Thursday, 15 October 2026

Ven. Euthymius the New of Thessalonica

Thursday of the 20th week after Pentecost

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

Saints commemorated

Holy Hieromartyr Lucian, Presbyter of Greater Antioch

312

Saint Lucian was born about the year 240 at Samosata in Syria of Christian parents and was educated at Edessa in the school of Macarius, where he was instructed both in the divine Scriptures and in the secular learning of his age. After distributing his goods to the poor he supported himself by transcribing books, and was ordained presbyter at Antioch, where he founded a celebrated catechetical school whose alumni included many of the most learned teachers of the eastern church. He was renowned for his ascetic strictness and for his careful labour upon the text of the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament, producing a critical recension that was widely used throughout the east. During the persecution of the emperor Maximinus he was arrested at Antioch and conveyed to Nicomedia, where he was kept in prison for nine months and subjected to hunger, the rack and other torments. While in chains, on the feast of Theophany, he is said to have celebrated the divine mysteries upon his own breast, and on the day following, having received Holy Communion, he gave up his soul to God in the year 312. His relics were translated to Drepanum in Bithynia, which Constantine the Great renamed Helenopolis in honour of his mother and out of veneration for the martyr.

Saint Barses the Confessor, Bishop of Edessa

Saint Barses was bishop of Edessa in the fourth century and an unwavering champion of the Orthodox faith against the Arian heresy then patronised by the emperor Valens. He was a man full of apostolic grace, whose name was renowned throughout Phoenicia, Egypt and the Thebaid, and who by a single word could put sicknesses to flight, so that the suffering came to him from many lands and were healed. When Valens turned the imperial power against the defenders of the Council of Nicaea, Barses was driven from his see and sent into exile, first to the island of Aradus, then to Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, and at last to a remote fortress called Pheno on the borders of the barbarian country, where he reposed in confession of the true faith about the year 378. So great was the veneration of the people that the simple bed upon which he had slept in Aradus was preserved as a relic, and many sick persons who lay upon it were restored to health by the prayers of the holy bishop.

Saint Sabinus the Wonderworker, Bishop of Catania

Saint Sabinus lived in Sicily during the eighth century, a period when the dioceses of the island had been removed from the jurisdiction of Rome by the emperor Leo the Isaurian and placed under the patriarch of Constantinople. Distinguished from his youth by piety and learning, he was raised to the episcopal throne of Catania on account of his many virtues. After ruling his flock for some time, finding the cares of office a burden upon his soul, he secretly withdrew into the wilderness, where he gave himself to fasting, prayer and unceasing struggle against the passions. The Lord granted him the gifts of healing and foreknowledge, so that he cured the sick, cast out unclean spirits and foretold things to come; and many young men, persuaded by his teaching, forsook the world and embraced the monastic life under his direction. After many years of ascetic labour he reposed in peace about the year 760, and the faithful of Sicily have honoured his memory ever since.

Venerable Euthymius the New of Thessalonica

Saint Euthymius, called the New or the Younger, was born about the year 824 at Opso in Galatia, of pious parents, and received the baptismal name Niketas. Married in his eighteenth year, he soon left the world after the birth of his daughter, withdrawing first to Mount Olympus in Bithynia where he was tonsured and trained in the ascetic life. Thence he passed to Mount Athos, then little inhabited, and dwelt for many years in caves and small cells, living for a long period upon the bare summit of the holy mountain in continual prayer and great bodily mortification. Ordained deacon in Thessalonica, he afterwards established a double monastery at Peristerai near that city upon the ruins of an ancient church of Saint Andrew, gathering disciples both male and female under his rule. Foreseeing his end, he returned to Athos, where he reposed about the year 889 on the island of Hiera, and his relics, brought back to Thessalonica, became a source of healing and a witness to the renewal of monastic life upon the holy mountain.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Philippians — Philippians 3.1-8

¹Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.

²Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. ³For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. ⁴Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: ⁵Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; ⁶Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. ⁷But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. ⁸Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

Gospel

weekly cycle

Luke — Luke 9.7-11

⁷Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him: and he was perplexed, because that it was said of some, that John was risen from the dead; ⁸And of some, that Elias had appeared; and of others, that one of the old prophets was risen again. ⁹And Herod said, John have I beheaded: but who is this, of whom I hear such things? And he desired to see him.

¹⁰And the apostles, when they were returned, told him all that they had done. And he took them, and went aside privately into a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida. ¹¹And the people, when they knew it, followed him: and he received them, and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing.