Monday, 27 July 2026

Greatmartyr and Healer Panteleimon

Monday of the 9th week after Pentecost

106 days after Pascha · Tone 7 · Black squigg (6-stich typikon symbol) · No Fast

Saints commemorated

★ Holy great-martyr and healer Panteleimon

Saint Panteleimon, originally called Pantoleon, was born around 275 in Nicomedia of Bithynia, the son of a noble pagan father, Eustorgius, and a Christian mother, Eubula, who reposed while he was still a child. His father set him to study medicine under Euphrosynus, the most celebrated physician of the city, and the youth made such progress that he was presented to the emperor Maximian and chosen as a court physician. About this time he met the holy presbyter Hermolaus, who was hidden with two other priests in a small house, and was instructed by him in the faith. The Lord confirmed his teaching when Pantoleon, walking alone, found a child dead from the bite of a viper; calling on the name of Christ, he raised the child and slew the serpent.

He was baptised and renamed Panteleimon, "all-merciful," and from that hour gave himself to the healing of the sick without payment, casting out demons and curing every kind of disease in the name of Christ. He restored sight to a man who had been blind from birth, won his pagan father to the faith and inherited his estate, which he distributed to the poor and to prisoners. The other physicians, envying his success, denounced him to the emperor. He confessed Christ openly, was tortured by various means, cast to wild beasts who became gentle before him, fastened to a wheel which broke at his prayer, and bound to an olive tree to be beheaded. The tree blossomed at the moment of his death and bore fruit, and milk flowed from his wound instead of blood. He suffered around 305. The Church honours him as one of the holy unmercenary physicians and as one of her great healers, second only to Saint Demetrius and Saint George among warriors and martyrs in the affection of the faithful.

★ Saint Clement, equal-of-the-apostles, archbishop of Ochrid

Saint Clement was one of the most distinguished of the disciples of the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius, equals-of-the-apostles and enlighteners of the Slavs. Of South Slavic origin, born around 840, he accompanied his teachers on their mission to Great Moravia in the 860s and shared in the labour of translating the Scriptures and the services of the Church into the Slavonic tongue. After the death of Saint Methodius and the violent expulsion of his disciples by the Latin clergy of Moravia, Clement and his companions Naum, Angelarius and Gorazd made their way to Bulgaria, where they were welcomed by Prince Boris-Michael in 886.

Sent into the western provinces of the Bulgarian kingdom, Clement settled at Ochrid in Macedonia, where he founded one of the great schools of Slavic letters. He trained over three thousand five hundred disciples, established churches and monasteries, and spread the use of the Slavonic books from the surrounding mountains to the sea. In 893 he was consecrated bishop of Velika, the first hierarch of Slavic blood and tongue. He composed services, lives of saints, homilies and catechetical writings, many of which are still in use. He reposed on 27 July 916 and was buried in his own monastery of Saint Panteleimon at Ochrid, where his relics work miracles to this day. The Slavic Church honours him as the founder and patron of Slavic Orthodoxy in the Balkans.

Saint Manuel the confessor of Crete

Saint Manuel was a Cretan Christian who suffered for the faith during the long Ottoman occupation of his island. According to the local synaxaria, he was a young man of noble bearing and devout life, well known in his town for his almsgiving. Through the malice of certain Muslim neighbours he was falsely accused of having insulted Islam, and was brought before the local cadi. Refusing the demand that he renounce Christ and embrace the religion of the conquerors, he made a clear and reasoned confession of the Gospel, drawing upon the Scriptures and the witness of the saints. He endured imprisonment and severe beatings without compromise, and at last received the crown of martyrdom by the sword. The faithful reverently took up his body and buried it, and his memory was preserved by the local Church among the new-martyrs of Crete. He is honoured on 27 July together with the great-martyr and healer Saint Panteleimon and Saint Clement of Ochrid.

Saint Nicholas Cabasilas of Thessalonica

Saint Nicholas Cabasilas was a layman, theologian, and statesman of fourteenth-century Byzantium. Born about 1322 in Thessalonica into a distinguished family, the nephew of Nilus Cabasilas archbishop of Thessalonica, he was educated in classical letters and the sacred sciences and was at home in the imperial court. In the civil wars of his time he served as a counsellor of the emperor John VI Cantacuzenus, and he played a prominent part in the controversy over the divine energies on the side of Saint Gregory Palamas, defending the hesychast theology against the Latinising scholars of the day. Withdrawing from public affairs, he gave himself to prayer, the writing of treatises, and the spiritual instruction of monks and laity. His Commentary on the Divine Liturgy and his Life in Christ are reckoned among the supreme works of Orthodox theology. In them he sets forth, with great clarity and warmth, that the whole Christian life is a participation in Christ, given through the holy mysteries of baptism, chrismation and the eucharist, and that this participation is open to every believer in the world, not only to those who have withdrawn to the desert. He reposed in peace about 1392. He was numbered among the saints of the Church by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and the Greek calendar keeps his memory on 20 June; in some local calendars he is also remembered on 27 July with his fellow Thessalonicans.

Venerable Anthousa of Mantineum

Saint Anthousa was abbess of a women's monastery near the village of Mantineum in Paphlagonia in the eighth century. From her youth she was drawn to the monastic life, and after entering the community she advanced quickly through every degree of obedience until, on the death of her predecessor, she was chosen by the sisterhood to govern. She ruled the monastery, which grew to over nine hundred nuns, with great wisdom, severity towards herself and gentleness towards others. In the iconoclast persecution of the emperor Constantine V Copronymus, Anthousa boldly defended the holy icons and refused to surrender them to the imperial commissioners. She was seized, beaten and tortured, but neither threats nor blandishments could turn her from the orthodox faith. Tradition relates that she was at length set free through the prayers of the empress Eudocia, whom she had earlier helped through a difficult childbirth, and that she was permitted to return to her monastery, where she shepherded her community to her holy repose around the year 808. She is held up among the great women confessors of the seventh ecumenical council.

Commemoration of the canonization of St Herman of Alaska

1837

His feast day is December 12. Due to the severity of the Alaskan climate, the annual pilgrimage to his relics in Kodiak, Alaska, is in the Summer, around this date.

Also commemorated: St Clement, Archbishop of Ochrid (916)

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

1 Corinthians — 1 Corinthians 11.31-12.6

³¹For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. ³²But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. ³³Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. ³⁴And if any man hunger, let him eat at home; that ye come not together unto condemnation. And the rest will I set in order when I come.

¹Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. ²Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. ³Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. ⁴Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. ⁵And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. ⁶And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Matthew — Matthew 18.1-11

¹At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? ²And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, ³And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. ⁴Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ⁵And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. ⁶But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

⁷Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! ⁸Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. ⁹And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire. ¹⁰Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. ¹¹For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.

Epistle

— St Panteleimon

2 Timothy — 2 Timothy 2.1-10

¹Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. ²And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. ³Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. ⁴No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. ⁵And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. ⁶The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits. ⁷Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things. ⁸Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel: ⁹Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound. ¹⁰Therefore I endure all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

Gospel

— St Panteleimon

John — John 15.17-16.2

¹⁷These things I command you, that ye love one another. ¹⁸If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. ¹⁹If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. ²⁰Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. ²¹But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. ²²If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. ²³He that hateth me hateth my Father also. ²⁴If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. ²⁵But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. ²⁶But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: ²⁷And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.

¹These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. ²They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.