Friday, 20 June 2025

Friday of the 2nd week after Pentecost

61 days after Pascha · Tone 8 · Liturgy · Apostles Fast

Saints commemorated

Hieromartyr Methodius, Bishop of Patara

312

The Hieromartyr Methodius was Bishop of Patara in Lycia in Asia Minor, and is also called Methodius of Olympus from another see he is said to have held earlier in his life. He was distinguished for his genuine monastic humility and for his great learning, and was numbered among the most eloquent writers of the early Church. He composed treatises against the errors of the philosopher Porphyry and against the doctrines of Origen on the resurrection and the nature of created things, defending the purity of Orthodox teaching and the goodness of the body and of marriage. His best known surviving work, the Symposium of the Ten Virgins, is a dialogue in praise of holy virginity and of the wisdom of Christ. During the last great persecution under the Emperor Maximinus, Saint Methodius was arrested for his confession of Christ, and after firmly defending the faith before the pagan judges he was beheaded in the year 312, around the time the Edict of Milan was about to bring peace to the Church.

Saint Calais of Anille

541

Saint Calais, in Latin Carilephus and in French Calais, was a hermit and abbot of sixth-century Gaul. Born in the Auvergne, he entered the monastery of Menat as a youth and was tonsured a monk, and afterwards moved to the abbey of Micy near Orleans under the rule of Saint Maximinus. Seeking greater solitude, he withdrew with a companion into the forest of Le Mans in the county of Maine, settling beside the river Anille. There the silence of his prayer was disturbed when a hunting wild bull pursued by the king of the Franks, Childebert, took refuge at his feet, and the king, finding the hermit unmoved, granted him the land for a monastery. Around this cell grew up the abbey of Anille, later known as Saint-Calais, of which he became the first abbot, and around it in time the town that bears his name. He fell asleep in the Lord in the year 541, having drawn many to the monastic life by the example of his austere discipline and gentle counsel.

Saint Naum of Ochrid

Saint Naum of Ochrid was a Bulgarian by descent, and one of the chief disciples and fellow workers of the holy Equals of the Apostles Cyril and Methodius. He laboured at their side in the great mission to the Slavs, helping to translate the Scriptures and the divine services into the Slavonic tongue, and shared in their journeys to Rome where he was ordained priest. After the death of Methodius in 885 and the bitter persecution of his disciples by the German clergy in Moravia, Naum, with Saints Clement, Angelar, Sava and Gorazd, was driven from his work and after great hardship found refuge in Bulgaria, where he was received with honour by Prince Boris. He taught and enlightened the Bulgarian people for many years, and at last withdrew to the shores of Lake Ochrid, where he founded a monastery and laboured in solitude for ten years until his repose around the year 910. His tomb at the monastery of Saint Naum on the lake remains a place of pilgrimage and of many miracles of healing.

Translation of the Relics of Saint Gleb of Russia

1174

The Holy Prince Gleb Andreevich, named George in holy baptism, was the younger son of the holy Prince Andrew Bogoliubsky of Vladimir. Under the influence of his pious parents he grew up with a deep faith in Christ from his earliest years, and from the age of twelve he led a solitary spiritual life of prayer, reading and almsgiving, shunning the diversions of his rank. He fell asleep in the Lord in the year 1174 at the age of nineteen, soon after the murder of his father by treacherous boyars. His incorrupt relics were preserved and glorified by miracles, and on this day the Church marks their translation and the dedication of his shrine in the Dormition cathedral in Vladimir, where the south chapel was set apart in his honour in 1774. He is venerated together with his father Saint Andrew Bogoliubsky as a patron of the Vladimir lands and an example of youthful holiness in the princely house of Russia.

St Kallistos I, Patriarch of Constantinople

1363

For twenty-eight years he lived the ascetical life on Mt Athos as a disciple of St Gregory of Mt Sinai. Later, he founded the monastery of St Mamas, also on Mt Athos. In 1350 he was elected Patriarch of Constantinople. After four years, he resigned the patriarchal throne to return to the Holy Mountain, but was called back to the throne, where he remained until his death in 1363. He wrote the definitive lives of St Gregory the Sinaite and St Theodosius of Trnovo. He was known to St Maximos Kapsokalyvia (the Hut-burner), who foretold his death: On his final journey to Serbia, on which he died, the Patriarch stopped on Mt Athos, where St Maximos saw him and said, “This elder will not see his flock again, because I hear behind him the hymn over the grave, ‘Blessed are those that are undefiled in the way…’”

Blessed Studios

5th c.

He was a prominent nobleman and consul in Constantinople. In the City he founded both the Church of St John the Forerunner in 463, and the monastery thereafter called the Studion in honor of him. The Studion monastery nurtured a long line of ascetics, teachers, and martyrs; perhaps the best known is St Theodore the Studite (November 11), the great defender of the holy icons. The monastery was destroyed by the Crusaders in 1204, restored in 1293 by Emperor Andronicus II.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Romans — Romans 5.17-6.2

¹⁷For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) ¹⁷For if, by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; much more shall they that receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, even Jesus Christ. ¹⁸Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. ¹⁸So then as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life. ¹⁹For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. ¹⁹For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous. ²⁰Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: ²⁰And the law came in besides, that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly: ²¹That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. ²¹that, as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

¹What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? ²God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? ²God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?

Gospel

weekly cycle

Matthew — Matthew 9.14-17

¹⁴Then came to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not?

¹⁴Then come to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not? ¹⁵And Jesus said unto them, Can the sons of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then will they fast. ¹⁵And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast. ¹⁶No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse. ¹⁶And no man putteth a piece of undressed cloth upon an old garment; for that which should fill it up taketh from the garment, and a worse rent is made. ¹⁷Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved. ¹⁷Neither do men put new wine into old wine-skins: else the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins perish: but they put new wine into fresh wine-skins, and both are preserved.