Friday, 20 February 2026

St Leo, Bishop of Catania

Cheesefare Friday

51 days before Pascha · Tone 3 · Liturgy · Fast (Meat Fast)

No Liturgy

Saints commemorated

Saint Agatho, pope of Rome

Saint Agatho was born of Greek parents in Sicily towards the end of the sixth century. From his youth he embraced the monastic life and entered the monastery of Saint Hermas in Palermo, where he was distinguished for his humility, his learning and his gentleness. After many years of monastic labour he was called to the service of the Roman Church and elected to the apostolic see, succeeding Pope Donus on 27 June 678. His brief pontificate was crowned by the Sixth Ecumenical Council, which was convened at Constantinople in 680 at the request of the emperor Constantine IV to deal with the heresy of Monothelitism, which taught that there was only one will in Christ. Saint Agatho sent his legates to the council together with a dogmatic epistle in which he confessed, in the name of the apostolic see, the traditional faith of the Church in the two wills and two natural operations of the incarnate Word. His letter was read at the council and was received by the assembled fathers as agreeing with the teaching of the holy apostles, the ecumenical synods and the great fathers. The council, completing its work in September 681, condemned Monothelitism and anathematised those who had taught it. Saint Agatho did not live to see the conclusion, having reposed peacefully in Rome on 10 January 681. He is honoured as a saint in both the Eastern and Western Churches; in the Greek calendar his memory is kept on this day.

Saint Leo, Bishop of Catania

He lived at the time of the first persecutions of the holy icons. He was born in Ravenna to a noble family, and became bishop of his native city. Soon his reputation as a true shepherd of Christ’s flock spread, and he was elected Bishop of Catania in Sicily. As is so often true even today, the city, though nominally Christian, was plagued by superstition and paganism. The holy bishop set about to turn the people away from error: by his prayers he caused a pagan temple to collapse and built a church on its site, dedicated to the Forty Maryrs of Sebaste. At that time the entire island was under the oppressive rule of a magus named Heliodorus, who used all his magical skills to oppress the people and advance himself. Though he had been taken captive by Imperial order, and condemned to death, he was always able to escape his captors by his occult skills. Saint Leo, who sought the conversion of everyone, did his best to turn the magus to Christ, but to no effect. One day Heliodorus entered the church during the Divine Liturgy, mocking the Mysteries of Christ. The Saint came out of the sanctuary and, casting his omophorion over the mocker, instantly deprived him of his demonic powers. The Prefect of Sicily ordered the magus to be burnt alive. Bishop Leo went to the stake with him, but emerged unmarked without even the smell of fire upon him, while Heliodorus was burnt to ashes.

Saint Leo’s fierceness in defense of the Faith was matched by his love and compassion for the poor and defenseless, for whom he poured himself out unceasingly with prayers, alms and visitation. By his prayers he restored sight to the blind and healed the paralyzed. After his repose, his holy relics, which exuded a fragrant myrrh, were venerated in a church that he had founded in honor of Saint Lucia.

Saint Sadoth of Persia

Saint Sadoth was a holy bishop who laboured in Persia and remained faithful to the Orthodox Gospel despite fierce persecution. He endured torment and death rather than renounce his faith in Christ. According to Church tradition, Sadoth and his faithful companions were imprisoned and martyred for refusing to submit to idolatrous practices. His martyrdom exemplified the cost of discipleship and the triumph of the Cross over worldly power. The Orthodox Church venerates Saint Sadoth as a powerful intercessor and martyr whose witness strengthened the faith of countless believers.

Saint Wulfric of Haselbury, anchorite

1154

Saint Wulfric was born about the year 1080 at Compton Martin in Somerset, England. He was ordained to the priesthood and served first at Deverill near Warminster, where in his early years he gave himself more to hunting with hawk and hound than to the cure of souls. A chance encounter with a beggar, who reproached him for his worldliness and warned him to amend his life, brought him to deep repentance. About the year 1125 Wulfric returned to his native country and settled at Haselbury Plucknett, where he received the bishop's blessing to enclose himself as an anchorite in a cell built against the wall of the church of Saint Michael. There he lived for nearly thirty years in unceasing prayer, fasting and silence. He copied and bound books, sang the psalter standing in a barrel of cold water, wore a coat of mail beneath his habit, and slept little. He was honoured by King Henry I and King Stephen, who came to him for counsel, and was sought by the simple and the great alike for the gift of prophecy and for healing. Saint Wulfric reposed on 20 February in the year 1154 and was buried in his cell at Haselbury, where his tomb became a place of pilgrimage. His life was written by John, abbot of Forde, who had known many of his friends and disciples. He is honoured among the saints of the British Isles in the Orthodox tradition.

