Friday, 12 April 2024

Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent

23 days before Pascha · Tone 3 · Presanctified · Lenten Fast

Presanctified Liturgy

Saints commemorated

Hieromartyr Zeno, Bishop of Verona

558

Saint Zeno of Verona, who flourished in the fourth century, is venerated as a saint by both the Eastern Orthodox and the Latin Church. According to his Greek synaxarion he was a Greek by descent, born in Syria, who in his youth embraced the monastic life and devoted himself to the study of Holy Scripture. After visiting several monasteries he came to the city of Verona in Italy and settled there, and the people, recognising his holiness, chose him as their bishop after the death of Bishop Gricinus, around the year 362. As shepherd of Verona he laboured for the salvation of his flock, baptising many new converts from paganism and reclaiming many who had been led away by the Arian heresy. The reigns of the emperors Constantius and Valens, who supported Arianism, brought renewed oppression upon the Orthodox, and Saint Zeno bore his share of suffering with apostolic patience. His ten years of episcopal ministry were marked by powerful preaching, of which a substantial collection of homilies survives. Saint Gregory the Dialogist records the great miracle that took place in the year 558, when on the feast day of Saint Zeno the river Adige overflowed and surrounded the church built in his honour at Verona. Although the doors stood open the water did not enter, but stopped at the threshold, and so the church was kept dry and unharmed. Saint Zeno reposed in peace around the year 371.

Holy Martyr Sabbas the Goth

372

Saint Sabbas was born around the year 334 in a village of the Buzau river valley, in what is now Romania. A Goth by race, he embraced the Faith of Christ in his youth and lived an exemplary Christian life among his pagan kinsmen, serving the church of his village as a reader and singer. He was known for his strict refusal to eat meat that had been offered to the gods of the Goths, and on more than one occasion he openly rebuked his fellow villagers who tried to disguise the source of such food in order to spare him. Twice he was driven from his home, and each time he returned and continued his witness. Under the persecution unleashed by Athanaric, king of the Goths, in the year 372, Saint Sabbas spent Easter with the priest Sansalas. Three days after the feast Atharid, son of the sub-king Rothesteus, came to the village and arrested both Sansalas and Sabbas. Sabbas was dragged naked through thorns, racked upon the wheel and beaten with rods, but his joy in suffering remained unshaken. Finally he was condemned to be drowned in the river Mousaios (the modern Buzau), a tributary of the Danube. As his executioners reached the river Sabbas exclaimed, "Why do you delay? I see what you cannot see, the saints standing there in glory who have come to receive me." A heavy beam was pressed against his neck and he was thrust beneath the water, receiving the crown of martyrdom on 12 April 372 at the age of thirty-eight. His relics were translated to Caesarea in Cappadocia at the request of Saint Basil the Great.

Saint Basil the Confessor, Bishop of Parium

Saint Basil the Confessor lived during the eighth century and was the holy bishop of Parium on the Hellespont. From his youth he embraced the monastic life, devoting himself to fasting, vigil and prayer, and he was elected by the people of Parium as their shepherd because of his manifest virtue and learning. He took up the pastoral office during the bitter persecution of the holy icons by the iconoclast emperors, and resolutely came forward as a champion of the veneration of the sacred images. When the Iconoclast Council convened in 754 under the Emperor Constantine V Copronymus drew up its decree against the holy icons, Saint Basil refused to set his hand to the so-called "Iniquitous Scroll", and would have no communion with the heretical bishops. He kept the iconoclasts out of his diocese, suffering for this much persecution, hunger and want, but never bending in his confession of the truth. By his teaching, his example and his unbroken endurance he kept his flock firm in the Orthodox Faith, and so reposed in peace, having earned the title of Confessor.

Saint Nicephorus the Confessor, Patriarch of Constantinople

Saint Nicephorus was born around the year 758 in Constantinople. His father Theodore had served as imperial secretary under the iconoclast Emperor Constantine V Copronymus, but had been scourged, tortured and exiled for defending the holy icons; from him the young Nicephorus inherited a deep devotion to Orthodoxy. After receiving an excellent education he served the empire as a civil official and represented the Empress Irene at the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787. Withdrawing afterwards to a monastery he had founded on the Bosporus, he lived for years in monastic asceticism. On the death of Saint Tarasius in 806 he was chosen Patriarch of Constantinople. As patriarch he laboured for peace in the Church, defended the canons, and took up his pen and his pastoral staff against the new outbreak of iconoclasm under the Emperor Leo the Armenian. When Leo demanded the removal of the icons, Saint Nicephorus stood firm, and in 815 he was deposed by an iconoclast synod and exiled to a monastic retreat near Chalcedon. From his exile he composed a series of profound treatises against the iconoclasts and a chronicle of Byzantine history. Under Leo's successor Michael II the Stammerer the persecution continued, and Saint Nicephorus remained in banishment until his death in the Monastery of Saint Theodore on 2 June 828. He is commemorated by the Orthodox Church both on 13 March (the translation of his relics to Constantinople in 846) and on 2 June, but his memory is also kept in many Synaxaria on this day.

