Tuesday, 15 September 2026

Greatmartyr Nicetas the Goth

Tuesday of the 16th week after Pentecost

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

Saints commemorated

★ Holy Great Martyr Nicetas the Goth

372

The Holy Great Martyr Nicetas was a Goth, born and living on the banks of the Danube River. He suffered for Christ in the year 372. Saint Nicetas believed in Christ and was baptised by the Gothic bishop Theophilos, who had participated in the First Ecumenical Council. When pagan Goths began to oppose the spread of Christianity a civil war broke out among them. After Fritigern, leading a Christian army, defeated the pagan Athanaric, the Christian faith continued to spread among the Goths. Saint Nicetas worked tirelessly among his fellow Goths, teaching them about Christ. By his life and preaching he led many to the faith. Athanaric, returning to power, again raised persecution against Christians, and Nicetas was seized. He endured many tortures and was finally cast into a fire. Although his body was not burned, he surrendered his soul to God, and his relics were illumined by a radiant light. A friend named Marian recovered the body and carried it to Cilicia, where it was buried with honour.

Saint Philotheus the Presbyter, Wonderworker of Asia Minor

The holy presbyter and wonderworker Philotheus lived in the tenth century in the village of Mravin, also rendered Myrmix, in Bithynia in Asia Minor. He was a married priest and had children. From his youth he devoted himself to deeds of prayer and fasting and to works of charity, exhorting his people by both word and example. Because of his holy life, Saint Philotheus received from God the gift of working miracles. The ascetic continually fed the hungry and helped the needy of his region, hiding nothing of his own from those in want. He fell asleep in peace in old age, and after his repose myrrh flowed from his relics, by which many sick were healed.

Saint Symeon, Archbishop of Thessalonica

Saint Symeon was a monastic, theologian and Archbishop of Thessalonica during the early fifteenth century. Born in the second half of the fourteenth century in Constantinople, he took the name Symeon at his monastic tonsure; his secular name has not been preserved. Before his elevation to the episcopate he lived as a hieromonk in the imperial city, closely linked to the Xanthopouloi brothers and the hesychast community they had gathered. He was installed as Archbishop of Thessalonica in 1416 or early 1417, arriving as Ottoman forces pressed upon the walls of the city. Through years of siege, plague and famine, he strengthened his flock by tireless preaching, the celebration of the divine services and a great body of writing on the liturgy, the sacraments and the dogmas of the Church. His commentaries on the Liturgy, the temple and the Mysteries became foundational texts of Orthodox liturgical theology. He fell asleep in the Lord in the middle of September 1429, shortly before the city finally fell to the Ottomans in March 1430. He was glorified by the Church of Constantinople in April 1981.

Holy Martyr Porphyrius

361

“An actor, he first mocked at Christians before Julian the Apostate. On one occasion, when he was mimicking the Christian mystery of Baptism, he was dipped into the water, pronouncing the words: ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ When he emerged from the water, he cried out: ‘Now I am a Christian!’ Everyone thought that this was in jest, as always, but he held firm to it, stopped mocking Christians and finally suffered for Christ. He was beheaded in 361, and entered into the Kingdom of Christ.” (Prologue) We rightly condemn worship that is purely external; but the life of St Porphyrius reminds us in a striking way that the ‘externals’ of the Faith have a power that can work to convert the heart of man. St Porphyrius used the words of Holy Baptism not only carelessly but mockingly, yet by God’s grace he emerged from the waters truly renewed into Christ.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Galatians — Galatians 5.11-21

¹¹And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased. ¹²I would they were even cut off which trouble you. ¹³For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. ¹⁴For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. ¹⁵But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. ¹⁶This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. ¹⁷For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. ¹⁸But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. ¹⁹Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, ²⁰Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, ²¹Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Mark — Mark 7.5-16

⁵Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands? ⁶He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. ⁷Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. ⁸For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. ⁹And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. ¹⁰For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death: ¹¹But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free. ¹²And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; ¹³Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

¹⁴And when he had called all the people unto him, he said unto them, Hearken unto me every one of you, and understand: ¹⁵There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man. ¹⁶If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.