Thursday, 27 August 2026

Ven. Poemen the Great

Thursday of the 13th week after Pentecost

137 days after Pascha · Tone 3 · Liturgy · No Fast

Saints commemorated

★ Holy Great Martyr Phanourios the Newly Revealed of Rhodes

The Holy and Glorious Great Martyr Phanourios is called the newly revealed because his life and martyrdom were unknown for centuries until the discovery of his ancient icon on the island of Rhodes. When the Turks took Rhodes in 1522 and ordered the rebuilding of the city walls, workmen unearthed the ruins of an old church and within it a number of icons; only one was preserved untouched by time, depicting a young soldier holding a cross and surrounded by twelve scenes of his sufferings. From these scenes the faithful learned that the saint had been arrested as a Christian, beaten with stones and rods, his body torn with iron hooks, cast into a furnace and finally completed his martyrdom by fire. Metropolitan Nilus of Rhodes obtained leave to restore the church in his honour, and the icon at once became a source of great miracles, especially in the recovery of lost things and in the conversion of those far from God. The traditional offering of the phaneropita, a sweet bread baked in his honour, is taken to church to be blessed on his feast.

Hieromartyr Kuksha and Venerable Pimen the Faster of the Kiev Caves

Saint Kuksha was a hieromonk of the Monastery of the Kiev Caves in the early twelfth century who, fired with apostolic zeal, went out to preach the gospel of Christ to the heathen Vyatichi tribes living in the forests of the Russian north east. By his preaching and miracles he turned a great multitude from the worship of idols, casting out demons, healing the sick and bringing rain in times of drought; for this work he was at last seized by a band of pagan priests and beheaded together with his disciple Nikon, about the year 1110. Saint Pimen, surnamed the Faster, lived in the same monastery at the same time and was renowned for his strict abstinence from food and his unceasing prayer. The Lord granted him to know the day of his repose, and he foretold the death of Saint Kuksha in the very hour in which it occurred. Both were laid to rest in the Caves of Saint Anthony.

Our Holy Father Poemen the Great

450

“He was an Egyptian by birth and a great Egyptian ascetic. As a boy, he visited various spiritual teachers and gathered proven experience as a bee gathers honey from flowers. Pimen once begged the elder Paul to take him to St Païsius. Seeing him, Païsius said: ‘This child will save many; the hand of God is on him.’ In time, Pimen became a monk and drew two of his brothers to monasticism. Their mother once came to see her sons, but Pimen would not allow her in, asking through the door: ‘Which do you want more: to see us here and now, or in the other world in eternity?’ Their mother went away joy-fully, saying: ‘If I will see you for certain there, I don’t need to see you here.’ In the monastery of these three brothers, governed by the eldest, Abba Anoub, the rule was as follows: at night, four hours were passed in manual work, four hours in sleep and four in reading the Psalter. The day was passed, from morning to noon, in alternate work and prayer, from mid-day to Vespers in reading and after Vespers they prepared their meal, the only one in the twenty—four hours, and this usually of some sort of cabbage. Pimen himself said about their life: ‘We ate what was to hand. No-one ever said: “Give me something else”, or “I won’t eat that”. In that way, we spent our whole life in silence and peace.’ He lived in the fifth century, and entered peacefully into rest in great old age.” (Prologue) His name means “shepherd”. Many of his words can be found in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers.

Saint Hosius the Confessor, Bishop of Cordova

Saint Hosius was born about the year 256 in Cordova in Spain and from his youth was known for his uprightness of life and his devotion to the faith. He suffered as a confessor in the persecution of the Emperor Maximian at the close of the third century, then served as Bishop of Cordova for more than sixty years. The trusted ecclesiastical adviser of the Emperor Constantine the Great, he presided at the Council of Nicaea in 325, where he played a leading part in the formulation of the Symbol of Faith and the condemnation of the Arian heresy. Already a very old man, he stood firm against the Arianising emperor Constantius and his bishops, and it was only under cruel pressure and in extreme age that he was briefly induced to sign a formula at Sirmium, which he repudiated on his deathbed, dying in peace and Orthodoxy about the year 359 at the age of more than a hundred years.

Venerable Pimen the Great

Saint Pimen the Great was born in Egypt about the year 340 and at a young age went together with his two brothers Anubius and Paisius into the desert of Scete, where they embraced the monastic life. Saint Pimen attained such a measure of humility, discernment and gentleness that he became one of the greatest of the desert fathers and a teacher of monks beyond counting. When his mother came seeking to see her sons, he refused to come out to her, saying that they would meet in the world to come if she would there see them; she returned home consoled. Many of his sayings, full of compassion and sober wisdom, are preserved in the Apophthegmata Patrum. Saint Pimen would say, A man who teaches without doing is like a spring which gives drink to all and washes all clean, but cannot wash itself. He reposed in peace about the year 450, having lived a life of unceasing prayer and tender love for his brethren.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

2 Corinthians — 2 Corinthians 10.7-18

⁷Do ye look on things after the outward appearance? If any man trust to himself that he is Christ’s, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ’s, even so are we Christ’s. ⁸For though I should boast somewhat more of our authority, which the Lord hath given us for edification, and not for your destruction, I should not be ashamed: ⁹That I may not seem as if I would terrify you by letters. ¹⁰For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible. ¹¹Let such an one think this, that, such as we are in word by letters when we are absent, such will we be also in deed when we are present. ¹²For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. ¹³But we will not boast of things without our measure, but according to the measure of the rule which God hath distributed to us, a measure to reach even unto you. ¹⁴For we stretch not ourselves beyond our measure, as though we reached not unto you: for we are come as far as to you also in preaching the gospel of Christ: ¹⁵Not boasting of things without our measure, that is, of other men’s labours; but having hope, when your faith is increased, that we shall be enlarged by you according to our rule abundantly, ¹⁶To preach the gospel in the regions beyond you, and not to boast in another man’s line of things made ready to our hand. ¹⁷But he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. ¹⁸For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Mark — Mark 3.28-35

²⁸Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: ²⁹But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: ³⁰Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.

³¹There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him. ³²And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. ³³And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? ³⁴And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! ³⁵For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.