Saturday, 7 December 2024

Saturday of the 24th week after Pentecost

216 days after Pascha · Tone 6 · Red squigg (doxology typikon symbol) · Nativity Fast (Fish, Wine and Oil are Allowed)

Saints commemorated

Holy Apostle Tychicus of the Seventy

Saint Tychicus was one of the Seventy Apostles, a faithful disciple and companion of the holy Apostle Paul in the first century. A native of the province of Asia, he is mentioned several times in the writings of Paul: he is one of those who travelled with the Apostle from Greece into Asia, and Paul calls him "a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord." Tychicus was entrusted by the Apostle to deliver the Epistles to the Ephesians and to the Colossians during Paul's first imprisonment in Rome, and was sent on missions to Crete and to Asia. After the martyrdom of his teacher he succeeded the Apostle Sosthenes as bishop of Colophon (or, according to some traditions, Chalcedon) and laboured zealously, by his preaching and example, to confirm the faithful and bring many pagans to the knowledge of Christ. He reposed in peace and is commemorated on 7 December and again on 8 December among the synaxis of the Seventy Apostles.

Holy Martyr Athenodorus of Mesopotamia

The Holy Martyr Athenodorus, of Syrian Mesopotamia, embraced the monastic life from his youth, devoting himself to fasting, prayer and the reading of the Scriptures. When he was denounced to the authorities as a Christian, he was arrested and brought before the governor Eleusius. Refusing every command to deny Christ, he was subjected to fierce tortures: he was hung up and torn with iron hooks, his sides were burned with fire, and he was cast onto red-hot iron, but the flames did not harm him. Many pagans, beholding the miracles that accompanied his sufferings and seeing the holy martyr unharmed, came to faith in Christ. When at last the governor ordered the saint to be beheaded with the sword, the executioner who lifted up his weapon dropped down dead, and his head was severed from his shoulders. The holy Athenodorus, kneeling in prayer, gave up his soul to God of his own accord and was crowned a martyr around the year 304 during the persecution of Diocletian.

Holy Martyrs Priscus, Martin and Nicholas of Blachernae

The Holy Martyrs Priscus, Martin and Nicholas suffered for their confession of Christ near Blachernae in the imperial city of Constantinople in the early centuries of the Christian era. Steadfast in faith, they refused to offer sacrifice to idols and rebuked the impious. Each of them endured fierce torments and received the unfading crown of martyrdom by the sword for the glory of the name of Jesus Christ. Their memory is kept by the Orthodox Church on 7 December together with that of Saint Ambrose of Milan and the Holy Martyr Athenodorus.

Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan

This illustrious light of Orthodoxy in the Western Church was born in Gaul in 349, but his widowed mother took the family to Rome while he was still a small child. Brilliant and well-educated, he was made a provincial Governor in 375 and took up residence in Milan. In those days, the Arian heresy was still dividing the Church, despite its repudiation at the Council of Nicaea in 325. When the time came to elect a new Bishop in Milan, the Orthodox and Arian parties were so divided that they could come to no agreement on a new Bishop. When Ambrose came as Governor to try to restore peace and order, a young child, divinely inspired, called out “Ambrose, Bishop!” To Ambrose’s amazement, the people took up the cry, and Ambrose himself was elected, though he tried to refuse, protesting that he was only a catechumen (it was still common in those days to delay Holy Baptism for fear of polluting it by sin). He even attempted to flee, but his horse brought him back to the city. Resigning himself to God’s will, he was baptized and, only a week later, elevated to Bishop. Immediately, he renounced all possessions, distributed all of his money to the poor and gave his estates to the Church. Straightaway, he entered into a spirited defense of Orthodoxy in his preaching and writings to the dismay of the Arians who had supported his election. Soon he persuaded Gratian, Emperor of the West, to call the Council of Aquilea, which brought an end to Arianism in the Western Church. (Arianism, however, continued to prosper among the barbarian nations for many years; see the Martyrs of Africa, also commemorated today).

Several times the holy Bishop was called upon to defend the Church against domination by the secular powers. Once, putting down an uprising in Thessalonika, the Emperor Theodosius punished the city by ordering the massacre of thousands of its residents. When the Emperor later visited Milan and came to the Cathedral to attend the Liturgy, Saint Ambrose stopped him at the door, condemned his crime before all the people, forbade him entrance to the church and excommunicated him for eight months. The Emperor went away weeping, and submitted in humility to the Church’s discipline. When he returned after long penance to be restored to Communion, he went into the sanctuary along with the clergy, as had been the custom of the Emperors since Constantine the Great. But again the holy Ambrose humbled him in the sight of all the people, saying “Get out and take your place among the laity; the purple does not make priests, but only emperors.” Theodosius left without protest, took his place among the penitents, and never again attempted to enter the sanctuary of a church. (When the Emperor died, it was Bishop Ambrose who preached his funeral eulogy).

Saint Ambrose, by teaching, preaching and writing, brought countless pagans to the Faith. His most famous convert was St Augustine (June 15), who became his disciple and eventually a bishop. Ambrose’s many theological and catechetical works helped greatly to spread the teaching of the Greek fathers in the Latin world. He wrote many glorious antiphonal hymns which were once some of the gems of the Latin services.

Saint Ambrose reposed in peace in 397; his relics still rest in the basilica in Milan.

