Wednesday, 10 June 2026

Hieromartyr Timothy, Bishop of Prussa; St John Maximovitch, Metropolitan of Tobolsk

Wednesday of the 2nd week after Pentecost

59 days after Pascha · Tone 8 · Liturgy · Apostles Fast

Saints commemorated

Hieromartyr Timothy, Bishop of Prussa

Saint Timothy was bishop of the city of Prussa in Bithynia in the middle of the fourth century. From his early years he had given himself to a strict ascetic life, and on account of the purity of his soul and his prayer he received from the Lord the gift of working miracles. As bishop he laboured zealously in his city and the surrounding country, healing the sick, casting out unclean spirits and turning many pagans to faith in Christ. Among the wonders ascribed to him is the slaying with prayer of a great serpent that was devouring the inhabitants of a region near Prussa.

When the emperor Julian the Apostate (361 to 363) renewed the persecution of Christians and tried to restore the worship of the gods, the fame of Saint Timothy and of the multitudes he had baptised reached his ears. Julian had him brought to Constantinople and cast into prison, forbidding him to teach or to name the name of Jesus Christ. Timothy paid no heed to the imperial command but continued to preach the Gospel within the prison itself. The emperor at length ordered the executioner to behead the saint in his cell, and so Timothy received the crown of martyrdom about the year 362. His holy relics, found to work miracles, were afterwards translated to Constantinople and laid in a church bearing his name.

Holy Martyrs Alexander and Antonina the Virgin

Saint Antonina was a young Christian virgin from Cardamon, sometimes given as Crodamon, in Asia Minor, who in the persecution under Maximian Galerius about the year 313 was denounced to the governor Festus and brought before his tribunal. He at first attempted to win her by flattery, promising to make her a priestess of Artemis, then by threats; but Antonina firmly confessed Christ and rebuked the worship of demons in idols. She was struck on the face, scourged, and shut up in prison, where she ate and drank nothing but consoled herself in unceasing prayer until she heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Antonina, take food and be brave, for I am with thee."

When the governor at last gave the order that she be handed over to be defiled by his soldiers, an angel appeared to one of the guards, a Christian named Alexander, and told him to save her. Coming into the cell, Alexander threw his soldier's cloak about her and bade her bow her head and pass through the gate as though she were a man, while he remained behind. Antonina escaped, but was at length traced and brought back. Alexander was tortured for her rescue, and the two were judged together. Their hands were cut off, their bodies scourged and their wounds burned with candles, and at last they were cast into a pit of fire and earth heaped upon them. Their relics were later translated to Constantinople and enshrined in the monastery of Maximus.

Saint Bassian, Bishop of Lodi in Lombardy

Saint Bassian was born about 320 to a noble pagan family in Sicily, his father being a high official of the imperial government in Syracuse. Sent to Rome to be educated for a public career, the young man fell in with Christians and asked to be instructed in the faith, receiving holy baptism in secret from a priest named Gordianus. When his Christianity was discovered, he left his father's house, withdrew to Ravenna, and gave himself to prayer and works of mercy. Around 373 the priest Clement of the cathedral of Lodi (then called Laus Pompeia, in northern Italy) received a revelation that Bassian was to be the next bishop of the diocese. He was sought out, and although he resisted the calling, he was consecrated to that see by Bishop Ursus, with the participation of Saint Ambrose of Milan. From Lodi, Bassian governed his flock for thirty-five years. He built the basilica of the holy Apostles, planted churches throughout the surrounding countryside, freed many slaves, and was a tireless almsgiver. He took part with Saint Ambrose in the Council of Aquileia in 381 against the Arians and stood beside him in defending the Catholic faith in Lombardy. Bassian and Ambrose remained the closest of friends, exchanging letters of spiritual counsel, and Bassian was at his friend's bedside when Ambrose died at Milan in 397, helping to lay him to rest. Saint Bassian himself fell asleep in the Lord on 19 January 409, but his memory in the Eastern calendar is kept on 10 June.

Venerable Theophanes and Saint Pansemne of Antioch

The Venerable Theophanes lived as an ascetic at Antioch in the latter part of the third century. From boyhood he had despised the world and given himself to fasting, prayer and the wearing of a hair shirt, dwelling in a small cell on the outskirts of the city. Hearing that a notorious harlot named Pansemne was destroying the souls of many men in Antioch, he was wounded with compassion both for her victims and for the woman herself. He prayed long for guidance and was inwardly enlightened to seek her out, ransom her from her trade, and present her with the choice of marriage and the Christian faith. Putting off his hair shirt, Theophanes dressed in costly clothes and approached his father, who, mistaking the request, gladly furnished him with ten pieces of gold to buy a wife. Theophanes went to Pansemne and offered to take her in marriage on condition that she renounce her former life and be baptised. The grace of God overcame her at the words of the future judgement, and after seven days of catechesis and tears she received holy baptism. From that moment she was wholly transformed: she gave away the wealth her sins had heaped up, settled in a hut beside the saint's cell, and entered upon a life of strict asceticism. By her prayers she received the gifts of healing and of casting out demons. She lived only fourteen months in this new life, and on the same day she rendered her soul to her heavenly Bridegroom, the venerable Theophanes also fell asleep in the Lord.

Hieromartyr Metrophanes, first Chinese priest, and the Chinese New Martyrs of the Boxer Uprising

1900

“The Holy Martyrs of China were native Chinese Orthodox Christians brought up in piety at the Russian Orthodox Mission in Peking, which had been founded in 1685. During the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 against the foreign powers occupying China, native Chinese Christians were commanded by the Boxers to renounce Christianity or be tortured to death. Two hundred and twenty-two members of the Peking Mission, led by their priest Metrophanes Tsi-Chung and his family, refused to deny Christ, and were deemed worthy of a martyric death.” ( Great Horologion)

Also commemorated: St John Maximovitch, Metropolitan of Tobolsk

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Romans — Romans 4.13-25

¹³For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. ¹⁴For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: ¹⁵Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression. ¹⁶Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, ¹⁷(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. ¹⁸Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations; according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. ¹⁹And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb: ²⁰He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; ²¹And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. ²²And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. ²³Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; ²⁴But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; ²⁵Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Matthew — Matthew 7.21-23

²¹Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. ²²Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? ²³And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.