Wednesday, 29 October 2025

Wednesday of the 21st week after Pentecost

192 days after Pascha · Tone 3 · Liturgy · Fast

Saints commemorated

Holy venerable martyr Anastasia the Roman

Saint Anastasia the Roman was born at Rome in the third century. Orphaned at the age of three, she was received and raised by the abbess Sophia in a small community of consecrated virgins outside the city. There, under the guidance of this experienced spiritual mother, she grew up in fervent prayer, fasting and obedience, and by the age of twenty had attained great virtue and was renowned for her beauty no less than for her holiness. During the persecution of the emperor Decius (or, by another reckoning, of Valerian about 256), the city prefect Probus, hearing of a Christian virgin of unusual beauty, sent soldiers to bring her by force. Anastasia bade farewell to her abbess, was strengthened in prayer, and went to her trial fearless. Probus tried both flattery and terror, but the saint mocked the gods of the Empire and confessed Christ. She was then subjected to fearful tortures: her breasts were cut off and her tongue torn out; an angel of the Lord stood by, sustaining and consoling her. At last she was beheaded. The abbess Sophia recovered her relics and gave them honourable burial. Saint Anastasia is distinguished from the other holy martyr Anastasia, the deliverer from potions, commemorated on 22 December.

Righteous Anna of Constantinople

Saint Anna was born in Constantinople in the eighth century, the daughter of a pious deacon of the church of Blachernae. She was given in marriage and bore a son, Saint John. After her husband's death, fearing the second iconoclast persecution and longing for the monastic life, she dressed in the habit of a man, took the name Euthymianus, and with her young son entered a monastery near Mount Olympus in Bithynia. There she lived for many years in great asceticism, her sex unsuspected by the brethren, attaining gifts of prayer, foreknowledge and miracles. She afterwards returned to Constantinople, where she ended her days in 826 in deep humility, the secret of her life becoming known only at her repose. Her son John outlived her in the same monastic discipline. Their joint memory is kept on 29 October, with a second commemoration on 13 June.

Venerable Abramius the recluse and his niece Mary of Mesopotamia

Abramius was a Christian of noble birth who, early in life, left all (including a young bride) to live as a solitary monk. This he did for fifty years. When Abramius’ brother died, leaving his seven-year-old daughter Mary orphaned and alone, The Saint took her under his care, giving her a monastic cell near his own. Though Mary devoted herself joyfully to the monastic life, when she was about twenty she fell into sin with a corrupt monk who visited the hermitage. Far worse, she then fell into despair, thinking that she had cast away her salvation, and fled the hermitage to become a harlot in a nearby town. Abramius, unaware of what had happened or where she had gone, prayed constantly for her safety and to be shown where she had fled.

One day a traveler told Abramius what had become of his niece. Immediately he rose up, dressed himself as a soldier and went to the brothel where Mary worked, “for the salvation of a soul meant more to him than hermitage, Habit, ascesis or prayer itself” (Synaxarion). Still disguised, he ordered a meal, his first wine and meat for fifty years, then went with Mary to her room. Only then did he reveal himself, and with tears, not accusing her at all, pleaded with her to leave that place and return with him. “Let us go, my child; let us return to our hermitage. Let your fault be mine. I will answer for it before Christ on the day of judgment.” She returned with him and, with repentance, prayed so ardently that she was soon granted not only assurance of forgiveness but the power to work miracles. St Abramius reposed in peace in great old age; Mary followed him into eternal joy five years later.

Venerable Abramius, archimandrite of Rostov

Saint Abramius (Abraham) of Rostov was an enlightener of the Russian land in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Born of pious parents at Galich in Kostroma, he sought the monastic life from his youth and was tonsured at the Valaam monastery on Lake Ladoga, then journeyed to Rostov, where the people were still given to the worship of idols, in particular a great stone image of Veles set up on the lake shore. Praying earnestly that the Lord would deliver the city from this delusion, Abramius received a vision of the holy apostle and evangelist John the Theologian, who gave him a staff with which he overthrew and shattered the idol. On the spot the saint built a church in honour of the Theophany of the Lord and founded a monastery (the Bogoyavlensky Avraamiev), of which he became the first abbot. He laboured many years in the conversion of the people of Rostov, baptising both adults and children, and reposed at a great age about 1077. His incorrupt relics were uncovered in 1210 in the time of Saint Demetrius of Rostov's predecessors. Tsar Ivan IV took the saint's iron staff with him on the conquest of Kazan in 1552. His memory is kept on 29 October.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Colossians — Colossians 1.18-23

¹⁸And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. ¹⁸And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. ¹⁹For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fulness dwell; ¹⁹For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; ²⁰and through him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross; through him, I say, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens. ²⁰And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. ²¹And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works, ²¹And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled ²²yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish and unreproveable before him: ²²In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: ²³if so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded and stedfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven; whereof I Paul was made a minister. ²³If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;

Gospel

weekly cycle

Luke — Luke 11.9-13

⁹And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. ⁹And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. ¹⁰For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. ¹⁰For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. ¹¹If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? ¹¹And of which of you that is a father shall his son ask a loaf, and he give him a stone? or a fish, and he for a fish give him a serpent? ¹²Or if he shall ask an egg, will he give him a scorpion? ¹²Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? ¹³If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? ¹³If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?