Tuesday, 30 June 2026

Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles

Tuesday of the 5th week after Pentecost

79 days after Pascha · Tone 3 · Red cross (polyeleos typikon symbol) · No Fast

Saints commemorated

Hieromartyr Methodius, Bishop of Patara

Saint Methodius, also called Methodius of Olympus, lived at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth century, and is celebrated as one of the great theological writers of the early Church. He was bishop first of Olympus and Patara in Lycia and afterwards, according to some, of Tyre in Phoenicia. Distinguished by his deep humility and his learning in Holy Scripture, he composed many works, of which the chief surviving treatise is the Symposium or Banquet of the Ten Virgins, an extended dialogue in praise of virginity, modelled on the Symposium of Plato but transformed into a celebration of the Church as the Bride of Christ. He also wrote a dialogue On the Resurrection in which he refuted the errors of Origen on the spiritual body, was the first major theologian to write in defence of the bodily resurrection against Origenism, and produced works on free will and on the leper, of which only fragments remain. Although his chief commemoration in the Greek calendars falls on 20 June, in many Slavonic and Russian books his memory is also kept on this day, the morrow of the chief Apostles. He was beheaded for his confession of Christ at Chalcis in Syria about the year 311 in the persecution which preceded the peace of the Church.

Holy Apostle Andronicus and his fellow-labourer Junia

Among the seventy disciples of the Lord whose names are read alongside the Twelve in the synaxaria of this day are the holy Apostles Andronicus and his fellow-labourer Junia, of whom the Apostle Paul writes in the Epistle to the Romans, Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the Apostles, who also were in Christ before me. Andronicus is venerated as bishop of Pannonia in the western lands of the empire, where with Junia his companion he travelled in evangelical labour, casting down idols, founding churches and bringing many out of paganism to faith in Christ. Both endured persecution for the Gospel and finally received from the Lord the unfading crowns of the apostolic confession. Their chief commemoration is on 17 May, when their relics, discovered together with those of other martyrs, were honoured at the Eugenios quarter of Constantinople, but their names are also kept among the assembly of those Apostles whose memory adorns the days surrounding the synaxis of the Twelve.

Synaxis of the holy, glorious and all-praised Twelve Apostles

On the day after the feast of the chief Apostles Peter and Paul, the Church gathers in solemn synaxis to honour together the whole choir of the Twelve, the foundation of the Apostolic Church and the witnesses chosen and sent forth by the Lord Himself to preach the Gospel to every creature. The synaxis was already known in Constantinople from at least the fourth century, when a church dedicated to the Holy Apostles, founded by the Emperor Constantine the Great and rebuilt under Justinian, kept this commemoration with imperial solemnity. The names of the Twelve, as set down in the Gospels, are these: Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother the First-called; James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John the Theologian and Evangelist of the Word; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas the Twin and Matthew the Evangelist, called also Levi the publican; James the son of Alphaeus and Jude the brother of James, who is also called Lebbaeus or Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot, called the Cananite, and Matthias, who was numbered among the Apostles by lot in the place of Judas the betrayer. Each of them has his own commemoration in the calendar of the Church, but on this day the prayers of the holy Apostles are invoked together as a single foundation laid in Christ. The hymns of the feast extol them as the rays of the Sun of Righteousness, the rivers of paradise watering the whole earth, the spiritual fishermen who, casting their nets, drew up the nations from the sea of unbelief into the kingdom of life.

Translation of the relics of Saint Sophronius, Bishop of Irkutsk

Saint Sophronius, in the world Stephen Kristalevsky, was born of pious parents in the Chernigov region of Little Russia in 1704, and after his early studies entered the Kiev Theological Academy in the company of two future hierarchs, Joasaph of Belgorod and Paul of Tobolsk. About 1730 he received the monastic tonsure at the Krasnogorsk Monastery near Zolotonosha, and was afterwards summoned to Saint Petersburg, where he served as treasurer and finally archimandrite of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. In 1753, on the recommendation of the Empress Elizabeth, he was consecrated Bishop of Irkutsk and Nerchinsk; arriving in his vast diocese in 1754 after a long journey across Siberia, he laboured for seventeen years in the missionary lands beyond Lake Baikal, ordaining clergy, opening schools, founding new monasteries and churches, and bringing many of the native peoples to baptism. Living in extreme simplicity, he reposed on the second day of Pascha, 30 March 1771. While the Holy Synod's decision concerning his burial was awaited, his body remained six months without decay; when at last laid in the church of the Theophany Cathedral at Irkutsk it continued to be a source of healings. His relics were uncovered incorrupt in 1833, 1854, 1870 and 1909; in the great fire at the cathedral in 1917 only the bones survived. The local Council of the Russian Church glorified him in 1918, numbering him among the saints of God; his repose is kept on 30 March, while on this day is observed the translation of his relics and the joyful announcement of his glorification.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Romans — Romans 14.9-18

⁹For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living. ¹⁰But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. ¹¹For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. ¹²So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. ¹³Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way. ¹⁴I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean. ¹⁵But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died. ¹⁶Let not then your good be evil spoken of: ¹⁷For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. ¹⁸For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Matthew — Matthew 12.14-16, 22-30

¹⁴Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him. ¹⁵But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all; ¹⁶And charged them that they should not make him known:

²²Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. ²³And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David? ²⁴But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils. ²⁵And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: ²⁶And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? ²⁷And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges. ²⁸But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. ²⁹Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house. ³⁰He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.

Epistle

— Apostles

1 Corinthians — 1 Corinthians 4.9-16

⁹For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men. ¹⁰We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised. ¹¹Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwellingplace; ¹²And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: ¹³Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day. ¹⁴I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you. ¹⁵For though ye have ten thousand instructers in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. ¹⁶Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me.

Gospel

— Apostles

Mark — Mark 3.13-19

¹³And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would: and they came unto him. ¹⁴And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, ¹⁵And to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils: ¹⁶And Simon he surnamed Peter; ¹⁷And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder: ¹⁸And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite, ¹⁹And Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed him: and they went into an house.