Monday, 5 August 2024

Monday of the 7th week after Pentecost

92 days after Pascha · Tone 5 · Black squigg (6-stich typikon symbol) · Dormition Fast

Saints commemorated

Forefeast of the Transfiguration of our Lord

The eve of the Transfiguration is observed by the Orthodox Church as a single day of forefeast, in which the services begin to anticipate the great feast that follows. At Vespers, Matins and the Liturgy on this day many of the hymns proper to the Transfiguration are sung in the canon and stichera, gathering the faithful to the foot of Mount Tabor in spirit before the feast itself. The forefeast falls within the Dormition Fast and so retains the abstinence of the period, but in spirit it lifts the eyes of the faithful from the labours of fasting to the uncreated light. The hymns of this day call to mind the prophecy of Malachi that the Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings, and prepare the hearer to behold in the Lord of Glory the radiance of the Father which the apostles saw shining from him. Although the Transfiguration is a feast of the Lord and stands alone, the Church, like a careful steward, gives a single day of preparation, that having heard the prophets and the apostles witnesses to the divine glory, the faithful may come to the celebration of the feast itself ready in heart.

Holy Hieromartyr Fabian, Pope of Rome

Saint Fabian was a layman of Rome who, according to the historian Eusebius, came up from the country to take part in the election of a new bishop after the death of Pope Anterus in 236. As the clergy and people gathered to consider the names of various distinguished churchmen, a dove descended from above and rested upon the head of Fabian, an obscure stranger to the assembly. Taking this as a sign from heaven, the gathering proclaimed him bishop by acclamation, and he was consecrated on 10 January 236. He governed the Roman Church for fourteen years in a time of comparative peace under the emperors Gordian and Philip the Arab. He divided the city of Rome into seven ecclesiastical districts, each entrusted to a deacon, with subdeacons appointed to gather the records of the martyrs; he ordered the building of new tombs in the catacombs and the translation of the relics of Saint Pontian, the martyred bishop who had died in exile in the mines of Sardinia. When the persecution of the emperor Decius broke out at the end of 249, Fabian was one of its first victims. He confessed Christ before the imperial tribunal and was put to death on 20 January 250, becoming, in the words of his contemporary Saint Cyprian of Carthage, an example of the integrity of his administration and the purity of his death. The Eastern Church keeps his memory on 5 August, often together with the deacon and martyr Pontius.

Holy Martyr Eusignius of Antioch

312

Saint Eusignius was born at Antioch in the middle of the third century. He served for sixty years as a soldier in the Roman armies under the emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Constantius Chlorus, Constantine the Great and his sons. He had been an eyewitness, in the year 312, of the appearance of the radiant Cross in the heavens before the battle of the Milvian Bridge, and was among those whom Saint Constantine kept as living witnesses of that miracle. After honourable retirement he returned to his native Antioch and lived in the practice of fasting and prayer to a great age. When Julian the Apostate (361 to 363) came to the throne and sought to restore the worship of idols, Eusignius was denounced to him, on the charge brought by an Antiochian to whom he had given offence in some matter of justice. Although he was already one hundred and ten years old, the apostate emperor did not spare him, but had him brought before his tribunal. The aged saint stood without trembling, rebuked Julian for forsaking the Christ before whose Cross his own kinsman had triumphed, and bore witness to the truth of the faith. Julian, far from being moved, ordered him to be beheaded; and so Saint Eusignius received the crown of martyrdom in the year 362.

Saint Oswald, King and Martyr of Northumbria

633

Saint Oswald was born about 605, the second of the seven sons of Aethelfrith, the first ruler to unite the provinces of Bernicia and Deira into a single kingdom of Northumbria. When his uncle Edwin, the Christian king of Northumbria, was killed in 633 by the British king Cadwallon and the pagan Penda of Mercia, Oswald and his brothers had already lived for many years in exile among the Gaels of Iona, where, by the disciples of Saint Columba, they had been instructed in the faith and baptised. The young exile learned the Gaelic tongue and embraced the monastic discipline of the holy island. In 634, gathering an army to recover his patrimony, he met Cadwallon at Heavenfield near Hexham. On the eve of battle he raised a wooden cross with his own hands, and kneeling beside it he commanded his warriors to pray with him to the living God; the next day he gained the victory and the Britons were dispersed. Mounting the throne, Oswald sent at once to Iona for a bishop to bring the gospel to his people. The first messenger returned without success; in his place came the gentle Saint Aidan, for whom the king founded the monastic see of Lindisfarne, and whose Irish words Oswald himself, having forgotten English, translated for the Saxon nobility. He gave alms with great freedom, on one occasion having a silver dish broken up at the table and distributed to the poor, drawing from Saint Aidan the prayer that the hand thus blessed might never see corruption. After a reign of about eight years he fell in battle on 5 August 642 against the pagan Penda of Mercia at Maserfield, the place now called Oswestry, dying with the prayer for the souls of his soldiers on his lips. His head was eventually laid in the coffin of Saint Cuthbert at Durham, and his right arm, as Aidan had foretold, was preserved incorrupt at Bamburgh.

Righteous Nonna, Mother of St Gregory the Theologian

374

In her own lifetime she was a wonderworker through her holy prayers. She brought her husband back from idolatry to Christian faith; he later became bishop of Nazianzus. Her son Gregory’s profound and devout writings bespeak the Christian upbringing she gave him. By her prayers she once saved St Gregory from perishing in a storm. She was a deaconess, and reposed in peace in 374.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

1 Corinthians — 1 Corinthians 5.9-6.11

⁹I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:

⁹I wrote unto you in my epistle to have no company with fornicators; ¹⁰Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. ¹⁰not at all meaning with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous and extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world: ¹¹But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. ¹¹but as it is, I wrote unto you not to keep company, if any man that is named a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no, not to eat. ¹²For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? ¹²For what have I to do with judging them that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within? ¹³But them that are without God judgeth. Put away the wicked man from among yourselves. ¹³But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

¹Dare any of you, having a matter against his neighbor, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?

¹Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? ²Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? ²Or know ye not that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world is judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? ³Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? ³Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more, things that pertain to this life? ⁴If then ye have to judge things pertaining to this life, do ye set them to judge who are of no account in the church? ⁴If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. ⁵I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? ⁵I say this to move you to shame. What, cannot there be found among you one wise man who shall be able to decide between his brethren, ⁶But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. ⁶but brother goeth to law with brother, and that before unbelievers? ⁷Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? ⁷Nay, already it is altogether a defect in you, that ye have lawsuits one with another. Why not rather take wrong? why not rather be defrauded? ⁸Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren. ⁸Nay, but ye yourselves do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren. ⁹Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, ⁹Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, ¹⁰Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. ¹⁰nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. ¹¹And such were some of you: but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Matthew — Matthew 13.54-58

⁵⁴And when he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works?

⁵⁴And coming into his own country he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? ⁵⁵Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas? ⁵⁵Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? ⁵⁶And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? ⁵⁶And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? ⁵⁷And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house. ⁵⁷And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house. ⁵⁸And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. ⁵⁸And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.