Saturday, 27 June 2026

Ven. Sampson the Hospitable of Constantinople

Saturday of the 4th week after Pentecost

76 days after Pascha · Tone 2 · Liturgy · Apostles Fast (Fish, Wine and Oil are Allowed)

Saints commemorated

★ Saint Sampson the Hospitable of Constantinople

He is counted as one of the Holy Unmercenary Physicians. “This saint was born of rich and eminent parents in ancient Rome, where he studied all the secular wisdom of that time, devoting himself in particular to the study of medicine. Sampson was a compassionate and liberal physician, and gave the sick medicine for both soul and body, counselling each man to fulfil the requirements of the Christian faith. He moved to Constantinople, where he lived in a tiny house from which he distributed alms, comfort, advice, hope, medicine and all possible aid to those suffering in spirit and in body. The Patriarch heard of Sampson’s great virtue and ordained him priest. At that time the Emperor Justinian the Great became ill with what his doctors believed to be an incurable disease. The Emperor prayed with great fervor, and God revealed to him in his sleep that Sampson would heal him. When the Emperor summoned Sampson to court, the old man had only to put his hand on the diseased place and the Emperor was healed. When Justinian offered him an immense sum of money, Sampson thanked him but would accept nothing, saying to the Emperor: ‘O Emperor, I had silver and gold and other riches, but I left it all for the sake of Christ, that I might gain heavenly and eternal wealth.’ When the Emperor insisted on doing something for him, Sampson asked him to build a house for the poor. In that home, Sampson cared for the poor as a father cares for his children. His compassion for the poor and weak was second nature to him. This holy man, filled with heavenly power and goodness, entered peacefully into rest on June 27th, 530. He was buried in the Church of the Holy Martyr Mocius, his kinsman. After his death, Sampson appeared many times to those who called upon him for aid.” (Prologue)

Holy Martyr Anectus of Caesarea

The Holy Martyr Anectus contested for Christ in Caesarea of Cappadocia during the persecution of Diocletian, when Urban was governor, near the year 298. Seeing the faithful dispirited by the violence of the persecution, he went among them and exhorted them not to fear the threats of men but to stand firm in their confession and so to die for the truth. He was denounced before the governor for this teaching, and when brought to the tribunal he refused to offer sacrifice and is said to have caused the idols to fall down by his prayer alone. He was bound and stretched out by four soldiers who beat him with rods; afterwards he was hung on a wooden post, the fingers of his hands were cut away with a razor, and his body was scraped to the bone with iron claws. At the last he was beheaded, and tradition relates that from the wound, in place of blood, milk flowed forth as a sign of his purity, sealing the witness of one who had encouraged so many others to martyrdom.

Saint Martin the Faster of Turov

Saint Martin lived in the twelfth century in the town of Turov in western Russia, where for many years he served as cook in the bishop's house under three successive bishops, Simeon, Ignatius and Joachim. After many years of toil and quiet obedience, he was permitted in his old age to receive the monastic tonsure at the city's Saints Boris and Gleb Monastery, where he gave himself to the strict labour of fasting and prayer. Already broken in body by his earlier service, he was tormented by an illness which kept him bedridden, but the saintly princes Boris and Gleb appeared to him in his cell, brought him water and gently restored his health. He continued his ascetic life with renewed strength and reposed in the Lord about the year 1146, his memory honoured among the holy ascetics of the Russian land.

Translation of the relics of Saint Cyril, Abbot of White Lake

Saint Cyril of White Lake, called also Cyril of Beloezersk, was born at Moscow in 1337 of well-born parents, and after their death received the tonsure at the Simonov Monastery from the hand of Saint Theodore, nephew and disciple of Saint Sergius of Radonezh. He was guided in monastic obedience by Saint Sergius himself when he visited the monastery, and rose to be archimandrite, but he renounced the office to seek deeper solitude. Following a vision in which the Mother of God showed him a place beside Lake Siverskoye in the wild north, he set out about 1397 with his fellow monk Therapon and there, on the shores of the lake near the town of Belozersk, dug a cell in the side of a hill. As disciples gathered to him he raised a wooden church to the Dormition of the Mother of God, and from this beginning grew the great Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, which became one of the chief cradles of Russian monasticism in the Far North. Living to the great age of ninety, he reposed on 9 June 1427, leaving a tradition of strict cenobitic life with absolute non-acquisitiveness. The 9 June commemoration marks his repose, while the translation of his holy relics, found incorrupt and wonder-working, is kept on this day with the customary prayers for his intercession.

St Severus the Priest

6th c.

“He lived in central Italy. A man of rare holiness, he was once called to hear the confession of, and give Communion to, a man at the point of death. He tarried, working in his vineyard, and the news was brought to him there that the sick man had died. Stricken with grief, as if he had himself killed the man, he wept bitter tears over the corpse, and God raised the dead man to life again in response to his fervent prayer. Then Severus confessed him and gave him Communion, preparing him for a Christian leaving of this world, and on the eighth day the man died again.” (Prologue)

St Joanna the Myrrh-bearer

1st c.

This is Joanna the wife of Chuza, a servant in Herod’s household (Luke 8:3). When Herod had John the Baptist beheaded, it was Joanna who recovered the head and buried it on the Mount of Olives. She reposed in peace.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Romans — Romans 6.11-17

¹¹Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. ¹²Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. ¹³Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. ¹⁴For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. ¹⁵What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. ¹⁶Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? ¹⁷But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Matthew — Matthew 8.14-23

¹⁴And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever. ¹⁵And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them.

¹⁶When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: ¹⁷That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.

¹⁸Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side. ¹⁹And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. ²⁰And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. ²¹And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. ²²But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

²³And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him.