Monday, 27 April 2026

Hieromartyr Simeon, Kinsman of the Lord

Monday of the 3rd Sunday of Pascha

15 days after Pascha · Tone 2 · Black squigg (6-stich typikon symbol) · No Fast

Saints commemorated

★ Hieromartyr Symeon the Kinsman of the Lord

107

He was the nephew of Joseph the Betrothed, and one of the Seventy. When the Apostle James, first Bishop of Jerusalem, was martyred, St Symeon was named to replace him. As second Bishop of Jerusalem he governed the Church there to a very great age. In the time of the Emperor Trajan a persecution broke out in Palestine against both Christians and Jews; Symeon was condemned on both counts, and was privileged to die, like his Lord, by crucifixion. He was 120 years old.

Hieromartyr Symeon, kinsman of the Lord, second bishop of Jerusalem

Saint Symeon was the son of Cleopas, who was the younger brother of Saint Joseph the Betrothed, and is therefore reckoned among the kinsmen of the Lord according to the flesh. As a young man he beheld with his own eyes the miracles of Christ, believed in him and joined himself to the company of the disciples; he is numbered among the Seventy Apostles. After the martyrdom of Saint James the Brother of the Lord, who was the first Bishop of Jerusalem, the Christians in the Holy City chose Symeon to succeed him on the apostolic throne, and he shepherded the Mother of the Churches with great wisdom for many decades. By his counsel the Christians of Jerusalem withdrew to Pella beyond the Jordan before the Roman armies destroyed the city in the year seventy, in obedience to a divine warning, and so were preserved alive. He governed the Church for about forty years more after the city's destruction. In the time of the Emperor Trajan a renewed search was made for the descendants of King David, and certain heretics denounced Saint Symeon both as of the royal line and as a Christian. Brought before the proconsul Atticus when he was already more than one hundred and twenty years old, he confessed Christ steadfastly and was tortured for many days, astonishing all by his patience. At last he was crucified and so received the crown of martyrdom about the year 107.

Saint Eulogius the Hospitable, the stonecutter

Saint Eulogius lived in the sixth century in the Thebaid in Egypt and earned his bread as a stonecutter, breaking stone in the quarries by day. Although his work was hard and his earnings small he kept little for himself and gave the rest to the poor and to pilgrims passing through his region. After labouring all day he would go in the evening into the marketplace, in winter carrying a lantern, and search for strangers and travellers who had nowhere to stay; these he led home, washed their feet, gave them food and a place to rest, and only then took his own meal. For this love of strangers he was called the Xenodochos, the receiver of strangers. The Lord rewarded his hospitality with abundance of grace, and his charity grew the more he gave away. According to the account preserved by the holy Fathers Daniel of Sketis and others, Eulogius lived more than one hundred years, sheltering the poor to the very end of his life, and reposed in peace. He is set forth by the Church as a model of mercy and almsgiving.

Venerable Stephen the Confessor, abbot of the Kiev Caves and bishop of Vladimir in Volhynia

Saint Stephen was a disciple of Saint Theodosius of the Kiev Caves, the great founder of cenobitic monasticism in Russia, who took him into the brotherhood while still a youth and trained him in obedience and prayer. After the repose of Saint Theodosius, Stephen was chosen to be abbot of the Caves Monastery and laboured to maintain the strict typikon left by his teacher. He completed the building of the great church of the Dormition of the Mother of God which Theodosius had begun, and he was present at the translation of the relics of his master. On account of disturbances within the brotherhood he was for a time obliged to leave the monastery; he founded the new Klov Monastery in honour of the Mother of God outside the walls of Kiev. In 1091 he was consecrated bishop of Vladimir in Volhynia, where he laboured to convert the inhabitants of the region from paganism to Christ, founded churches and monasteries, and was renowned for his gentleness and meekness. He reposed in peace on the night of 27 April 1094 and is honoured among the saints of the Caves and the saints of Volhynia.

Burning of the relics of St Sava I of Serbia by the Turks

1594

At the time of the Turkish occupation, so many Serbian Christians gathered around the relics of St Sava (at Mileseva), pleading for his intercession, that the Ottoman ruler, Sinan Pasha, feared that the relics would become the focus of a popular rebellion. He therefore had the relics brought to Belgrade and burned. The Pasha is long gone; the Saint continues to intercede for his people and for the world.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Acts — Acts 6.8-7.5, 47-60

⁸And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people.

⁹Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, disputing with Stephen. ¹⁰And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. ¹¹Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses, and against God. ¹²And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council, ¹³And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law: ¹⁴For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us. ¹⁵And all that sat in the council, looking stedfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.

¹Then said the high priest, Are these things so? ²And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, ³And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. ⁴Then came he out of the land of the Chaldæans, and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell. ⁵And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child. ⁴⁷But Solomon built him an house. ⁴⁸Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, ⁴⁹Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest? ⁵⁰Hath not my hand made all these things?

⁵¹Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. ⁵²Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: ⁵³Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.

⁵⁴When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. ⁵⁵But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, ⁵⁶And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. ⁵⁷Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, ⁵⁸And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul. ⁵⁹And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. ⁶⁰And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Gospel

weekly cycle

John — John 4.46-54

⁴⁶So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum. ⁴⁷When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judæa into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death. ⁴⁸Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. ⁴⁹The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. ⁵⁰Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. ⁵¹And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. ⁵²Then enquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. ⁵³So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house. ⁵⁴This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judæa into Galilee.