Friday, 24 April 2026

Martyr Sabbas Stratelates

Friday of the 2nd Sunday of Pascha

12 days after Pascha · Tone 1 · Liturgy · Fast (Wine and Oil are Allowed)

Saints commemorated

Holy Martyr Sabbas the General of Rome and seventy soldiers with him

272

Saint Sabbas was a Goth by descent who served in the Roman army under the Emperor Aurelian in the third century. By his courage and ability he attained the high rank of stratelates, that is general or military commander. While outwardly a Roman officer he secretly lived as a Christian, distributing his pay among the poor, visiting the brethren in prison and ministering to those in need. By the strictness of his prayer and fasting he received from God the gift of casting out unclean spirits. When his faith was reported to the emperor, he was summoned and openly confessed Christ before the imperial tribunal. He was beaten with rods, hung up and torn with iron hooks, burned with torches, and at last thrown into a great cauldron of boiling pitch, from which he came out unharmed. Beholding this miracle, seventy soldiers of the imperial guard at once confessed Christ; refusing to recant they were all beheaded with the sword. Sabbas himself was finally cast bound into the river Tiber, where he received the crown of martyrdom in the year 272. The Church commemorates him on this day as a soldier of Christ and leader of a multitude of fellow martyrs.

Holy Martyrs Eusebius, Neon, Leontius, Longinus and others, at Nicomedia

303

These holy martyrs were among the great company who came to faith in Christ through witnessing the sufferings of the Great Martyr George at Nicomedia. Eusebius, Neon, Leontius and Longinus, together with about forty others, beheld the marvellous endurance of the saint under torture and the miracles of healing wrought upon him by the angel of God, and they openly confessed Christ before the Emperor Diocletian. Imprisoned for their faith, they were brought out one after another and called upon to deny Christ and worship the idols. Each refused, and they were taken outside the walls of the city and put to the sword in the year 303. The Church remembers them on the day after the feast of Saint George, whose witness brought them to martyrdom.

Holy Martyrs Pasicrates and Valentinus of Dorostolum

288

Saints Pasicrates and Valentinus were soldiers of the Roman garrison at Durostorum in Moesia, on the lower Danube, in the time of the Emperor Diocletian. Pasicrates was twenty-two years of age and Valentinus thirty when, in the year 288, the persecution against the Christians reached their city. Brought before the governor Absolanus and commanded to offer sacrifice to the idol of Apollo, Pasicrates approached the idol and spat upon it, declaring, This is the honour due to it. Valentinus likewise refused, professing himself a Christian. The mother of Saint Pasicrates followed the soldiers to the place of execution, exhorting her son not to fear death for the sake of Christ but to bear his testimony bravely to the end. Brother of Pasicrates also ran to embrace him on the path of martyrdom, and although he wavered for a moment Pasicrates persuaded him to remain in the world to comfort their mother. Both saints were beheaded together and received the unfading crown of martyrdom. The Synaxarion records that other martyrs of Dorostolum, including Saint Julius the Veteran, suffered around the same persecution.

Saint Elizabeth the Wonderworker of Constantinople

Saint Elizabeth was born in Heraclea of Thrace and was promised to God by her parents while still in her mother's womb. As a child she was given to the women's monastery of Saints Cosmas and Damian in Constantinople, where she grew up in an atmosphere of fasting and ceaseless prayer. She received from God in early youth the gift of healing illnesses both bodily and spiritual. The sisters of the monastery, recognising her holiness, chose her as their abbess, and she ruled the convent with great gentleness and discernment. Her ascetic struggle was extreme: she ate only herbs and vegetables, abstaining from bread, wine and oil, and during the forty days of Great Lent she would often eat nothing at all. By her prayer she put to death a great serpent that was terrifying the people, healed a woman who had suffered for many years from an issue of blood, and cast out unclean spirits from those who came to her. After her repose her grave and even the soil around it became a source of healings. The exact dates of her life are not known with certainty, but she is generally placed between the sixth and ninth centuries. Her memory is celebrated on this day.

Also commemorated: Martyr Sabbas Stratelates

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Acts — Acts 5.1-11

¹But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, ²And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. ³But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? ⁴Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. ⁵And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. ⁶And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. ⁷And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. ⁸And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. ⁹Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. ¹⁰Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband. ¹¹And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.

Gospel

weekly cycle

John — John 5.30-6.2

³⁰I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. ³¹If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.

³²There is another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true. ³³Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth. ³⁴But I receive not testimony from man: but these things I say, that ye might be saved. ³⁵He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light.

³⁶But I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me. ³⁷And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. ³⁸And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not.

³⁹Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. ⁴⁰And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. ⁴¹I receive not honour from men. ⁴²But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. ⁴³I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. ⁴⁴How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only? ⁴⁵Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. ⁴⁶For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. ⁴⁷But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?

¹After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias. ²And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased.