Saturday, 19 September 2026

Saturday after Elevation

Saturday of the 16th week after Pentecost

160 days after Pascha · Tone 6 · Red squigg (doxology typikon symbol) · No Fast

Saints commemorated

Holy Martyrs Trophimus, Sabbatius and Dorymedon of Synnada

The holy martyrs Trophimus, Sabbatius and Dorymedon suffered for Christ in the city of Antioch under the emperor Probus, who reigned from 276 to 282. While a great pagan festival was being celebrated, Trophimus and Sabbatius, both Christians, came into the city and were grieved at the impiety they saw on every side. They were arrested and brought before the governor Atticus. Sabbatius confessed Christ first and was tortured so cruelly that he gave up his soul under the lash. Trophimus was beaten and then sent to Phrygia to the proconsul Denys at Synnada to be further tormented. There he was scourged, his feet were pierced and he was forced to walk in iron sandals studded with nails to the place of his next torture. The senator Dorymedon, a secret Christian of Synnada, visited Trophimus in prison, washing and binding his wounds. When the pagans learned that the senator had refused to take part in the festival of Castor and Pollux, they questioned him; he openly confessed Christ and refused to honour the demons. He and Saint Trophimus were thrown to the wild beasts in the arena, but the animals would not touch them. At last both were beheaded with the sword and so received their crowns.

Holy Right-Believing Prince Theodore of Smolensk and his children David and Constantine

The holy right-believing Prince Theodore of Smolensk and Yaroslavl, called the Black, was born early in the thirteenth century at a terrible time for Rus, in the years of the Mongol invasion of 1237 to 1239. By inheritance he was prince of Mozhaisk, a portion of the Smolensk principality, and through his marriage to Princess Maria of Yaroslavl he received that throne also. After her early death he was for a time excluded from his own household by his mother-in-law. Travelling to the Golden Horde to render service, he so won the favour of Khan Mengu-Temir, who treated the Orthodox Church with respect, that the khan gave him his own daughter in marriage; she received holy Baptism and was named Anna. While at Sarai, Theodore strove to soften the lot of Christians under Mongol rule and to build churches there. From Anna were born his two sons, David and Constantine, who from childhood were instructed in the faith. After the deaths of his elder son and his mother-in-law, he was at last received back upon the throne of Yaroslavl, which he ruled in piety and justice. Falling ill in 1299, he received the great schema and reposed peacefully on 19 September. His son David ruled at Yaroslavl after him until 1321, and the youngest, Constantine, having lived in piety, was buried beside his father. Their incorrupt relics were uncovered together at Yaroslavl on 5 March 1463.

Saint Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury

Saint Theodore of Tarsus was born about the year 602 in the same city in Cilicia that had given Saint Paul to the Church. A Greek by birth and education, he studied at Antioch and Constantinople in the great learning of the East, and after the Persian conquest of Cilicia he travelled to Rome, where he became a learned monk. In 667 Pope Vitalian, having considered and rejected other candidates, chose Theodore, then sixty-five years old, to be sent to England as Archbishop of Canterbury, with the African abbot Saint Hadrian as his companion. He was consecrated archbishop in Rome on 26 March 668 and arrived at Canterbury on 27 May 669. Theodore at once set about reforming and unifying the still young Anglo-Saxon Church. He travelled the length of England, the first archbishop whose authority all the English Church accepted, ordained bishops, settled disputed sees and divided the great dioceses for more effective pastoral care. With Hadrian he founded a school at Canterbury where Latin and Greek, the Scriptures, poetry, astronomy and the calculation of the church calendar were taught, opening a golden age of Anglo-Saxon scholarship. In 672 he summoned the Council of Hertford, the first council of the whole English Church and the first national assembly of any kind in the country, and he later presided over the Council of Hatfield in 679. He fell asleep at Canterbury on 19 September 690 and was buried in the church of Saints Peter and Paul.

Holy Martyr Zosimas the Hermit of Cilicia

4th c.

Dometian, a prince and a fierce persecutor of Christians, was hunting in the mountains when he came upon an old man surrounded by wild beasts, who were as gentle and tame as lambs in his presence. When asked who he was, the old man answered that he was Zosimas, a Christian who had left the persecutors in the city to live among the beasts instead. Dometian, hearing that Zosimas was a Christian, ordered him seized and bound, and subjected him to many tortures. When the holy man was wounded and beaten all over, the prince tied a rock around his neck and hanged him from a tree, mocking him with the words ‘Command a wild beast to come, then we will all believe!’ Zosimas prayed, and at once a large lion appeared, came up to Zosimas, and took the weight of the rock on its head to ease the martyr’s sufferings. The terrified prince freed Zosimas, who died of his wounds not long afterward.

Also commemorated: Ss David and Constantine of Yaroslavl

Daily readings

Epistle

— Saturday after Elevation weekly cycle

1 Corinthians — 1 Corinthians 1.26-29

²⁶For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: ²⁷But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; ²⁸And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: ²⁹That no flesh should glory in his presence.

Gospel

— Saturday after Elevation weekly cycle

John — John 8.21-30

²¹Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come. ²²Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come. ²³And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. ²⁴I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. ²⁵Then said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning. ²⁶I have many things to say and to judge of you: but he that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him. ²⁷They understood not that he spake to them of the Father. ²⁸Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. ²⁹And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. ³⁰As he spake these words, many believed on him.

Epistle

1 Corinthians — 1 Corinthians 10.23-28

²³All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. ²⁴Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s wealth. ²⁵Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for conscience sake: ²⁶For the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof. ²⁷If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscience sake. ²⁸But if any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that shewed it, and for conscience sake: for the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof:

Gospel

Matthew — Matthew 24.34-44

³⁴Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. ³⁵Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

³⁶But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. ³⁷But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ³⁸For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, ³⁹And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ⁴⁰Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. ⁴¹Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

⁴²Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. ⁴³But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. ⁴⁴Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.