Wednesday, 15 April 2026

Bright Wednesday

3 days after Pascha · Tone 4 · Liturgy · No Fast (Fast Free)

Saints commemorated

Holy Martyr Sabbas the Goth

372

In the kingdom of Wallachia (in modern-day Romania) the Goths undertook a brutal persecution of Christians. A Gothic prince came to the village of Buzau and asked the villagers if any Christians lived there. They swore to him that there were none. At this, Sabbas came before the Prince and said ‘Let no one swear an oath on my behalf. I am a Christian.’ Touched by his courage, the prince let Sabbas go, saying ‘This one can do neither harm nor good.’ The following year a priest named Sansal came to the village and celebrated Pascha with Sabbas (who was truly the only Christian there). When the pagans heard of this, they attacked Sabbas’ house and seized both men. They dragged Sabbas naked through thorns, then tied both him and Sansal to trees and tried to make them eat meat offered to idols. Neither man would touch the sacrifices. The prince then sentenced Sabbas to death and gave him over to the soldiers. Sabbas walked to the place of execution joyfully, singing and praising God. Seeing his goodness, the soldiers tried to free him on the way, but Sabbas refused, telling them that it was their duty to carry out the prince’s command. The soldiers took him to a river, tied a rock to his neck and cast him into the waters, where he gave back his soul to God. Some Christians later recovered his body and gave it honorable burial. The saint was 31 years old at the time of his martyrdom. In the reign of the Emperor Valens, the Greek commander Ionnios Soranos found the Saint’s body during a war against the Goths, and took it to Cappadocia.

Holy apostles Aristarchus, Pudens and Trophimus of the Seventy

These three apostles, all numbered among the Seventy whom Christ sent forth to preach the Gospel, are commemorated together on this day for their faithful labours alongside the chief apostles Peter and Paul. Saint Aristarchus, who hailed from Thessalonica, became bishop of the Syrian city of Apamea. He is mentioned repeatedly in the Acts of the Apostles and in the epistles of Saint Paul, accompanying the apostle to the nations on his missionary journeys and sharing in his imprisonments. Saint Pudens occupied a high position as a member of the Roman Senate. He received the apostles Peter and Paul into his home, which became a gathering place for believing Christians in Rome and is traditionally regarded as the site of one of the earliest house churches in the imperial city. Saint Trophimus came from Edessa and is named in the Book of Acts as a companion of the apostle Paul. He shared with Paul all the sorrows and persecutions of the apostolic mission. All three suffered martyrdom for Christ at Rome under the emperor Nero (54 to 68), being beheaded together with Paul during the persecution which claimed the apostle of the gentiles.

Holy martyrs Basilissa and Anastasia of Rome

The holy women Basilissa and Anastasia were Roman matrons of high rank and considerable wealth who were converted to the faith of Christ by the preaching of the apostles Peter and Paul, and tradition holds that the chief apostles themselves baptised them. They became disciples and devoted spiritual daughters of the apostles and accompanied them throughout their labours in Rome. After Peter and Paul were martyred under Nero, Basilissa and Anastasia gathered up the bodies of the apostles and gave them honourable burial. They went on to seek out and bury the remains of other Christians who had perished in the Neronian persecution, considering it a sacred duty to honour the bodies of the holy martyrs. For this work of mercy they were arrested and brought before the emperor. Refusing utterly to renounce Christ, they endured fearful tortures: their tongues were torn out, their flesh was lacerated with iron hooks and burned with fire, and finally they were beheaded with the sword in the year 68. Their relics are preserved in Rome at the church of Santa Maria della Pace, and the two are honoured as patron saints of tailors.

Saint Leonidas, bishop of Athens

Saint Leonidas was bishop of Athens during the middle of the third century. The brief notices preserved in the Greek synaxaria record that he shepherded the ancient Christian community of the city with apostolic zeal and that he reposed in peace around the year 250, though some accounts speak of him as suffering for the faith. The historical details of his episcopate have not been preserved in any extended life. Athens, having received the gospel from the apostle Paul on the Areopagus and counting Saint Dionysius the Areopagite as its first bishop, continued to produce holy hierarchs throughout the early centuries of persecution, and Leonidas is remembered among them. His name was preserved in the diptychs of the Church of Athens and in Byzantine liturgical books, and he is venerated together with another martyr Leonidas commemorated the following day, with whom he is sometimes confused in later sources. Orthodox tradition has long maintained the distinct memory of Leonidas the bishop of Athens on this day.

Saint Sava of Buzău

Saint Sava the Goth, also called Sava of Buzău, was born in 334 to Christian parents in a village in the Buzău valley of what is now Romania, and he is honoured as the earliest known native-born martyr on Romanian soil. The Arian bishop Wulfilas had preached Christianity among the Goths who had settled north of the Danube, and Sava was among those baptised into the faith. He led a virtuous life: devout, peaceful, temperate, simple and quiet. He avoided marriage and lived in chastity, spending his days in prayer, often singing in church and devoting himself to its welfare. He preached Christ boldly among his neighbours. When the Gothic princes and judges, urged on by the pagan priests, began a persecution of Christians and demanded that they eat meat offered to idols, Sava refused. After being seized a third time, he was condemned and drowned in the river Buzău by being weighted with a piece of wood. He suffered on 12 April 372 at the age of thirty-eight; in the Greek and Romanian usage his memory is kept on 15 April. The Christian commander Junius Saran later carried his relics to Cappadocia, where they were received by Saint Basil the Great. Sava's authentic Acts of Martyrdom, written soon after his death, are among the most important documents of early Gothic Christianity.

Also commemorated: Apostles of the Seventy Aristarchus, Pudens and Trophimus

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Acts — Acts 2.22-36

²²Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: ²³Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: ²⁴Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. ²⁵For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: ²⁶Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: ²⁷Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. ²⁸Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. ²⁹Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. ³⁰Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; ³¹He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. ³²This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. ³³Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. ³⁴For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, ³⁵Until I make thy foes thy footstool. ³⁶Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Gospel

weekly cycle

John — John 1.35-51

³⁵Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; ³⁶And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God! ³⁷And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. ³⁸Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou? ³⁹He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour. ⁴⁰One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. ⁴¹He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. ⁴²And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.

⁴³The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me. ⁴⁴Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. ⁴⁵Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. ⁴⁶And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see. ⁴⁷Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! ⁴⁸Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. ⁴⁹Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel. ⁵⁰Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these. ⁵¹And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.