Sunday, 6 September 2026

14th Sunday after Pentecost

147 days after Pascha · Tone 5 · Black squigg (6-stich typikon symbol) · No Fast

Saints commemorated

★ Commemoration of the miracle of the Archangel Michael at Chonae

The Church on the sixth of September commemorates the miracle worked by the holy Archangel Michael at Chonae in Phrygia. According to ancient tradition, the holy apostles John the Theologian and Philip, while preaching the Gospel in those regions, foretold that on the spot where they stood near the city of Hierapolis a great spring of healing waters would arise and that the Archangel Michael would be honoured there. After the apostles had departed, the prediction was fulfilled: a wonder-working spring sprang from the earth at the place known as Cheretopa, and a man of Laodicea, whose mute daughter had been healed by drinking from the spring after he had seen the archangel in a dream, raised a small church in honour of the Captain of the Heavenly Host. Many of the heathen, witnessing the miracles wrought there, came to faith in Christ and were baptised. The pagans of the region grew envious and resolved to destroy the church by diverting the waters of two nearby rivers to flood the site and sweep away the building together with the spring. For sixty years a pious sacristan named Archippus had served the church in great asceticism, eating only vegetables and water, and sleeping on the bare ground. When he heard of the plot he prayed earnestly to God and to the Archangel Michael that the holy place be preserved. The archangel appeared to him in glory, struck the rock with his staff, and opened a wide fissure into which the rushing waters were drawn down. The spring continued to flow undisturbed, and the church was preserved. From the rushing of the rivers into the chasm, a Greek word for "plunging," the place received the name Chonae, by which it has been known ever since. Saint Archippus continued to serve there for many years, and reposed in peace at the age of seventy.

Holy Martyr Eudoxius and his companions Zeno, Macarius and others

311

The Holy Martyr Eudoxius was a senior officer of the imperial Roman army during the persecution of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian in the early fourth century. He held the rank of comes and commanded a unit of troops in Melitene of Armenia. When the imperial edict requiring sacrifice to the gods was published, Eudoxius, learning of it, set aside his military belt, the symbol of his office, and withdrew with his wife Basilissa and their children to a country estate in order to avoid being compelled to apostatise. He was, however, traced and arrested by the governor, who tried to win him back to the imperial service by flattery. When Eudoxius openly confessed Christ before the tribunal and threw down his armour and his belt at the governor's feet, eleven hundred of his fellow soldiers, moved by his example, declared themselves Christians along with him. The governor, fearing the tumult, dared not punish them all, but reported the matter to the emperor. With the saint were arrested also his close friends Zeno and Macarius, his relative Romulus, who had been the first to encourage him in the confession of the faith, and other companions. They endured many tortures, and finally Eudoxius, Zeno, Macarius and Romulus were beheaded at Melitene in the year 311. The body of Saint Eudoxius was buried by his wife Basilissa, who later, having raised her children in piety, also reposed in peace and is honoured among the holy women confessors.

Saint Archippus the sacristan of Chonae

Saint Archippus was a native of Hierapolis in Phrygia, born around the year 280 of pious Christian parents. From childhood he was inclined to the worship of the one true God, and when he had reached the age of ten he left his family and entered the small church of the Archangel Michael at the wonder-working spring of Cheretopa, near the future city of Chonae. There he made his dwelling, taking on himself the office of sacristan and watcher of the holy place. He pursued a life of strict asceticism, eating only vegetables and a little bread, drinking only water, sleeping on the bare ground, and clothing himself in a single rough garment, persevering in unceasing prayer and the singing of psalms. Despite the threats and insults of the pagans of the region, who hated the church and its miracles, he served the holy archangel for sixty years without ceasing. When the pagans at last conspired to destroy the church by diverting two rivers to flood the spot, it was Saint Archippus whose tearful prayers called down the appearance of the Archangel Michael, who saved the church by opening the rock to receive the rushing waters, the event from which the place gained the name Chonae. After this great miracle Archippus continued to serve the church for the remainder of his days, and reposed in peace at the age of seventy. He is honoured by the Church on the same day as the miracle in which he was God's instrument.

Holy Prophet Zacharias and Righteous Elizabeth, parents of St John the Forerunner

1st c.

