Monday, 12 October 2026

Martyrs Probus, Tarachus and Andronicus

Monday of the 20th week after Pentecost

183 days after Pascha · Tone 2 · Liturgy · No Fast

Saints commemorated

Holy Martyrs Probus, Tarachus, and Andronicus

304

The holy martyrs Tarachus, Probus, and Andronicus suffered for Christ at Tarsus in Cilicia in the year 304, during the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian. Tarachus was a native of Claudiopolis in Syria, an old soldier of mature years who had been raised in the Christian faith. Probus was born at Side in Pamphylia, the son of a wealthy father, and Andronicus was the son of an eminent citizen of Ephesus, all three already known in their cities as confessors of Christ.

Brought before the proconsul Numerian Maximus at Tarsus, the three were commanded to offer sacrifice to the gods of the empire. Tarachus, the eldest, answered that he would offer not the blood of beasts but a pure heart to the one true God. Probus declared that he found in Christ his hope and his crown, and Andronicus that he had been delivered by Christ from the bondage of idols and would not return to them. The proconsul gave them over to long and varied tortures, bringing them three times before the tribunal in the cities of Tarsus, Mopsuestia, and Anazarbus.

Their tortures included scourging, the rending of their flesh with iron hooks, the beating of their bodies with rods of lead, the crushing of their hands and feet, the searing of their wounds with vinegar and salt, and the wrenching of their limbs upon the rack. Through it all they remained unmoved and gave glory to God. The transcript of their interrogations, preserved by Christians who paid the soldiers for the right to copy it, is one of the oldest authentic acts of the martyrs and was treasured throughout antiquity.

At the last, weary of inflicting torment and unable to break their constancy, the proconsul gave them to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre. When the beasts would not touch them, soldiers were sent in and the three were put to the sword. Christians by night gathered their relics with reverence and laid them to rest, and a heavenly light appeared above their tomb.

Saint Cosmas the Hymnographer, Bishop of Maiuma

Saint Cosmas the Hymnographer, also called Cosmas of Jerusalem, was born in Damascus toward the end of the seventh century. Orphaned in early youth, he was taken into the household of Sergius, a noble Christian official who served at the court of the Saracen caliph and was the father of Saint John of Damascus. There he was raised as the foster brother of John, sharing his lessons and his prayers, and the two were as one heart in their love of Christ. Their teacher was a learned Calabrian monk, also named Cosmas, who had been ransomed by Sergius from slavery to the Saracens. Under him the two boys were instructed in grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, music, astronomy, and theology. When their tutor in old age desired to retire to the wilderness, the two foster brothers prepared for him a hermitage and themselves followed in due time, leaving Damascus together to take the habit at the great Lavra of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified in the Judean desert. There Cosmas devoted himself to the chanting of the divine services and to the writing of sacred poetry, sharing with John of Damascus the labour of bringing the hymnody of the Church into a new and lasting splendour. To him are owed the canons of Lazarus Saturday, of Palm Sunday, of the Tridia chanted in Holy Week, the canon of the Nativity drawn from the homily of Saint Gregory the Theologian, and many further hymns of the festal cycle. With John he is honoured as a chief representative of the great age of Greek liturgical poetry. In 743 Saint Cosmas was raised against his will to the bishopric of Maiuma, the port of Gaza, where he ruled his flock with humility, defended the holy icons against the iconoclasts, and continued his hymnographic labours. He reposed in extreme old age and is venerated as a teacher and a poet of the Church.

Saint Symeon the New Theologian

Saint Symeon the New Theologian was born in 949 in Galatia, Paphlagonia, of noble parents, and named George at his baptism. As a youth he was sent to Constantinople and entrusted to his uncle, who served at the imperial court, where he received a thorough education and was prepared for civil office. About his fourteenth year he met the elder Symeon the Pious of the Studite monastery, who became his spiritual father and laid in him the foundation of his interior life.

Drawn by deep spiritual experience even while still in the world, Symeon entered the Studite monastery in Constantinople in due time and afterwards moved to the monastery of Saint Mamas, of which he became abbot in 980. There he gathered a brotherhood whom he led with a strictness and a freshness that stirred both admiration and opposition. He taught that every Christian, from the highest to the least, is called to a personal experience of the grace of the Holy Spirit, and that without this conscious experience the sacramental life is impoverished.

His zeal for the memory of his elder, whom he venerated as a saint, brought him into conflict with Stephen, the syncellus of the patriarch, and in 1009 he was deposed and exiled to Paloukiton on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus. There, far from being silenced, he gathered disciples, restored a ruined chapel of Saint Marina, and lived his last years in prayer, writing, and the spiritual fatherhood of those who came to him.

Saint Symeon left a great body of writing, the Hymns of Divine Love, the Catechetical Discourses, the Theological and Ethical Treatises, and the Practical and Theological Chapters, in which he taught with a power that has earned him the title of New Theologian, set in the Church beside Saint John the Theologian and Saint Gregory the Theologian. He reposed on 12 March 1022. His principal feast is observed on 12 October, when his relics were translated, since the ordinary date falls in the Great Fast.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Philippians — Philippians 2.12-16

¹²Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. ¹³For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. ¹⁴Do all things without murmurings and disputings: ¹⁵That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; ¹⁶Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Luke — Luke 7.36-50

³⁶And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to meat. ³⁷And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, ³⁸And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. ³⁹Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner. ⁴⁰And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on. ⁴¹There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. ⁴²And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? ⁴³Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. ⁴⁴And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. ⁴⁵Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. ⁴⁶My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. ⁴⁷Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. ⁴⁸And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. ⁴⁹And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? ⁵⁰And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.