Saturday, 4 April 2026

Lazarus Saturday

8 days before Pascha · Liturgy · Lenten Fast (Wine, Oil and Caviar are Allowed)

Saints commemorated

Saint Theonas, Metropolitan of Thessalonica

Saint Theonas, Metropolitan of Thessalonica, was a holy hierarch of the early sixteenth century. According to tradition he was born on the island of Lesbos toward the close of the fifteenth century. He came in his youth to Mount Athos, where he received tonsure at the Pantokrator Monastery and was ordained priest. Drawn by the reputation of Saint Iakovos the Neomartyr (the holy ascetic of the skete of the Forerunner above Iveron), he joined Iakovos's brotherhood. After the martyrdom of Saint Iakovos in 1520, Theonas led the small community. In 1522 the brethren settled in the Athonite Monastery of Simonopetra, but seeking deeper quiet they soon withdrew to Galatista in the Chalkidiki, where they restored the ruined Monastery of Saint Anastasia "Pharmakolytria" (the Deliverer from Poisons). Saint Theonas served as abbot of this house, restoring its buildings, gathering many monks and renewing its spiritual life. In 1535 he was elected by the clergy and people Metropolitan of Thessalonica. There, despite the heavy burdens laid upon Greek hierarchs by the Ottoman authorities, he carried out a vigorous pastoral, charitable and educational ministry, defending his flock from violence and converting many. He reposed in peace in May 1542, after little more than a year as metropolitan. His relics worked miracles and were carried back to the Monastery of Saint Anastasia. In 1821 they were taken for safekeeping to Skopelos and afterwards to the Monastery of Esphigmenou on the Holy Mountain, where they remain today. His memory is honoured on 4 April.

Venerable George of Mount Maleon

Saint George the Righteous of Mount Maleon (also Maleos, Malevos), known as "the Hesychast," was a ninth-century ascetic of the Peloponnese. From his youth he was drawn to the angelic life. When his parents arranged a marriage for him with a maiden of their own social rank he refused, and instead departed for Mount Maleon (Maleas) on the wild southern peninsula of Laconia, between the gulfs of Argolis and Lakonika, where he received tonsure and gave himself up to silence, fasting and unceasing prayer. His sanctity drew other monks who gathered round him and asked to be guided by him; from these he formed a small lavra. He was granted the gift of foreknowledge, predicting his own repose three years before it occurred. Living in the fragrance of the Holy Spirit, with great composure of mind, he died in peace at a great old age and was buried at his hermitage. The Greek synaxaria commemorate him on 4 April together with the Hymnographer Joseph.

Venerable Plato of the Studion

Saint Plato of Sakkoudion, abbot and confessor (c. 735 to 814), was uncle and teacher of the great Saint Theodore the Studite. Born at Constantinople of pious parents who perished early in the bubonic plague of 747, he was raised by relatives, given an excellent education and entered the imperial service, but the love of God soon drew him to abandon the world. About the age of twenty-four, in 759, he received tonsure at the monastery of Symbolon on Mount Olympus in Bithynia. When the abbot of that monastery, Theoktistos, died around 770 the brethren chose Plato to succeed him, despite his being only thirty-five years of age. He governed Symbolon for many years, and around 783 he founded with his nephew Saint Theodore the great monastery of Sakkoudion on Mount Olympus, in Bithynia, of which he became the first abbot. He took part in the Seventh Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 787, defending the veneration of the holy icons. His later life was a series of confessions for the truth. When Constantine VI dismissed his lawful wife Mary of Amnia and married Theodote (Plato's own niece) in 795, Plato and Theodore broke communion with the Patriarch Tarasios for accepting the imperial adultery; for this they were imprisoned and exiled (the so-called "Moechian Controversy"). Around 798 Plato moved with the brethren of Sakkoudion to the monastery of Stoudios in Constantinople, becoming its co-abbot. Under the emperor Nikephoros (802 to 811) he and his nephew once more denounced the rehabilitation of the priest Joseph and were again imprisoned and exiled. Plato bore great sufferings. Returning at last to Stoudios, he reposed there in great peace on Lazarus Saturday, 4 April 814, at the age of seventy-nine, having received the Holy Mysteries.

Venerable Zosimas of Palestine

Saint Zosimas of Palestine was a hieromonk of the late fifth and early sixth centuries, best known as the holy elder who discovered, conversed with, communed and buried Saint Mary of Egypt. He was born in the second half of the fifth century, during the reign of the Emperor Theodosius II, and was placed in a Palestinian monastery while still a child. Distinguishing himself by ascetic discipline, watchfulness and humility, he gained a reputation as a great spiritual father and teacher of monks.

At the age of fifty-three, having begun to think that he had attained the heights of monastic virtue, he was prompted by a divine voice to leave his monastery and to travel to a stricter community by the river Jordan, where for the rest of his life he laboured in the customary discipline of that house, by which the brothers, after the Sunday of Forgiveness, would cross the river and disperse alone into the desert for the forty days of Lent, returning to the monastery for the celebration of Pascha.

In one such Lenten withdrawal, in the deep desert beyond the Jordan, Zosimas met an old woman, naked and burned by the sun, who told him her life: this was Saint Mary of Egypt. He was dazzled by her humility and gift of clairvoyance. The next year, on Holy Thursday, he returned at her bidding to the bank of the Jordan with the Holy Mysteries; and a year later, returning again, he found her body lying undecayed and a written request that he should bury her, which a lion is reputed to have helped him to do. The whole account, recorded by Saint Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, has been read in the Church since antiquity. Zosimas himself reposed in peace, almost a hundred years old, and is commemorated on 4 April. The OCA synaxarion locates him at "Phoenicia" because his original monastery is thought to have been there before his removal to the lavra by the Jordan.

Also commemorated: Ven. Joseph the Hymnographer

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Hebrews — Hebrews 12.28-13.8

²⁸Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: ²⁹For our God is a consuming fire.

¹Let brotherly love continue. ²Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. ³Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body. ⁴Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. ⁵Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. ⁶So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.

⁷Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. ⁸Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

Gospel

weekly cycle

John — John 11.1-45

¹Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. ²(It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.) ³Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. ⁴When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. ⁵Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. ⁶When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was. ⁷Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judæa again. ⁸His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again? ⁹Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. ¹⁰But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him. ¹¹These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. ¹²Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. ¹³Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. ¹⁴Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. ¹⁵And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him. ¹⁶Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellowdisciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him. ¹⁷Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already. ¹⁸Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off: ¹⁹And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. ²⁰Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house. ²¹Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. ²²But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. ²³Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. ²⁴Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. ²⁵Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: ²⁶And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? ²⁷She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world. ²⁸And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee. ²⁹As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto him. ³⁰Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him. ³¹The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there. ³²Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. ³³When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, ³⁴And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. ³⁵Jesus wept. ³⁶Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! ³⁷And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died? ³⁸Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. ³⁹Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. ⁴⁰Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? ⁴¹Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. ⁴²And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. ⁴³And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. ⁴⁴And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. ⁴⁵Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.