Thursday, 11 December 2025

Thursday of the 27th week after Pentecost

235 days after Pascha · Tone 1 · Liturgy · Nativity Fast (Wine and Oil are Allowed)

Saints commemorated

Saint Daniel the Stylite

493

Saint Daniel the Stylite was born about 409 in the village of Bethara near Samosata in Mesopotamia. His mother Martha was long childless and vowed to dedicate any son granted her to the Lord. At twelve Daniel entered the local monastery and was tonsured against the abbot's hesitation about his youth. While accompanying the abbot to Antioch, he met Saint Simeon the Stylite on his pillar near Aleppo, who blessed the young monk and foretold that he too would undertake the same labour. After Simeon's repose in 459, Daniel set out on pilgrimage to the Holy Land but was warned by an angel to turn aside to Constantinople. He spent nine years in a disused pagan temple at Anaplus on the Bosphorus, then mounted a pillar provided by a benefactor at Anaplus near the city, where he stood for thirty-three years exposed to the elements, even surviving a frozen winter that left him a block of ice. The patriarch Saint Anatolius and later Saint Gennadius ordained him priest at the foot of the pillar. Emperors Leo, Zeno and Basiliscus sought his counsel; he descended once only to confront the usurper Basiliscus and recall him to Orthodoxy. He prophesied a great fire in Constantinople and many other things. Daniel reposed in 493 aged about eighty-four and was buried at the foot of his pillar.

Saint Luke the New Stylite of Chalcedon

Saint Luke the New Stylite was born in the village of Atroe in the diocese of Anatolia toward the close of the ninth century to pious parents named Christopher and Cale, the sixth of seven children. From childhood he was inclined to prayer, fasting and almsgiving. As a young man he served as a soldier under the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, fighting in the Bulgarian war of 917 in which the imperial army was disastrously defeated at Anchialos; through the providence of God he came out unscathed, and recognising the vanity of earthly things he embraced the monastic life. After receiving the tonsure he was found worthy of ordination to the priesthood. He stood three years upon a pillar at his first place of struggle, then withdrew to Mount Olympus in Bithynia, then to Constantinople, and finally settled at Chalcedon, where he ascended a pillar on which he remained for forty-five years. There he was granted the gifts of healing, prophecy and consolation, and people of every rank came to him for counsel and to be relieved of their afflictions. He reposed in peace about the year 979 in the time of the emperor Basil II.

Saint Nikon, Abbot of Iveron

Saint Nikon, sometimes called Nikon Metanoeite from his constant cry of "Repent," was a Georgian monk of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries who became abbot of the Iveron Monastery on Mount Athos. He took the monastic habit early in life and was distinguished by his deep humility, ascetic strictness and sweetness of speech. As superior of the great Georgian monastery on the Holy Mountain he laboured to preserve the cenobitic order established by Saints John and Euthymius the Iberians, the founders of Iveron, and supported the translation of the Greek Fathers into the Georgian tongue. He governed the brotherhood with discernment, was generous to pilgrims and to the poor, and reposed in peace at Iveron, leaving the community strengthened in observance and in love of the holy services. He is sometimes confused in the calendars with Saint Nikon the Dry of the Kiev Caves, but is properly the abbot of the Iberian house on Athos commemorated on this day.

Venerable Leontius of Monemvasia, the Myrrh-streaming

Saint Leontius the Myrrh-streaming was born in the early sixteenth century at Monemvasia in the Peloponnese. From childhood he was attracted to the divine services and the study of the Scriptures, and as a young man he set out for the Holy Mountain, where he was tonsured a monk and given to severe asceticism. He laboured at several monasteries on Athos and especially at Dionysiou, where he distinguished himself by humility, silence and unceasing prayer. Withdrawing for greater solitude he spent many years in cave-dwelling and rigorous fasting. He reposed in peace, and after his burial his relics were found to stream a fragrant myrrh which became a source of healing to the faithful, on account of which he is called the Myrrh-streaming. His memory is kept on the Holy Mountain and in his native Monemvasia.

Saint Nikon the Dry of the Kiev Caves

1101

He was a monk in Kiev, taken into slavery by a band of Polovtsi (Turkic raiders who were troubling the country at that time) along with the holy Martyr Eustratius (March 28). He humbly refused to be ransomed by his family and therefore suffered a harsh captivity for three years. Despite this, he prayed constantly for his captors, worked miracles for their sake, and once healed their leader from a deadly illness. One day St Eustratius appeared to him in a vision and told him that he would be set free in three days. When he told his captors, they severed the tendons of his knees and ankles and kept him under guard. But at the appointed time he was miraculously transported to Kiev, where he suddenly appeared in church among his astonished brethren. The Saint did not want his chains removed until his Abbot said “Brother, if the Lord wanted to see you in these chains, he would not have delivered you from captivity!” He was so withered from his hardships that he became known as Nikon the Dry. Later, the captor whom he had healed came to the Monastery of the Caves and became a disciple of his former slave.

Our Venerable Father Luke the New Stylite

979

He was an Anatolian, and in his youth served in the Byzantine army in the war against the Bulgar Tsar Symeon. After the war, he left the army to become a monk, and was in time ordained to the priesthood. For a time he served as an army chaplain, living even more austerely than he had as a monk and distributing all his possessions to soldiers in need. He entered the Monastery of St Zacharias on Mount Olympus in Bithynia, where he was appointed steward. Here his ascetical labors reached new levels. He kept a large stone in his mouth so that he would be unable to speak, and spent each night in a tree. When his exploits threatened to attract admiration, Luke fled to his homeland and lived for a few years in an isolated cave. Then, following in the footsteps of Symeon the Elder (September 1), Symeon the Younger (May 24), Daniel (today) and Alypius (November 26), he began to live as a stylite, dwelling on a tall pillar near Constantinople. Here he became a powerful intercessor for those who flocked to him for healing or counsel, and countless miracles were worked through his prayers. Saint Luke lived on his pillar for more than forty years without interruption, and fell asleep in peace, aged more than one hundred. He was buried in the Monastery of St Bassian.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

1 Timothy — 1 Timothy 6.17-21

¹⁷Charge them that are rich in this present world, that they be not highminded, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; ¹⁷Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; ¹⁸that they do good, that they be rich in good works, that they be ready to distribute, willing to communicate; ¹⁸That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; ¹⁹laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on the life which is life indeed. ¹⁹Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. ²⁰O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:

²⁰O Timothy, guard that which is committed unto thee, turning away from the profane babblings and oppositions of the knowledge which is falsely so called;

²¹which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with you. ²¹Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Luke — Luke 21.28-33

²⁸And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. ²⁸But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads; because your redemption draweth nigh. ²⁹And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees;

²⁹And he spake to them a parable: Behold the fig tree, and all the trees: ³⁰When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. ³⁰when they now shoot forth, ye see it and know of your own selves that the summer is now nigh. ³¹So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. ³¹Even so ye also, when ye see these things coming to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh. ³²Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled. ³²Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all things be accomplished. ³³Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. ³³Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.