Monday, 4 May 2026

Virgin Martyr Pelagia of Tarsus

Monday of the 4th Sunday of Pascha

22 days after Pascha · Tone 3 · Liturgy · No Fast

Saints commemorated

Holy Hieromartyr Erasmus, Bishop of Formia

Saint Erasmus of Formia, also known in the West as Saint Elmo, was a fourth-century bishop and martyr. According to his life he was born in Antioch and from his youth gave himself to ascetic struggle on Mount Lebanon, where he was fed by a raven sent by God in the manner of Elijah. In maturity he was consecrated bishop of the small Italian see of Formia. When the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian fell upon the Christians, Erasmus left his diocese for a time and again withdrew to Mount Lebanon, but an angel of the Lord called him back to the work of preaching. He converted many in Italy and the Balkans by his teaching and by miracles, healing the sick and casting out demons. Arrested by the persecutors he was beaten with clubs and lead-tipped scourges, smeared with pitch and set alight, but came forth unharmed. After further torments he reposed in peace at Formia, around 303. The seafaring people of the Mediterranean later took him as their patron, calling on him in storms and naming the electrical glow on a ship's masts after him.

Holy Virgin-Martyr Pelagia of Tarsus

She was born in Tarsus (home of the Apostle Paul). Though her parents were prominent pagans, she heard of Christ from Christians in that city, and her heart was filled with love for the Savior. The Emperor Diocletian visited Tarsus, and during his stay the Emperor’s son and heir fell in love with Pelagia and wished to marry her. To her parents’ complete amazement, Pelagia replied that she was already promised to her betrothed, Christ the Lord. She then fled her parents’ house and went to the holy Bishop Linus, who instructed her in the Faith and baptized her. Pelagia then gave away all her many possessions, returned home, and told her parents that she was baptised. The Emperor’s son, despairing of marryng her, killed himself. Pelagia’s mother then denounced her daughter to the Emperor, who summoned her for trial. When Pelagia freely confessed her unwavering faith in Christ, the Emperor condemned her to be burned in a metal ox heated by fire. An account of her martyrdom says that, entering the ox with prayers of thanksgiving on her lips, she instantly melted like wax. Bishop Linus, who had baptised her, found a few of her bones and buried them on a hill near Tarsus. During the reign of the Emperor Constantine Copronymus (741-775), a church was built there in her honor.

Our Holy Father Nikephoros the Hesychast

14th c.

He was originally a Roman Catholic, but became Orthodox and lived in asceticism on the Holy Mountain as a monk. He was the spiritual father of St Gregory Palamas. His life was outwardly uneventful, and he reposed in peace in the 14th century. He left this very concise description of the hesychast’s path: “Gather your mind and compel it to enter into your heart and remain there. When your mind is firmly in your heart, it must not remain empty, but must incessantly make the prayer: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!’ And it must never fall silent. Through this the whole string of the virtues: love, joy, peace and the others, will make their abode in you, by which, then, every request of yours to God will be fulfilled.”

Saint Athanasius, Bishop of Corinth

Saint Athanasius of Corinth was bishop of that ancient see in the tenth or early eleventh century. Little of his life has come down to us, but he is remembered for his pastoral care, his gentleness, and his struggle to preserve the faith and good order of the Corinthian Church in a turbulent age. He laboured to support the poor, to redeem captives taken by Saracen raiders along the coast of the Peloponnese, and to maintain monastic life in his diocese. Saint Athanasius reposed in peace and was numbered among the saints of his city. His memory is preserved in the Synaxarion and in local tradition at Corinth, where he is honoured on this day together with the other saints commemorated on 4 May.

Saint Nikephoros of Chios

Saint Nikephoros of Chios was an eighteenth-century teacher, hymnographer, and ascetic of the island of Chios. Born around 1750, he was educated at the famous school of Chios and tonsured a monk at the Nea Moni Monastery. He went on to study under Saint Athanasios Parios and other leading teachers of the kollyvades movement, which sought to renew Orthodox life through frequent communion, careful keeping of fasts and feasts, and a return to patristic and liturgical sources. Returning to Chios, Saint Nikephoros became director of the school there and laboured for the spiritual education of the young. He composed offices, akolouthies and synaxaria for many of the new martyrs of the Ottoman period, and gathered around himself disciples who would themselves give their lives for Christ, including the new martyrs Mark, Angelis, and Nikolaos of Karpenisi. After years of teaching he withdrew to the skete of the holy Fathers on Chios, where he ended his days in prayer and writing. He reposed on 1 May 1821; his commemoration in many calendars on 4 May reflects his association with the Chios saints kept on these days.

St Monica, mother of Blessed Augustine

388

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Acts — Acts 10.1-16

¹There was a certain man in Cæsarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, ²A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway. ³He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius. ⁴And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God. ⁵And now send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter: ⁶He lodgeth with one Simon a tanner, whose house is by the sea side: he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do. ⁷And when the angel which spake unto Cornelius was departed, he called two of his household servants, and a devout soldier of them that waited on him continually; ⁸And when he had declared all these things unto them, he sent them to Joppa.

⁹On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour: ¹⁰And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance, ¹¹And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: ¹²Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. ¹³And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. ¹⁴But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. ¹⁵And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. ¹⁶This was done thrice: and the vessel was received up again into heaven.

Gospel

weekly cycle

John — John 6.56-69

⁵⁶He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. ⁵⁷As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. ⁵⁸This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. ⁵⁹These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum. ⁶⁰Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? ⁶¹When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? ⁶²What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? ⁶³It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. ⁶⁴But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. ⁶⁵And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

⁶⁶From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. ⁶⁷Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? ⁶⁸Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.