Venerable Ammon of Nitria

Saint Ammon (Ammoun), one of the great fathers of Egyptian monasticism, lived in the fourth century. Born to wealthy Christian parents around the year 294, he was compelled by his uncle to marry, but on the wedding night he persuaded his bride that they should live together as brother and sister, dedicated to chastity and prayer. After eighteen years of common life thus consecrated, with the bride's consent he withdrew to the Nitrian desert in Lower Egypt, where his wife in turn gathered other women to live the monastic life. There Ammon dwelt for twenty-two years, attaining great heights of asceticism, the gift of wonderworking and the discernment of spirits. He is venerated as the first hermit to settle the desert of Nitria and is associated with the founding of the monastic settlement of Kellia further south, which he, together with Saint Anthony the Great, established as a place for those seeking a stricter solitude. Saint Athanasius the Great in his Life of Saint Anthony mentions Ammon and recounts how Anthony beheld in vision the soul of his friend ascending to heaven at the moment of his repose around the year 350. He is commemorated on 7 December and on 4 October.

The Martyrs of Africa, who suffered during the Vandal persecution

In the year 429, eighty thousand Vandals crossed from Spain into Africa and, in the course of ten years of massacre and pillage, gained control of most of the Roman territories of North Africa. Many people picture these barbarians as pagans, but they were in fact Arian heretics, who under their leader Genseric began a fierce persecution of the Church wherever they encountered it. The tortures that many thousands endured in their confession of the Faith are too horrible to describe here; the clergy were singled out for special cruelty. Today we especially commemorate the Orthodox faithful whom the Vandals burned to death in their church, who went on singing hymns and praising God until the moment of their death. We also commemorate the three hundred Martyrs in Carthage who died by the sword rather than submit to Arian baptism. The death of Genseric in 454 brought little relief, for after a short hiatus his successors Huneric (477-484) and Gonthamund (484-497) continued the persecution as viciously as before. Christian Africa lived under the Vandal yoke for almost 100 years: freedom from persecution was not secure until Justinian’s forces overcame and drove off the Vandals in 523-525. The African Church, once a beacon of Christianity, never recovered its former vitality.

Our Venerable Father Antony of Siya

1556

Saint Anthony is one of the holy protectors of iconographers. He was born in 1477 in a Russian village near Archangel. From an early age he devoted himself to reading sacred books and making icons. When his parents died, he entered the service of a wealthy lord in Novgorod, and later married the lord’s daughter. But less than a year after his marriage he was widowed. Despairing of earthly consolations, he gave his wealth to the poor and, owning only the clothes that he wore, went to become a monk at the Monastery of St Pachomius. There he excelled in prayer, vigil and ascesis, praying for most of the night, taking on the heaviest work by day, and eating only every second day. After a short time he was ordained to the priesthood. Some years later he and two companions, seeking a more secluded life for prayer, traveled to the frigid shores of the White Sea and established a small monastic brotherhood where the River Siya enters Lake Mikhailov. They lived in utter poverty, staying alive by gathering mushrooms and wild berries. Many times they heard the sound of bells, though there was no church or habitation anywhere nearby. In time other brethren were attracted to the site, and a monastery was founded with the help of the Grand Prince of Moscow. When the monastery church burned down, an icon of the Holy Trinity painted by St Antony miraculously survived unscathed, and later worked many miracles. The Saint himself withdrew into the forests, living alone for many years until he was called back by his spiritual children to serve as the monastery’s abbot. Having foreseen his own end, he reposed in peace in 1556. He asked that his body be thrown into the lake, but his disciples, obedient in every other way, did not fulfil his request. His tomb was the source of many miracles in the coming years.

Also commemorated: Ven. Nilus of Stolobensk

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

2 Corinthians — 2 Corinthians 11.1-6

¹Would that ye could bear with me in a little foolishness: but indeed ye do bear with me.

¹Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me. ²For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy: for I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ. ²For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. ³But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ. ³But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. ⁴For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or if ye receive a different spirit, which ye did not receive, or a different gospel, which ye did not accept, ye do well to bear with him. ⁴For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him. ⁵For I reckon that I am not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles. ⁵For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles. ⁶But though I be rude in speech, yet am I not in knowledge; nay, in every way have we made this manifest unto you in all things. ⁶But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; but we have been throughly made manifest among you in all things.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Luke — Luke 13.18-29

¹⁸Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it?

¹⁸He said therefore, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I liken it? ¹⁹It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it. ¹⁹It is like unto a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his own garden; and it grew, and became a tree; and the birds of the heaven lodged in the branches thereof. ²⁰And again he said, Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God?

²⁰And again he said, Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? ²¹It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. ²¹It is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened.

²²And he went on his way through cities and villages, teaching, and journeying on unto Jerusalem. ²²And he went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem. ²³Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, ²³And one said unto him, Lord, are they few that are saved? And he said unto them, ²⁴Strive to enter in by the narrow door: for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

²⁴Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. ²⁵When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: ²⁵When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, open to us; and he shall answer and say to you, I know you not whence ye are; ²⁶Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. ²⁶then shall ye begin to say, We did eat and drink in thy presence, and thou didst teach in our streets; ²⁷But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. ²⁷and he shall say, I tell you, I know not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. ²⁸There shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and yourselves cast forth without. ²⁸There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out. ²⁹And they shall come from the east and west, and from the north and south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. ²⁹And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God.