Wednesday, 11 December 2024

Wednesday of the 25th week after Pentecost

220 days after Pascha · Tone 7 · Liturgy · Nativity Fast

Saints commemorated

Saint Daniel the Stylite

493

Saint Daniel the Stylite was born about 409 in the village of Bethara near Samosata in Mesopotamia. His mother Martha was long childless and vowed to dedicate any son granted her to the Lord. At twelve Daniel entered the local monastery and was tonsured against the abbot's hesitation about his youth. While accompanying the abbot to Antioch, he met Saint Simeon the Stylite on his pillar near Aleppo, who blessed the young monk and foretold that he too would undertake the same labour. After Simeon's repose in 459, Daniel set out on pilgrimage to the Holy Land but was warned by an angel to turn aside to Constantinople. He spent nine years in a disused pagan temple at Anaplus on the Bosphorus, then mounted a pillar provided by a benefactor at Anaplus near the city, where he stood for thirty-three years exposed to the elements, even surviving a frozen winter that left him a block of ice. The patriarch Saint Anatolius and later Saint Gennadius ordained him priest at the foot of the pillar. Emperors Leo, Zeno and Basiliscus sought his counsel; he descended once only to confront the usurper Basiliscus and recall him to Orthodoxy. He prophesied a great fire in Constantinople and many other things. Daniel reposed in 493 aged about eighty-four and was buried at the foot of his pillar.

Saint Luke the New Stylite of Chalcedon

Saint Luke the New Stylite was born in the village of Atroe in the diocese of Anatolia toward the close of the ninth century to pious parents named Christopher and Cale, the sixth of seven children. From childhood he was inclined to prayer, fasting and almsgiving. As a young man he served as a soldier under the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, fighting in the Bulgarian war of 917 in which the imperial army was disastrously defeated at Anchialos; through the providence of God he came out unscathed, and recognising the vanity of earthly things he embraced the monastic life. After receiving the tonsure he was found worthy of ordination to the priesthood. He stood three years upon a pillar at his first place of struggle, then withdrew to Mount Olympus in Bithynia, then to Constantinople, and finally settled at Chalcedon, where he ascended a pillar on which he remained for forty-five years. There he was granted the gifts of healing, prophecy and consolation, and people of every rank came to him for counsel and to be relieved of their afflictions. He reposed in peace about the year 979 in the time of the emperor Basil II.

Saint Nikon, Abbot of Iveron

Saint Nikon, sometimes called Nikon Metanoeite from his constant cry of "Repent," was a Georgian monk of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries who became abbot of the Iveron Monastery on Mount Athos. He took the monastic habit early in life and was distinguished by his deep humility, ascetic strictness and sweetness of speech. As superior of the great Georgian monastery on the Holy Mountain he laboured to preserve the cenobitic order established by Saints John and Euthymius the Iberians, the founders of Iveron, and supported the translation of the Greek Fathers into the Georgian tongue. He governed the brotherhood with discernment, was generous to pilgrims and to the poor, and reposed in peace at Iveron, leaving the community strengthened in observance and in love of the holy services. He is sometimes confused in the calendars with Saint Nikon the Dry of the Kiev Caves, but is properly the abbot of the Iberian house on Athos commemorated on this day.

Venerable Leontius of Monemvasia, the Myrrh-streaming

Saint Leontius the Myrrh-streaming was born in the early sixteenth century at Monemvasia in the Peloponnese. From childhood he was attracted to the divine services and the study of the Scriptures, and as a young man he set out for the Holy Mountain, where he was tonsured a monk and given to severe asceticism. He laboured at several monasteries on Athos and especially at Dionysiou, where he distinguished himself by humility, silence and unceasing prayer. Withdrawing for greater solitude he spent many years in cave-dwelling and rigorous fasting. He reposed in peace, and after his burial his relics were found to stream a fragrant myrrh which became a source of healing to the faithful, on account of which he is called the Myrrh-streaming. His memory is kept on the Holy Mountain and in his native Monemvasia.

Saint Nikon the Dry of the Kiev Caves

1101

He was a monk in Kiev, taken into slavery by a band of Polovtsi (Turkic raiders who were troubling the country at that time) along with the holy Martyr Eustratius (March 28). He humbly refused to be ransomed by his family and therefore suffered a harsh captivity for three years. Despite this, he prayed constantly for his captors, worked miracles for their sake, and once healed their leader from a deadly illness. One day St Eustratius appeared to him in a vision and told him that he would be set free in three days. When he told his captors, they severed the tendons of his knees and ankles and kept him under guard. But at the appointed time he was miraculously transported to Kiev, where he suddenly appeared in church among his astonished brethren. The Saint did not want his chains removed until his Abbot said “Brother, if the Lord wanted to see you in these chains, he would not have delivered you from captivity!” He was so withered from his hardships that he became known as Nikon the Dry. Later, the captor whom he had healed came to the Monastery of the Caves and became a disciple of his former slave.

Our Venerable Father Luke the New Stylite

979

He was an Anatolian, and in his youth served in the Byzantine army in the war against the Bulgar Tsar Symeon. After the war, he left the army to become a monk, and was in time ordained to the priesthood. For a time he served as an army chaplain, living even more austerely than he had as a monk and distributing all his possessions to soldiers in need. He entered the Monastery of St Zacharias on Mount Olympus in Bithynia, where he was appointed steward. Here his ascetical labors reached new levels. He kept a large stone in his mouth so that he would be unable to speak, and spent each night in a tree. When his exploits threatened to attract admiration, Luke fled to his homeland and lived for a few years in an isolated cave. Then, following in the footsteps of Symeon the Elder (September 1), Symeon the Younger (May 24), Daniel (today) and Alypius (November 26), he began to live as a stylite, dwelling on a tall pillar near Constantinople. Here he became a powerful intercessor for those who flocked to him for healing or counsel, and countless miracles were worked through his prayers. Saint Luke lived on his pillar for more than forty years without interruption, and fell asleep in peace, aged more than one hundred. He was buried in the Monastery of St Bassian.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

2 Thessalonians — 2 Thessalonians 2.1-12

¹Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,

¹Now we beseech you, brethren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him; ²That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. ²to the end that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by epistle as from us, as that the day of the Lord is just at hand; ³Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; ³let no man beguile you in any wise: for it will not be, except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, ⁴Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. ⁴he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God. ⁵Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? ⁵Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? ⁶And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. ⁶And now ye know that which restraineth, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. ⁷For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work: only there is one that restraineth now, until he be taken out of the way. ⁷For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. ⁸And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: ⁸And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth, and bring to nought by the manifestation of his coming; ⁹Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, ⁹even he, whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, ¹⁰And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. ¹⁰and with all deceit of unrighteousness for them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. ¹¹And for this cause God sendeth them a working of error, that they should believe a lie: ¹¹And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: ¹²that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. ¹²That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Mark — Mark 8.30-34

³⁰And he charged them that they should tell no man of him. ³⁰And he charged them that they should tell no man of him. ³¹And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

³¹And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, and the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³²And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. ³²And he spake the saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. ³³But he turning about, and seeing his disciples, rebuked Peter, and saith, Get thee behind me, Satan; for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men. ³³But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.

³⁴And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. ³⁴And he called unto him the multitude with his disciples, and said unto them, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.