The story of the holy parents of the Forerunner is told in the first chapters of Luke’s Gospel. Several of the Fathers say that Zacharias is the one who, the Lord said, was slain between the temple and the altar (Matthew 23:35); because he continued to call the Mary the Mother of God a virgin even after she bore Christ; and because his son had escaped the slaughter of the innocents ordered by Herod. St Elizabeth had hidden him in a cave in the desert; he remained in the wilderness from that time until he began to preach by the Jordan.

St Maxim, martyr of Lemkos, Czechoslovakia

1914

St Maxim was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1888. At this time all Orthodox Churches had been captured and subjected to the “Unia,” by which, though keeping the Orthodox liturgical rites, they were united to the Roman Catholic Church. Many of the Carpatho-Russian people were ignorant of the change and what it meant; others were unhappy with it but, in their subject condition, saw no alternative. Maxim’s farmer parents, at great personal sacrifice, obtained an education for him that enabled him to study for the priesthood at the Basilian seminary in Krakow. Here he discerned the un-Orthodox nature of the “Greek Catholic” training there and traveled to Russia, where he became a novice at the Great Lavra of Pochaev and met Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky), who encouraged him in his quest for Orthodoxy. (Archbishop Anthony, after the Russian Revolution, became the first Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad). He entered seminary in Russia in 1905 and was ordained to the Priesthood in 1911.Metropolitan Anthony, knowing the hardships and persecutions that awaited any Orthodox priest in Austro-Hungary, offered to find Maxim a parish in Russia. But Maxim was already aware of the hunger for Orthodoxy among many of the Carpatho-Russian people; several people from his village had travelled to America and while there had attended Orthodox Churches and confessed to Orthodox priests. They begged him to return to his country and establish an Orthodox parish there. When he returned to his native village of Zhdynia, the polish authorities, seeing him in the riassa, beard and uncut hair of an Orthodox priest, mocked him, saying “Look, Saint Nicholas has come to the Carpathians!” But the people of nearby Hrab sent a delegation asking him to set up an Orthodox parish in their village. This he did, setting up a house-church in the residence that the people gave him. Almost immediately, he and his people began to be harassed and persecuted, first at the instigation of “Greek Catholic” priests, then of the government. His rectory/church was closed, and he and several of his parishioners were repeatedly jailed, sometimes on trumped-up charges of sedition. (The Carpatho-Russian people were always suspected of pro-Russian political sympathies by the Austrian and Polish authorities). Despite these persecutions, through Fr Maxim’s labors a wave of desire for Orthodoxy spread through the region, with many Carpatho-Russians openly identifying themselves as Orthodox. The government issued orders to regional mayors to forbid those who had identified themselves as Orthodox to gather and, in 1913, appointed a special commissioner whose task was to force the people to return to Catholicism. In 1914, war broke out between Russia and Austro-Hungary. Despite lack of any evidence that Fr Maxim had engaged in pro-Russian political activity — he once said “My only politics is the Gospel” — he was arrested and executed on September 6 by the Papal calendar, August 24 by the Church Calendar. He was denied any form of Church burial, and his father buried him with his own hands. Following the First World War, Orthodoxy became legal in the new Polish Republic, and a monument was placed over Fr Maxim’s grave in his home town of Zhdynia. In 1994, the Orthodox Church of Poland officially glorified St Maxim.

Also commemorated: Miracle of Archangel Michael at Colossae

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

2 Corinthians — 2 Corinthians 1.21-2.4

²¹Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; ²²Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. ²³Moreover I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth. ²⁴Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand.

¹But I determined this with myself, that I would not come again to you in heaviness. ²For if I make you sorry, who is he then that maketh me glad, but the same which is made sorry by me? ³And I wrote this same unto you, lest, when I came, I should have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice; having confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all. ⁴For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears; not that ye should be grieved, but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Matthew — Matthew 22.1-14

¹And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said, ²The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, ³And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come. ⁴Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage. ⁵But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: ⁶And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. ⁷But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. ⁸Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. ⁹Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage. ¹⁰So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests.

¹¹And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: ¹²And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. ¹³Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ¹⁴For many are called, but few are chosen.

3rd Matins Gospel

Mark — Mark 16.9-20

⁹Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. ¹⁰And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept. ¹¹And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.

¹²After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country. ¹³And they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them.

¹⁴Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. ¹⁵And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. ¹⁶He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. ¹⁷And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; ¹⁸They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

¹⁹So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. ²⁰And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.