Tuesday, 9 September 2025

Tuesday of the 14th week after Pentecost

142 days after Pascha · Tone 4 · Red squigg (doxology typikon symbol) · No Fast

Saints commemorated

★ Holy Martyr Severian of Sebaste

He was a prominent citizen of Sebaste during the reign of Licinius. When the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (March 9) were in prison, he encouraged and comforted them. For this, and for his Christian example which had converted many pagans in the region, the Provincial Governor Lysias ordered his arrest. But before the soldiers could find him, he presented himself before the Governor and openly proclaimed his faith. For this he was subjected to many days of horrible tortures, during which he constantly exhorted the believers who followed him to stand firm in their confession of Christ. After astonishing endurance of his torments, he gave up his spirit to God.

At the Saint’s burial, the husband of one of his servants was miraculously raised from the dead, living for another fifteen years. The Christians could not decide where to bury Severian, so they wove a crown of flowers and laid it on his body to await a sign from heaven. An eagle took up the crown and dropped it in a nearby forest. The Christians buried the Martyr where the crown fell; his tomb became a fount of miracles, and the man who had been raised from the dead tended it for the rest of his life.

★ Synaxis of the holy and righteous ancestors of God Joachim and Anna

St Joachim was of the tribe of Judah and a descendant of King David. St Anna was of the tribe of Levi, the daughter of a priest named Matthan. Matthan’s three daughters were Mary, Zoia and Anna. Mary became the mother of Salome the Myrrhbearer; Zoia bore Elizabeth, mother of St John the Baptist; and Anna married Joachim in Nazareth. Joachim and Anna, to their great sorrow, were barren for fifty years. They lived prayerfully and kept only a third of their income for themselves, giving a third to the poor and a third to the Temple. Once when they had come to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice at the Temple, Joachim was publicly scorned by the High Priest Issachar for his childlessness. Joachim and Anna, greatly grieved, prayed fervently that God would grant them the miracle that he had wrought for Abraham and Sarah, and give them a child in their old age. Once, as each was praying separately in a secluded place, angels appeared to each of them and revealed to them that they would be given a blessed daughter, `by whom all nations will be blessed, and through whom will come the salvation of the world.’ They both rushed home to tell one another the joyous news, and embraced when they met. (This is the moment depicted in their icon.) Anna conceived and gave birth to the Most Holy Theotokos. Both reposed in peace, not long after they had sent her to live in the Temple.

Commemoration of the Third Ecumenical Council

431

On this day the Orthodox Church commemorates the Third Ecumenical Council, which was convened by the emperor Theodosius the Younger at Ephesus in the year 431 and attended by some two hundred bishops under the presidency of Saint Cyril of Alexandria. The council was summoned to address the teaching of Nestorius, archbishop of Constantinople, who had refused to call the Virgin Mary "Theotokos," that is, "Birthgiver of God," holding instead that she had given birth only to the man Jesus, in whom the Word of God dwelt as in a temple. Saint Cyril, at the head of the council, proclaimed the unity of the Person of the incarnate Word, who is one and the same, eternally begotten of the Father according to His divinity and born in time of the Virgin according to His humanity. The council deposed Nestorius, confirmed the title Theotokos as expressing the orthodox confession of the Incarnation, and approved the Twelve Anathemas of Saint Cyril. Its commemoration is fittingly placed close to the Nativity of the Theotokos, whose dignity it solemnly defined for the whole Church.

Saint Joseph, abbot of Volotsk

Saint Joseph of Volotsk was born in 1439 to a noble family of Volokolamsk in north-eastern Russia and given the name Ivan Sanin in baptism. From childhood he was inclined to the monastic life, and at the age of about twenty he entered the monastery of Saint Paphnutius of Borovsk, where he was clothed as a monk under that great elder. After Paphnutius died, Joseph was elected abbot, but seeking a stricter rule he left and travelled through several monasteries of Russia, finally founding in 1479 his own community in the forests of Volokolamsk, dedicated to the Dormition of the Mother of God. There he established a coenobitic rule of remarkable severity, with full common life, prolonged services, manual labour and intensive almsgiving in time of famine, when the monastery is said to have fed many hundreds daily. He became one of the most influential figures of the Russian Church of his age, defending the Orthodox faith against the Judaising heresy at the councils of 1490 and 1504, and writing the great work known as The Enlightener in refutation of it. He upheld the right of monasteries to hold lands for the support of charity and learning, in opposition to the Trans-Volga elders led by Saint Nilus of Sora, though both sides are honoured as saints. Saint Joseph reposed on 9 September 1515, and his relics rest at the Joseph-Volokolamsk monastery he founded.

Our Holy Father Ciaran of Clonmacnoise

549

Born to the family of a cartwright in Ireland, he entered monastic life when he was very young at the Monastery of Clonard, where he became a disciple of St Finnian (December 12). He became one of the ‘Twelve Apostles of Ireland’, all of them disciples of St Finnian. Ciaran founded the great monastery of Clonmacnoise (pronounced clon-mac-neesh) on the Shannon River, which became one of Ireland’s great monasteries. Once, during a great famine, He distributed all of the monastery’s food to the people, entrusting his monks’ survival, and his own, to providence. Saint Ciaran reposed in peace, aged only thirty-three, in 549.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

2 Corinthians — 2 Corinthians 12.20-13.2

²⁰For I fear, lest by any means, when I come, I should find you not such as I would, and should myself be found of you such as ye would not; lest by any means there should be strife, jealousy, wraths, factions, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults; ²⁰For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults: ²¹And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed. ²¹lest again when I come my God should humble me before you, and I should mourn for many of them that have sinned heretofore, and repented not of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they committed.

¹This is the third time I am coming to you. At the mouth of two witnesses or three shall every word be established.

¹This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. ²I have said beforehand, and I do say beforehand, as when I was present the second time, so now, being absent, to them that have sinned heretofore, and to all the rest, that, if I come again, I will not spare; ²I told you before, and foretell you, as if I were present, the second time; and being absent now I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that, if I come again, I will not spare:

Gospel

weekly cycle

Mark — Mark 4.24-34

²⁴And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. ²⁴And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you; and more shall be given unto you. ²⁵For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath. ²⁵For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath.

²⁶And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;

²⁶And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed upon the earth; ²⁷And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. ²⁷and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up and grow, he knoweth not how. ²⁸For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. ²⁸The earth beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. ²⁹But when the fruit is ripe, straightway he putteth forth the sickle, because the harvest is come. ²⁹But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.

³⁰And he said, How shall we liken the kingdom of God? or in what parable shall we set it forth?

³⁰And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it? ³¹It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: ³¹It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown upon the earth, though it be less than all the seeds that are upon the earth, ³²But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it. ³²yet when it is sown, groweth up, and becometh greater than all the herbs, and putteth out great branches; so that the birds of the heaven can lodge under the shadow thereof. ³³And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it.

³³And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it; ³⁴But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples. ³⁴and without a parable spake he not unto them: but privately to his own disciples he expounded all things.