St Isaac the Syrian, abbot of Spoleto, Italy

c. 550

This is not the famed Isaac of Syria (commemorated Jan 28) who wrote the Ascetical Homilies, but a monk who settled in Spoleto and was famed for his holy, solitary life, his miracles, and his discernment. The people of Spoleto sought to honor him with money and other gifts, but he refused everything and withdrew to a cell in the forest. Soon a large monastery grew up there as others joined him in his life of prayer. Once, two nearly naked men came begging clothing from Isaac. He told a monk to go to a hollow tree some distance away, and to bring back what he found there. The monk returned with some clothing, and gave it to the beggars. They were shamed to find that it was their own clothing, which they had hidden in the tree. A man gave two beehives to the monastery. A monk hid one of them and brought the other to the abbot. Isaac said to him, ‘Be careful when you go back to the beehive that you hid: it has been taken over by poisonous snakes. Be careful that they do not bite you.’

Our Holy Mother Athanasia

860

“Born on the island of Aegina of rich and eminent parents, she gave her goods to the poor and went off to a monastery, where she heaped greater and greater asceticism on herself. She took food only once a day, and that only bread and water, and in the Great Fast only once every two days. Only at Christmas and Easter did she taste flesh and oil. Although she was abbess of the monastery, she was the servant of all the other sisters and was ashamed that any should wait on her. She was made worthy of the great gift of wonderworking, both during her lifetime and after her death.” (Prologue)

Daily readings

6th Hour

weekly cycle

Isaiah — Isaiah 29.13-23

¹³Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:

¹³And the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw nigh unto me, and with their mouth and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment of men which hath been taught them; ¹⁴Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. ¹⁴therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. ¹⁵Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?

¹⁵Woe unto them that hide deep their counsel from Jehovah, and whose works are in the dark, and that say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us? ¹⁶Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding? ¹⁶Ye turn things upside down! Shall the potter be esteemed as clay; that the thing made should say of him that made it, He made me not; or the thing formed say of him that formed it, He hath no understanding?

¹⁷Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest?

¹⁷Is it not yet a very little while, and Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field, and the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest? ¹⁸And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness.

¹⁸And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness. ¹⁹The meek also shall increase their joy in Jehovah, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. ¹⁹The meek also shall increase their joy in the LORD, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. ²⁰For the terrible one is brought to nought, and the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off: ²⁰For the terrible one is brought to nought, and the scoffer ceaseth, and all they that watch for iniquity are cut off; ²¹That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought. ²¹that make a man an offender in his cause, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just with a thing of nought. ²²Therefore thus saith the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob, Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale.

²²Therefore thus saith Jehovah, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob: Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale. ²³But when he seeth his children, the work of mine hands, in the midst of him, they shall sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel. ²³But when he seeth his children, the work of my hands, in the midst of him, they shall sanctify my name; yea, they shall sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall stand in awe of the God of Israel.

Vespers

weekly cycle

Genesis — Genesis 12.1-7

¹Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:

¹Now Jehovah said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto the land that I will show thee: ²And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: ²and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing: ³And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. ³and I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

⁴So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. ⁴So Abram went, as Jehovah had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. ⁵And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came. ⁵And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.

⁶And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. ⁶And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the oak of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. ⁷And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him. ⁷And Jehovah appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto Jehovah, who appeared unto him.

Vespers

weekly cycle

Proverbs — Proverbs 14.15-26

¹⁵The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going. ¹⁵The simple believeth every word; But the prudent man looketh well to his going. ¹⁶A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident. ¹⁶A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil; But the fool beareth himself insolently, and is confident. ¹⁷He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly: and a man of wicked devices is hated. ¹⁷He that is soon angry will deal foolishly; And a man of wicked devices is hated. ¹⁸The simple inherit folly: but the prudent are crowned with knowledge. ¹⁸The simple inherit folly; But the prudent are crowned with knowledge. ¹⁹The evil bow down before the good; And the wicked, at the gates of the righteous. ¹⁹The evil bow before the good; and the wicked at the gates of the righteous. ²⁰The poor is hated even of his own neighbour: but the rich hath many friends. ²⁰The poor is hated even of his own neighbor; But the rich hath many friends. ²¹He that despiseth his neighbor sinneth; But he that hath pity on the poor, happy is he. ²¹He that despiseth his neighbour sinneth: but he that hath mercy on the poor, happy is he. ²²Do they not err that devise evil? but mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good. ²²Do they not err that devise evil? But mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good. ²³In all labour there is profit: but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury. ²³In all labor there is profit; But the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury. ²⁴The crown of the wise is their riches: but the foolishness of fools is folly. ²⁴The crown of the wise is their riches; But the folly of fools is only folly. ²⁵A true witness delivereth souls; But he that uttereth lies causeth deceit. ²⁵A true witness delivereth souls: but a deceitful witness speaketh lies. ²⁶In the fear of Jehovah is strong confidence; And his children shall have a place of refuge.

²⁶In the fear of the LORD is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge.