Saturday, 2 May 2026

Trans. Rel. Boris and Gleb

Saturday of the 3rd Sunday of Pascha

20 days after Pascha · Tone 2 · Red cross (polyeleos typikon symbol) · No Fast

Saints commemorated

Holy Martyrs Hesperus, Zoe, and their sons Cyriacus and Theodulus

The holy martyrs Hesperus and Zoe with their sons Cyriacus and Theodulus suffered for Christ at Attalia in Pamphylia under the emperor Hadrian (117 to 138). The family had been carried into slavery and sold to a wealthy pagan named Catallus. They served their master faithfully but refused to take part in the sacrifices and feasts offered to idols, secretly keeping the Christian faith and praying that their children might confess Christ openly.

When the two boys, now grown, declared that they could no longer eat food consecrated to idols, Catallus had them seized, beaten, and tortured. Hesperus and Zoe, brought before him in turn, encouraged their sons to endure to the end. The whole family was finally cast into a hot oven, where they gave up their souls together while singing psalms. Their bodies were found unburned, and their relics were honoured by the local Christians. Their witness is recorded in the Synaxarion of Constantinople and kept on this day across the Orthodox world.

Saint Athanasius the Great, Patriarch of Alexandria

Saint Athanasius the Great, Archbishop of Alexandria, was one of the greatest Fathers of the Church and the foremost defender of the divinity of Christ against the Arian heresy. Born around 297 in Alexandria into a pious Christian family, he was educated in classical letters and Holy Scripture and was noticed in his youth by the Patriarch Alexander, who ordained him deacon. As a young deacon he accompanied Alexander to the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325, where his clarity of argument helped formulate the Symbol of Faith confessing the Son to be of one essence with the Father.

On the death of Alexander in 328 Athanasius was elected to the throne of Saint Mark. For forty-six years he shepherded the Alexandrian Church, suffering five exiles totalling some seventeen years under successive emperors who supported the Arians. He spent his banishments among the desert fathers, befriending Saint Anthony and writing the Life that shaped Christian monasticism. His treatises On the Incarnation and Against the Arians remain pillars of Orthodox theology. He reposed in peace in 373. The 2 May commemoration honours the translation of his relics; his principal feast falls with that of Saint Cyril on 18 January.

Saint Boris-Michael, Tsar of Bulgaria

Saint Boris, who took the baptismal name Michael, was the ruler of Bulgaria from 852 to 889 and is honoured as the equal-to-the-apostles enlightener of the Bulgarian people. Coming to the throne as a pagan khan, he sought a path between the Frankish West and the Byzantine East. After military and political setbacks he turned to Constantinople, and around 864 he received holy baptism with his household, taking as his godfather the emperor Michael III, whose name he adopted.

Boris-Michael laboured to root the Christian faith in his realm. He suppressed a violent pagan uprising of the boyars, sent embassies to both Rome and Constantinople, and at last secured an autonomous archbishopric for Bulgaria from the Ecumenical Patriarchate. He welcomed the disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius, especially Clement, Naum, and Angelarius, giving them refuge and the means to translate the Scriptures and services into Slavonic. In 889 he abdicated in favour of his son and withdrew to a monastery, returning briefly to depose his apostatising elder son and place the pious Symeon on the throne. He reposed as a monk on 2 May 907.

Saint Matrona of Moscow

1952

She was born in 1881 to a poor family in the village of Sebino-Epifaniskaya (now Kimovski). Though she was born blind — her eyes were without pupils — she showed a gift of spiritual insight from an early age, and by her prayers healed many who came to her. At about the age of fourteen she made a pilgrimage to several Russian holy sites. When she came to Kronstadt to receive the blessing of St John (20 Dec.), the holy priest, who had never met her, cried out “Matrona, come here!” and proclaimed “She will be my heir, the eighth pillar of Russia.” At the age of seventeen she was stricken with paralysis and was never able to walk again. For the rest of her life she lived in a room filled with icons, where she would sit cross-legged on her bed and receive visitors. She never bemoaned her blindness or paralysis; once she said “A day came when God opened my eyes, and I saw the light of the sun, the stars and all that exists in the world: the rivers, the forests, the sea and the whole creation.” In 1925 she settled in Moscow. After the death of her mother in 1945, she moved frequently, living secretly in the homes of the faithful. Despite this, throngs of believers found their way to her for counsel and healing. The Communist authorities, knowing her holy influence, sought many times to arrest her; but she always knew in advance when they were coming, and would be moved to a different secret location. She fasted much, slept rarely, and it is said that her forehead was dented by the countless signs of the Cross that she made. Of the persecution of the Church by the Communists, she simply said that this was due to the sins and lack of faith of the Christians, and added, “Difficult times are our lot, but we Christians must choose the Cross. Christ has placed us on His sleigh, and He will take us where He will.” Having foreseen the day of her death, she said, “Come close, all of you, and tell me of your troubles as though I were alive! I’ll see you; I’ll hear you, and I’ll come to your aid.” She reposed in peace on April 19, 1952 (May 2 on the new calendar). Many miracles occurred at her tomb. In 1998 her relics were moved to the women’s Monastery of the Protecting Veil of the Mother of God, where thousands of Orthodox Christians come to venerate her and, as she asked, to bring her their problems and concerns as though she were alive on earth. She was glorified by the Church of Russia in 1999, for local veneration in the Diocese of Moscow.

Translation of the relics of the Holy Passion-Bearers Boris and Gleb

This day commemorates the translation of the incorrupt relics of the holy passion-bearers Boris and Gleb, princes of Russia, baptised Romanus and David. Sons of the equal-to-the-apostles Saint Vladimir, they were murdered in 1015 by their elder brother Sviatopolk the Accursed, who was seizing the Kievan throne. Each in turn, hearing of the plot, refused to lift a sword against his own brother, choosing martyrdom over civil war and so winning the Church's title of passion-bearer.

Their bodies, soon found incorrupt and working miracles, were first translated in 1072 by Saint Yaroslav and his sons, when a new wooden church was built for them at Vyshgorod. A second great translation took place in 1115 under Vladimir Monomakh and the princes of Rus into a stone church on the same site. The 2 May feast preserves the memory of these solemn translations, when bishops, monks, and people processed with the relics, and the brothers were established as the first canonised saints of the Russian Church and patrons of brotherly love and peacemaking.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Acts — Acts 9.20-31

²⁰And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God. ²¹But all that heard him were amazed, and said; Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name in Jerusalem, and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto the chief priests? ²²But Saul increased the more in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ.

²³And after that many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him: ²⁴But their laying await was known of Saul. And they watched the gates day and night to kill him. ²⁵Then the disciples took him by night, and let him down by the wall in a basket. ²⁶And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple. ²⁷But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. ²⁸And he was with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem. ²⁹And he spake boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus, and disputed against the Grecians: but they went about to slay him. ³⁰Which when the brethren knew, they brought him down to Cæsarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus. ³¹Then had the churches rest throughout all Judæa and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied.

Gospel

weekly cycle

John — John 15.17-16.2

¹⁷These things I command you, that ye love one another. ¹⁸If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. ¹⁹If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. ²⁰Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. ²¹But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. ²²If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. ²³He that hateth me hateth my Father also. ²⁴If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. ²⁵But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. ²⁶But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: ²⁷And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.

¹These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. ²They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.