Monday, 20 October 2025

Monday of the 20th week after Pentecost

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

Saints commemorated

★ Holy Great Martyr Artemius at Antioch

362

Saint Artemius was a distinguished general under the holy emperor Constantine the Great and his son Constantius, present at the battle of the Milvian Bridge where he saw the sign of the Cross in heaven, and afterwards entrusted by Constantius with the high office of viceroy of Egypt and commander of its armies. In Egypt he laboured for the strengthening of the Orthodox faith, casting down idols, building churches and translating the relics of the holy apostles Andrew and Luke from Patras and Thebes to Constantinople. When upon the death of Constantius the imperial purple was assumed by his cousin Julian, called the Apostate, who renounced the Christian faith and undertook to restore the worship of the gods, Artemius came to Antioch and openly rebuked him before all the people for his impiety, reminding him of the wonders that had been wrought before his uncle Constantine. Stripped of his rank and possessions, he was scourged with cords reinforced with iron, broken upon a great stone, and at last beheaded outside the city, in the year 362, foretelling at the moment of his death that the apostate himself should perish miserably in his Persian campaign, as indeed came to pass within a few months. His relics were translated to Constantinople and laid up in the church of the Forerunner in Oxeia, and many sick persons received healing from his shrine, especially of bodily ruptures, on which account he is commonly invoked.

Righteous Artemius the Child of Verkola

1532

The righteous Artemius was born in the year 1532 in the village of Verkola in the far north of Russia, in the country of the river Pinega, the only son of pious peasants Cosmas and Apollinaria. From his fifth year the boy was distinguished by quietness, piety and obedience, refusing the games of his playmates and giving himself to prayer and to work in the fields with his father. In his thirteenth year, on the twenty-third of June 1545, while harrowing in a field beside his father, he was killed by a sudden flash of lightning out of a great thunderstorm; and the simple villagers, supposing such a death to be a punishment for hidden sins, left his body unburied in the forest, covered only with a heap of brushwood and birch bark. Thirty-two years later, in 1577, a deacon named Agathonik, drawn by a strange light shining over the place, found the boy's body uncorrupt and bearing no mark of decay, and a wonderful fragrance arose from it. The relics were taken with reverence to the church of Saint Nicholas in Verkola, where many sick persons, especially children stricken with fever, were healed by his prayers. The Russian Church glorified him among the saints, and a monastery later arose at the place of his finding, which preserved his shrine until the days of the Soviet persecution. The twentieth of October commemorates the uncovering of his relics; his repose is kept upon the twenty-third of June.

Saint Gerasimus the New of Cephalonia

Saint Gerasimus was born about the year 1506 in the village of Trikkala in the Peloponnese, of the noble and ancient family of the Notaras, and from his youth was inflamed with the love of God. After receiving instruction in piety and letters he travelled to Zakynthos, then to Mount Athos, where he was tonsured a monk and learned the way of hesychasm under the elders of the Holy Mountain. Thence he set out as a pilgrim, visiting Constantinople, Antioch, Damascus, Alexandria and the holy places of Egypt and Sinai, and dwelt for twelve years in Jerusalem, where the patriarch Germanus ordained him deacon and priest. Returning to Greece, he laboured for some time in Crete and Zakynthos and at last in 1555 settled upon the island of Cephalonia, where for five years he lived as a recluse in a cave at Lassi near Argostoli. Removing afterwards to the plain of Omala, he restored an ancient ruined church under the name of the Holy Theotokos and gathered there a community of nuns under the title of "the New Jerusalem", which he guided as their spiritual father for thirty years. Renowned for fasting, all-night vigils and the gift of casting out unclean spirits, he reposed in peace on the fifteenth of August 1579. Two years later his grave was opened and his body was found whole and incorrupt, fragrant and shining with grace. The twentieth of October commemorates the second uncovering of his relics in 1581, and his incorrupt body remains to this day in the monastery of Omala, the chief shrine of Cephalonia.

St Jonah, Bishop of Manchuria

1925

Note: St Jonah’s commemoration is October 7 on the Old Calendar, which falls on this day of the New Calendar. He was orphaned in Russia at a young age, and, after attending the seminary in his home town of Kaluga, was tonsured as a monk at Optina Monastery. He was later ordained a priest, and taught in Kazan. In his thirtieth year (1918) the Bolsheviks seized power and he was forced to flee. After many persecutions and sufferings, he joined a large party of Russians who fled across Turkestan and the Gobi Desert into China. There he was made Bishop, and immediately began working tirelessly to encourage his flock and to provide for their material needs (most had arrived in China with only the clothes on their backs). He established churches, opened soup kitchens and an orphanage, cared personally for the sick, and in every way personified a true Minister of Christ. When his death approached (from an infection acquired while caring for the sick) he donned his epitrachelion, read the Canon for the Departure of the Soul, lay down on his bed and said ‘God’s will be done. Now I shall die.’ Within minutes he was dead. On the night of his funeral the Bishop appeared to a paralyzed ten-year-old boy, who was miraculously healed.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Philippians — Philippians 2.12-16

¹²So then, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;

¹²Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. ¹³for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure. ¹³For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. ¹⁴Do all things without murmurings and questionings: ¹⁴Do all things without murmurings and disputings: ¹⁵That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; ¹⁵that ye may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom ye are seen as lights in the world, ¹⁶holding forth the word of life; that I may have whereof to glory in the day of Christ, that I did not run in vain neither labor in vain. ¹⁶Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Luke — Luke 9.18-22

¹⁸And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am?

¹⁸And it came to pass, as he was praying apart, the disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Who do the multitudes say that I am? ¹⁹They answering said, John the Baptist; but some say, Elias; and others say, that one of the old prophets is risen again. ¹⁹And they answering said, John the Baptist; but others say, Elijah; and others, that one of the old prophets is risen again. ²⁰He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Peter answering said, The Christ of God. ²⁰And he said unto them, But who say ye that I am? And Peter answering said, The Christ of God. ²¹But he charged them, and commanded them to tell this to no man; ²¹And he straitly charged them, and commanded them to tell no man that thing; ²²Saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day. ²²saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.