Wednesday, 5 August 2026

Martyr Eusignius of Antioch

Wednesday of the 10th week after Pentecost

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

Saints commemorated

Forefeast of the Transfiguration of our Lord

The eve of the Transfiguration is observed by the Orthodox Church as a single day of forefeast, in which the services begin to anticipate the great feast that follows. At Vespers, Matins and the Liturgy on this day many of the hymns proper to the Transfiguration are sung in the canon and stichera, gathering the faithful to the foot of Mount Tabor in spirit before the feast itself. The forefeast falls within the Dormition Fast and so retains the abstinence of the period, but in spirit it lifts the eyes of the faithful from the labours of fasting to the uncreated light. The hymns of this day call to mind the prophecy of Malachi that the Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings, and prepare the hearer to behold in the Lord of Glory the radiance of the Father which the apostles saw shining from him. Although the Transfiguration is a feast of the Lord and stands alone, the Church, like a careful steward, gives a single day of preparation, that having heard the prophets and the apostles witnesses to the divine glory, the faithful may come to the celebration of the feast itself ready in heart.

Holy Hieromartyr Fabian, Pope of Rome

Saint Fabian was a layman of Rome who, according to the historian Eusebius, came up from the country to take part in the election of a new bishop after the death of Pope Anterus in 236. As the clergy and people gathered to consider the names of various distinguished churchmen, a dove descended from above and rested upon the head of Fabian, an obscure stranger to the assembly. Taking this as a sign from heaven, the gathering proclaimed him bishop by acclamation, and he was consecrated on 10 January 236. He governed the Roman Church for fourteen years in a time of comparative peace under the emperors Gordian and Philip the Arab. He divided the city of Rome into seven ecclesiastical districts, each entrusted to a deacon, with subdeacons appointed to gather the records of the martyrs; he ordered the building of new tombs in the catacombs and the translation of the relics of Saint Pontian, the martyred bishop who had died in exile in the mines of Sardinia. When the persecution of the emperor Decius broke out at the end of 249, Fabian was one of its first victims. He confessed Christ before the imperial tribunal and was put to death on 20 January 250, becoming, in the words of his contemporary Saint Cyprian of Carthage, an example of the integrity of his administration and the purity of his death. The Eastern Church keeps his memory on 5 August, often together with the deacon and martyr Pontius.

Holy Martyr Eusignius of Antioch

312

Saint Eusignius was born at Antioch in the middle of the third century. He served for sixty years as a soldier in the Roman armies under the emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Constantius Chlorus, Constantine the Great and his sons. He had been an eyewitness, in the year 312, of the appearance of the radiant Cross in the heavens before the battle of the Milvian Bridge, and was among those whom Saint Constantine kept as living witnesses of that miracle. After honourable retirement he returned to his native Antioch and lived in the practice of fasting and prayer to a great age. When Julian the Apostate (361 to 363) came to the throne and sought to restore the worship of idols, Eusignius was denounced to him, on the charge brought by an Antiochian to whom he had given offence in some matter of justice. Although he was already one hundred and ten years old, the apostate emperor did not spare him, but had him brought before his tribunal. The aged saint stood without trembling, rebuked Julian for forsaking the Christ before whose Cross his own kinsman had triumphed, and bore witness to the truth of the faith. Julian, far from being moved, ordered him to be beheaded; and so Saint Eusignius received the crown of martyrdom in the year 362.

Saint Oswald, King and Martyr of Northumbria

633

Saint Oswald was born about 605, the second of the seven sons of Aethelfrith, the first ruler to unite the provinces of Bernicia and Deira into a single kingdom of Northumbria. When his uncle Edwin, the Christian king of Northumbria, was killed in 633 by the British king Cadwallon and the pagan Penda of Mercia, Oswald and his brothers had already lived for many years in exile among the Gaels of Iona, where, by the disciples of Saint Columba, they had been instructed in the faith and baptised. The young exile learned the Gaelic tongue and embraced the monastic discipline of the holy island. In 634, gathering an army to recover his patrimony, he met Cadwallon at Heavenfield near Hexham. On the eve of battle he raised a wooden cross with his own hands, and kneeling beside it he commanded his warriors to pray with him to the living God; the next day he gained the victory and the Britons were dispersed. Mounting the throne, Oswald sent at once to Iona for a bishop to bring the gospel to his people. The first messenger returned without success; in his place came the gentle Saint Aidan, for whom the king founded the monastic see of Lindisfarne, and whose Irish words Oswald himself, having forgotten English, translated for the Saxon nobility. He gave alms with great freedom, on one occasion having a silver dish broken up at the table and distributed to the poor, drawing from Saint Aidan the prayer that the hand thus blessed might never see corruption. After a reign of about eight years he fell in battle on 5 August 642 against the pagan Penda of Mercia at Maserfield, the place now called Oswestry, dying with the prayer for the souls of his soldiers on his lips. His head was eventually laid in the coffin of Saint Cuthbert at Durham, and his right arm, as Aidan had foretold, was preserved incorrupt at Bamburgh.

Righteous Nonna, Mother of St Gregory the Theologian

374

In her own lifetime she was a wonderworker through her holy prayers. She brought her husband back from idolatry to Christian faith; he later became bishop of Nazianzus. Her son Gregory’s profound and devout writings bespeak the Christian upbringing she gave him. By her prayers she once saved St Gregory from perishing in a storm. She was a deaconess, and reposed in peace in 374.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

1 Corinthians — 1 Corinthians 16.4-12

⁴And if it be meet that I go also, they shall go with me. ⁵Now I will come unto you, when I shall pass through Macedonia: for I do pass through Macedonia. ⁶And it may be that I will abide, yea, and winter with you, that ye may bring me on my journey whithersoever I go. ⁷For I will not see you now by the way; but I trust to tarry a while with you, if the Lord permit. ⁸But I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost. ⁹For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries. ¹⁰Now if Timotheus come, see that he may be with you without fear: for he worketh the work of the Lord, as I also do. ¹¹Let no man therefore despise him: but conduct him forth in peace, that he may come unto me: for I look for him with the brethren. ¹²As touching our brother Apollos, I greatly desired him to come unto you with the brethren: but his will was not at all to come at this time; but he will come when he shall have convenient time.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Matthew — Matthew 21.28-32

²⁸But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard. ²⁹He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. ³⁰And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. ³¹Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. ³²For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.