that time the entire island was under the oppressive rule of a magus named Heliodorus, who used all his magical skills to oppress the people and advance himself. Though he had been taken captive by Imperial order, and condemned to death, he was always able to escape his captors by his occult skills. Saint Leo, who sought the conversion of everyone, did his best to turn the magus to Christ, but to no effect. One day Heliodorus entered the church during the Divine Liturgy, mocking the Mysteries of Christ. The Saint came out of the sanctuary and, casting his omophorion over the mocker, instantly deprived him of his demonic powers. The Prefect of Sicily ordered the magus to be burnt alive. Bishop Leo went to the stake with him, but emerged unmarked without even the smell of fire upon him, while Heliodorus was burnt to ashes.

Saint Leo’s fierceness in defense of the Faith was matched by his love and compassion for the poor and defenseless, for whom he poured himself out unceasingly with prayers, alms and visitation. By his prayers he restored sight to the blind and healed the paralyzed. After his repose, his holy relics, which exuded a fragrant myrrh, were venerated in a church that he had founded in honor of Saint Lucia.

Saint Sadoth of Persia

Saint Sadoth was a holy bishop who laboured in Persia and remained faithful to the Orthodox Gospel despite fierce persecution. He endured torment and death rather than renounce his faith in Christ. According to Church tradition, Sadoth and his faithful companions were imprisoned and martyred for refusing to submit to idolatrous practices. His martyrdom exemplified the cost of discipleship and the triumph of the Cross over worldly power. The Orthodox Church venerates Saint Sadoth as a powerful intercessor and martyr whose witness strengthened the faith of countless believers.

Saint Wulfric of Haselbury, anchorite

1154

Saint Wulfric was born about the year 1080 at Compton Martin in Somerset, England. He was ordained to the priesthood and served first at Deverill near Warminster, where in his early years he gave himself more to hunting with hawk and hound than to the cure of souls. A chance encounter with a beggar, who reproached him for his worldliness and warned him to amend his life, brought him to deep repentance. About the year 1125 Wulfric returned to his native country and settled at Haselbury Plucknett, where he received the bishop's blessing to enclose himself as an anchorite in a cell built against the wall of the church of Saint Michael. There he lived for nearly thirty years in unceasing prayer, fasting and silence. He copied and bound books, sang the psalter standing in a barrel of cold water, wore a coat of mail beneath his habit, and slept little. He was honoured by King Henry I and King Stephen, who came to him for counsel, and was sought by the simple and the great alike for the gift of prophecy and for healing. Saint Wulfric reposed on 20 February in the year 1154 and was buried in his cell at Haselbury, where his tomb became a place of pilgrimage. His life was written by John, abbot of Forde, who had known many of his friends and disciples. He is honoured among the saints of the British Isles in the Orthodox tradition.

