Friday, 12 June 2026

Ven. Onuphrius the Great

Friday of the 2nd week after Pentecost

61 days after Pascha · Tone 8 · Black squigg (6-stich typikon symbol) · Apostles Fast

Saints commemorated

★ Venerable Onuphrius the Great

They lived in different times and places, but are commemorated together.

Saint Onuphrios the Great (400). “This holy ascetic had been living a whole sixty years in the desert when the monk Paphnutius visited him. His hair and beard reached down to the ground, and long hair, as white as snow, had grown all overy his body during his years of nakedness. His appearance was cadaverous, unearthly and awe-inspiring. Seeing Paphnutius, he called him by name and then recounted to him his life in the desert. His guardian angel had appeared to him and taken him to that place. He had for a long time only eaten earth, which was hard to find in the desert, and, after that, when he had survived an intensive struggle with diabolical temptations and when his heart had become utterly established in love for God, an angel had brought him bread to eat. And besides that, through God’s gracious providence, a palm tree grew up at one side of his cell, that gave good dates, and a spring of water began to flow there. ‘But especially,’ said Onuphrios, ‘my food and drink are the sweet words of God.’ To Paphnutius’ question about his receiving of Communion, the hermit answered that the angel of God brought him Communion every Saturday. On the next day, the old man told Paphnutius that it was the day of his departure from this world; then he knelt down, prayed to God and gave his spirit into God’s hands. Then Paphnutius saw a heavenly light that illumined the body of the departed saint, and heard a choir of angelic hosts. He buried Onuphrios’ body with honour and returned to his own monastery, there as a living witness to narrate to the brethren, for their edification, the wonderful life of the man of God and the greatness of God’s providence towards those who give themselves wholly to His service.” (Prologue)

The Great Horologion adds that Paphnutius intended to stay in the place where Onuphrios died, but soon the palm tree withered and the spring dried up, which Paphnutius took as a sign that he was meant to leave that place and return to live with the brethren.

Saint Peter of Mt Athos (734). He was born to a noble family in Constantinople and became a soldier. He was taken captive by the Saracens and thrown into prison in chains, in Samarra of Syria. He spent his long imprisonment praying to God to free him and send him to some deserted place where he could devote the rest of his life to ascesis and prayer. One day St Nicholas appeared to him along with St Simeon the God-receiver; when they touched his chains they melted like wax, and Peter instantly found himself outside Samarra. He set out for Rome, where he was tonsured as a monk by the Pope, then set out by ship to return home. During the voyage, the Mother of God appeared to him along with St Nicholas, and Peter heard her tell St Nicholas that she had set Mt Athos apart for Peter to live in solitude. Peter had never heard of Mt Athos, but disembarked there and settled in a cave. There he spent fifty-three years in complete solitude, praying and struggling with the harshness of the elements and the attacks of demonic powers. After he had withstood fierce temptations for awhile, an angel of God began to bring him bread every forty days. Like St Onuphrios, his humble life might have passed completely unrecorded; but by God’s providence, one year before the Saint’s death a deer-hunter found him and heard the tale of Peter’s life, which he recorded. Saint Peter reposed in peace; his relics were taken to Macedonia.

Venerable Arsenius, Abbot of Konevits

Saint Arsenius was a native of Novgorod and a coppersmith by trade. From his youth he longed for the monastic life, and at length entered the monastery of Saint Nicholas at Lisitchya, near Novgorod, where he received the tonsure and laboured for eleven years. In 1373, seeking deeper instruction in the ascetic life, he sailed to Mount Athos and was received as a guest in the great Russian monastery of Saint Panteleimon. There for three years he combined his craft of metalworking, making copper vessels for the brethren, with the silent obedience taught by the Holy Mountain. The igumen of the monastery, by the prophetic word of God, foretold to him that he would establish a community in Russia and gave him an icon of the Mother of God to take with him as a blessing. This became the celebrated Konevskaya icon. Returning to Russia in 1393, Arsenius was led by signs and a calm voice on the waves to a small island called Konevets in Lake Ladoga, then thickly inhabited by pagan Karelians. He settled in a hollow at the foot of the great granite "horse-stone" where the natives offered sacrifices, and by his prayer and his preaching brought them to faith in Christ. About 1398, with the blessing of Archbishop John of Novgorod, he founded a cenobitic monastery dedicated to the Nativity of the Mother of God. When in 1421 the lake flooded the lower ground, he moved the monastery to higher land on the island, where it endures to this day. Saint Arsenius fell asleep in the Lord in 1447 and was buried in the monastery church. His Life was written in the sixteenth century by Igumen Barlaam of Konevits.

Venerable Peter of Mount Athos

Saint Peter the Athonite, the first hermit of the Holy Mountain, was born of noble Greek parents in the seventh century and served as a senior officer in the imperial guard at Constantinople. Although he had vowed in his youth to become a monk, the cares of military life caused him to delay. In a campaign against the Saracens in Syria he was taken prisoner and confined in chains in a fortress at Samara on the Euphrates, where he came to see his captivity as a chastisement for the broken vow. He gave himself wholly to fasting and unceasing prayer, calling upon Saint Nicholas to intercede for him. After a long time the holy hierarch appeared to him with the holy Symeon the God-receiver, and at the touch of Saint Nicholas's staff the chains melted from his limbs and he found himself free outside the walls. Peter made his way to Rome, where the pope tonsured him a monk at the tomb of the chief Apostle, and from there he set sail for the East. The Mother of God revealed to him in a dream that her chosen mountain was Athos, the place she had received from her Son as her own portion, and there he was to live out his struggle. Peter landed on the peninsula about the year 681 and entered a cave high on the Holy Mountain. He lived in this cave for fifty-three years, alone with God and the demons that opposed him, eating no human food but receiving each forty days a heavenly bread, his ragged clothes long since fallen from him and his hair grown to cover his body. There a hunter found him toward the end of his life and learned from him the way of solitary prayer. Saint Peter fell asleep in the Lord on 12 June 734 and is venerated as the founder of the eremitic life on Athos.

Venerable Stephen of Komel, Abbot of Ozersk Monastery

Saint Stephen was born in the second half of the fifteenth century in the Vologda lands of northern Russia, in a family attached to the court of the local prince. The mundane life of his father's house was uncongenial to his soul, and as a young man he left it to seek the ascetic life under the great northern fathers. He came to the monastery of Saint Dionysius of Glushitsa, who had been a disciple of Saint Sergius of Radonezh, and there received monastic tonsure. Trained in obedience and prayer, he afterwards travelled further north and entered the wilderness community of Saint Cornelius of Komel, where he submitted himself anew to a strict ascetic discipline. When Saint Cornelius blessed him to depart and seek deeper solitude, Stephen settled by Lake Komel, on the river that flows from it, in the dense forests of the Vologda territory. There, after years of solitary struggle, disciples gathered around him, and he founded the monastery of the Most Holy Trinity, which from its situation became known as the Ozersk or "Lake" monastery. He guided its brethren as their abbot in the strict ascetic tradition of the Glushitsa and Komel fathers, in poverty, fasting and unceasing prayer. He fell asleep in the Lord on 12 June 1542 and was buried in the monastery he had founded. His name is included among the saints of the Vologda region celebrated on this day.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Romans — Romans 5.17-6.2

¹⁷For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) ¹⁸Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. ¹⁹For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. ²⁰Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: ²¹That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? ²God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

Gospel

weekly cycle

Matthew — Matthew 9.14-17

¹⁴Then came to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not? ¹⁵And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast. ¹⁶No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse. ¹⁷Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.