St Bessarion the Great, wonder-worker of Egypt

466

“An Egyptian by birth, Abba Bessarion was initiated into the angelic life by Saint Anthony the Great. He later became a disciple of Saint Macarius, the founder of Scetis (19 Jan.), and then set out to lead the life of a wanderer, borne hither and thither by Providence like a bird by the wind. All his wealth lay in the Gospel, which he always had in his hand. Living in the open air, he patiently endured all weathers, untroubled by care for a dwelling or for clothing. Fortified by the strength of the faith, he thus remained untouched by all the passions of the flesh. “On coming to a monastery where the brethren led the common life, he would sit weeping at the gate. A brother once offered him hospitality and asked why he was distressed. ‘I cannot live under a roof, until I have regained the wealth of my house,’ he replied, meaning the heavenly inheritance lost since Adam. ‘I am afflicted, in danger of death every day, and without rest because of my huge misfortunes, which oblige me ever to travel on in order to finish my course.’ “He wandered for forty years without ever lying down to sleep, and he spent all of forty days and forty nights standing wide awake in a thorn bush. One winter’s day, he was walking through a village when he came upon a dead man. Without hesitation, he took off his own coat and covered the body. A little further on, he gave his tunic to a poor man who was shivering in the cold. An army officer, who happened to be passing, saw the naked ascetic and wanted to know who had stripped him of his clothing. ‘He did!’ replied Bessarion, holding up the Gospel Book. On another occasion, he met with a poor man and, having nothing to give him in alms, he hurried to the market in order to sell his Gospel Book. On his disciple’s asking him where the Book was, he replied cheerfully, ‘I have sold it in obedience to the words which I never cease to hear: Go, sell what you possess and give to the poor‘ (Matt. 19:21). “Through this evangelic way of life he became a chosen vessel of Grace, and God wrought many miracles through him. One day, for example, he made sea water sweet through the sign of the Cross, to quench his disciple’s thirst. When the latter wanted to keep some for the remainder of the journey, he prevented him, saying, ‘God is here, God is everywhere!’ At another time, having stood for two weeks in prayer with hands raised to heaven, he brought about rain enough to fill a thirsty brother’s coat. Then there was the time when he stopped the sun from setting until he reached the cell of an elder whom he wished to meet; and the time when he walked across the waters of a river. Through these and many other wonders wrought by the Saint, God showed, as He did with Moses, Joshua and Elias, that He grants His servants mastery even over natural phenomena. Through the power of Christ, he raised a paralytic, drove out demons and showed himself truly to be a ‘god’ upon the earth. “When, having reached his goal, he was at the point of regaining that dwelling in heaven which he had sought throughout his wanderings, he said to those about him, ‘The monk ought, like the cherubim, to be all eye.’ “In answer to a brother who asked what a monk living in community ought to do, he replied: ‘Keep silence and do not measure yourself.’ Indeed, this is how even in the midst of people one can obtain the grace of the great anchorites.” (Synaxarion)

Thirty-four Holy Martyrs of the Monastery of Valaam

1578

These thirty-four venerable fathers of the Monastery of the Transfiguration at Valaam on Lake Ladoga were massacred by a party of converts to Lutheranism who besieged the monastery and attempted to make the brethren renounce the Orthodox Faith.

Daily readings

6th Hour

weekly cycle

Zechariah — Zechariah 8.7-17

⁷Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Behold, I will save my people from the east country, and from the west country; ⁸And I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness.

⁹Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Let your hands be strong, ye that hear in these days these words by the mouth of the prophets, which were in the day that the foundation of the house of the LORD of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built. ¹⁰For before these days there was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast; neither was there any peace to him that went out or came in because of the affliction: for I set all men every one against his neighbour. ¹¹But now I will not be unto the residue of this people as in the former days, saith the LORD of hosts. ¹²For the seed shall be prosperous; the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things. ¹³And it shall come to pass, that as ye were a curse among the heathen, O house of Judah, and house of Israel; so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing: fear not, but let your hands be strong. ¹⁴For thus saith the LORD of hosts; As I thought to punish you, when your fathers provoked me to wrath, saith the LORD of hosts, and I repented not: ¹⁵So again have I thought in these days to do well unto Jerusalem and to the house of Judah: fear ye not.

¹⁶These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates: ¹⁷And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD.

Vespers

weekly cycle

Zechariah — Zechariah 8.19-23

¹⁹Thus saith the LORD of hosts; The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore love the truth and peace. ²⁰Thus saith the LORD of hosts; It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities: ²¹And the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the LORD, and to seek the LORD of hosts: I will go also. ²²Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the LORD. ²³Thus saith the LORD of hosts; In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you.