St Bessarion the Great, wonder-worker of Egypt

466

“An Egyptian by birth, Abba Bessarion was initiated into the angelic life by Saint Anthony the Great. He later became a disciple of Saint Macarius, the founder of Scetis (19 Jan.), and then set out to lead the life of a wanderer, borne hither and thither by Providence like a bird by the wind. All his wealth lay in the Gospel, which he always had in his hand. Living in the open air, he patiently endured all weathers, untroubled by care for a dwelling or for clothing. Fortified by the strength of the faith, he thus remained untouched by all the passions of the flesh. “On coming to a monastery where the brethren led the common life, he would sit weeping at the gate. A brother once offered him hospitality and asked why he was distressed. ‘I cannot live under a roof, until I have regained the wealth of my house,’ he replied, meaning the heavenly inheritance lost since Adam. ‘I am afflicted, in danger of death every day, and without rest because of my huge misfortunes, which oblige me ever to travel on in order to finish my course.’ “He wandered for forty years without ever lying down to sleep, and he spent all of forty days and forty nights standing wide awake in a thorn bush. One winter’s day, he was walking through a village when he came upon a dead man. Without hesitation, he took off his own coat and covered the body. A little further on, he gave his tunic to a poor man who was shivering in the cold. An army officer, who happened to be passing, saw the naked ascetic and wanted to know who had stripped him of his clothing. ‘He did!’ replied Bessarion, holding up the Gospel Book. On another occasion, he met with a poor man and, having nothing to give him in alms, he hurried to the market in order to sell his Gospel Book. On his disciple’s asking him where the Book was, he replied cheerfully, ‘I have sold it in obedience to the words which I never cease to hear: Go, sell what you possess and give to the poor‘ (Matt. 19:21). “Through this evangelic way of life he became a chosen vessel of Grace, and God wrought many miracles through him. One day, for example, he made sea water sweet through the sign of the Cross, to quench his disciple’s thirst. When the latter wanted to keep some for the remainder of the journey, he prevented him, saying, ‘God is here, God is everywhere!’ At another time, having stood for two weeks in prayer with hands raised to heaven, he brought about rain enough to fill a thirsty brother’s coat. Then there was the time when he stopped the sun from setting until he reached the cell of an elder whom he wished to meet; and the time when he walked across the waters of a river. Through these and many other wonders wrought by the Saint, God showed, as He did with Moses, Joshua and Elias, that He grants His servants mastery even over natural phenomena. Through the power of Christ, he raised a paralytic, drove out demons and showed himself truly to be a ‘god’ upon the earth. “When, having reached his goal, he was at the point of regaining that dwelling in heaven which he had sought throughout his wanderings, he said to those about him, ‘The monk ought, like the cherubim, to be all eye.’ “In answer to a brother who asked what a monk living in community ought to do, he replied: ‘Keep silence and do not measure yourself.’ Indeed, this is how even in the midst of people one can obtain the grace of the great anchorites.” (Synaxarion)

Thirty-four Holy Martyrs of the Monastery of Valaam

1578

These thirty-four venerable fathers of the Monastery of the Transfiguration at Valaam on Lake Ladoga were massacred by a party of converts to Lutheranism who besieged the monastery and attempted to make the brethren renounce the Orthodox Faith.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

1 Peter — 1 Peter 3.10-22

¹⁰For, He that would love life, And see good days, Let him refrain his tongue from evil, And his lips that they speak no guile: ¹⁰For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: ¹¹And let him turn away from evil, and do good; Let him seek peace, and pursue it. ¹¹Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it. ¹²For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, And his ears unto their supplication: But the face of the Lord is upon them that do evil. ¹²For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.

¹³And who is he that will harm you, if ye be zealous of that which is good?

¹³And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? ¹⁴But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; ¹⁴But even if ye should suffer for righteousness’ sake, blessed are ye: and fear not their fear, neither be troubled; ¹⁵But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: ¹⁵but sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord: being ready always to give answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, yet with meekness and fear: ¹⁶having a good conscience; that, wherein ye are spoken against, they may be put to shame who revile your good manner of life in Christ. ¹⁶Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. ¹⁷For it is better, if the will of God should so will, that ye suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing. ¹⁷For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. ¹⁸Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; ¹⁸For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: ¹⁹By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; ¹⁹in which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, ²⁰Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. ²⁰that aforetime were disobedient, when the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water: ²¹which also after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ; ²¹The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: ²²Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him. ²²who is on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Mark — Mark 12.18-27

¹⁸Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying,

¹⁸And there come unto him Sadducees, who say that there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying, ¹⁹Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man’s brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. ¹⁹Teacher, Moses wrote unto us, If a man’s brother die, and leave a wife behind him, and leave no child, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. ²⁰Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed. ²⁰There were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed; ²¹And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise. ²¹and the second took her, and died, leaving no seed behind him; and the third likewise: ²²and the seven left no seed. Last of all the woman also died. ²²And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also. ²³In the resurrection whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife. ²³In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife. ²⁴Jesus said unto them, Is it not for this cause that ye err, that ye know not the scriptures, nor the power of God? ²⁴And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God? ²⁵For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. ²⁵For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as angels in heaven. ²⁶And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? ²⁶But as touching the dead, that they are raised; have ye not read in the book of Moses, in the place concerning the Bush, how God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? ²⁷He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err. ²⁷He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: ye do greatly err.