Saturday, 8 August 2026

St Emilian the Confessor

Saturday of the 10th week after Pentecost

118 days after Pascha · Tone 8 · Liturgy · Dormition Fast (Wine and Oil are Allowed)

Saints commemorated

Saint Aemilian the Confessor, Bishop of Cyzicus

Saint Aemilian (also Emilian or Aimilianos) succeeded Bishop Nicholas as Bishop of Cyzicus, occupying that see from 787 until 815. He was a zealous defender of the holy icons during the second wave of Byzantine iconoclasm under Emperor Leo V the Armenian (813-820). Summoned with other bishops to the imperial tribunal in 815, he was ordered to refrain from teaching his flock to venerate the holy icons. Aemilian replied that questions concerning the veneration of icons ought to be discussed and decided only within the Church, by her spiritual leaders, and not at the imperial court. For this confession he was banished and endured five years of pain and humiliation in exile, suffering torture and reposing as a confessor for the icons around the year 820. He is numbered among the holy hierarchs who upheld Orthodoxy through the iconoclast crisis, and his principal feast in the Orthodox Church is observed on 8 August.

Saint Gregory of Sinai

1346

Saint Gregory of Sinai was born around 1268 in the seacoast village of Klazomenai near Smyrna in Asia Minor, of wealthy parents. About 1290 he was taken into captivity by the Hagarenes and carried off to Laodicea; on gaining his freedom he made his way to Cyprus, where he was tonsured a monk. He travelled afterwards to Mount Sinai and received the great schema, fulfilling obediences as cook, baker and copyist while excelling all in the reading and knowledge of Scripture and the patristic writings. From Jerusalem he went to Crete, where the elder Arsenios instructed him in the practice of the Jesus Prayer and watchful prayer of the heart. Gregory then settled on Mount Athos at the Magoula skete near Philotheou Monastery, gathering disciples and teaching the discipline of inner stillness, hesychia. Together with Saint Gregory Palamas he is reckoned a chief renewer of hesychasm in the fourteenth century, establishing Athos as a centre of mental prayer. To escape pirate raids he founded four monasteries in Thrace, the principal one being his "Concealed" monastery on Mount Paroria on the western shore of the Black Sea, where strict followers gathered around him. His writings include "On Stillness" and "On Commandments and Doctrines," both of which entered the Philokalia. Saint Gregory reposed in 1346 and is commemorated on 8 August.

Saint Myron the Wonderworker, Bishop of Crete

Saint Myron was born around the year 250 in the village of Raukos in Crete, near Knossos. From his youth he was distinguished by zeal and faith, and he received the gift of working wonders even as a layman. As a young man he was a family man and a farmer, known for goodness and ready to assist all who came to him. One celebrated incident records that he distributed the entire harvest of his parents' vineyard to the poor; when his mother feared there would be no wine, he returned to find a single bunch of three berries on the vine, which when pressed yielded enough to supply the whole village. After the persecution of Christians ended, the Cretan people, drawn by his virtue, urged him to accept ordination, and he was raised to the episcopate, most likely as Bishop of Gortyna and thus shepherd of all Crete. While ruling his flock with wisdom he received from the Lord a remarkable gift of wonderworking. On one occasion the river Triton flooded his land; the saint commanded its waters to halt, walked across as on dry ground, and afterwards sent his deacon with his staff to bid the river resume its course. Saint Myron reposed in great old age, and the village of Raukos was renamed Agios Myron in his honour. He is commemorated on 8 August.

Saint Triantaphyllos the New Martyr of Zagora

Saint Triantaphyllos was a young sailor born in 1663 in Zagora of Magnesia, in Thessaly. As a youth he went to Constantinople to work on the ships, where he was pressed by Muslim sailors and Turkish officials to embrace Islam. Triantaphyllos refused steadfastly, professing aloud, "I am an Orthodox Christian and will not deny my Saviour Christ." After enduring imprisonment and pressure to renounce his faith he was condemned and led to the Hippodrome of Constantinople, where he was beheaded on 8 August 1680, in the eighteenth year of his age. His memory was preserved by John Karyophylis, the Great Logothete of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, who recorded the lives of the early new martyrs under the Ottomans. He is especially venerated in Zagora and at Alykes near Volos, where churches are dedicated to him, and is commemorated by the Orthodox Church on 8 August.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Romans — Romans 15.30-33

³⁰Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me; ³¹That I may be delivered from them that do not believe in Judaea; and that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints; ³²That I may come unto you with joy by the will of God, and may with you be refreshed. ³³Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Matthew — Matthew 17.24-18.4

²⁴And when they were come to Capernaum, they that received tribute money came to Peter, and said, Doth not your master pay tribute? ²⁵He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers? ²⁶Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free. ²⁷Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee.

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.