Saturday, 7 November 2026

Holy 33 Martyrs of Melitene

Saturday of the 23rd week after Pentecost

209 days after Pascha · Tone 5 · Liturgy · No Fast

Saints commemorated

Holy 33 martyrs of Melitene

The holy thirty-three martyrs of Melitene suffered for Christ in the Armenian city of Melitene around the year 290 during the persecution of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian. Their leader was Saint Hieron, a Christian husbandman from Tyana in Cappadocia, raised by his pious mother and renowned for his physical strength as much as for his goodness. When Roman officers came to recruit men for the imperial army, Hieron refused to serve in a force used to persecute his fellow Christians, and when they sought to compel him he drove them off with a wooden club. He fled to a cave with eighteen kinsmen and friends, but his mother and a fellow believer eventually persuaded him to accept arrest, lest others suffer in his place. With thirty-two companions, all soldiers or close friends, he was brought before the persecutor Lysias and ordered to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods. The whole company refused, openly confessing Christ. After cruel beatings and the cutting off of Hieron's right arm at the elbow, they were cast half-dead into prison and four days later beheaded together. A noble Christian named Chrysanthus ransomed Hieron's head from the tyrant; after the persecutions ceased he built a church on the place of execution and enshrined the venerable head within it.

Holy martyrs Auctus, Taurion and Thessalonica of Amphipolis

The Holy Martyrs Auctus, Taurion and Thessalonica suffered for Christ at Amphipolis in Macedonia in the early Christian centuries. Saint Thessalonica was the only daughter of a pagan priest of Amphipolis. Having received the faith of Christ, she refused to take part in her father's idolatrous sacrifices, and when he discovered her conversion he beat her cruelly and drove her from the family home. Two pious Christian neighbours, Auctus and Taurion, came to her defence and rebuked her father for his cruelty, whereupon they were denounced to the local authorities and arrested. After enduring fearful tortures for confessing Christ, all three were beheaded together and so received the crown of martyrdom. The Church honours them on this day for their joint witness, in which the bonds of Christian charity proved stronger than ties of blood.

Saint Willibrord, enlightener of the Frisians

Saint Willibrord was born around 658 in Northumbria in the north of England, the son of the holy hermit Wilgis. As a small child he was offered by his father to the monastery of Ripon under the abbacy of Saint Wilfrid of York, where he received his early monastic and scholarly formation. When Saint Wilfrid was driven into exile in 678, Willibrord travelled to Ireland and spent twelve years in the schools of Saint Egbert and Saint Wigbert, deepening his learning and ascetic life. In 690, with eleven companions, he was sent by Saint Egbert to evangelize the pagan Frisians, who had recently come under the protection of the Frankish ruler Pippin II of Heristal. Travelling to Rome to seek the blessing of Pope Sergius I, he returned to preach with apostolic zeal among the Frisians, baptizing many and overthrowing pagan shrines. In 695 he was again sent to Rome and consecrated by Pope Sergius as the first archbishop of the Frisians, with his see at Utrecht; on this occasion the Pope renamed him Clement. In 698 he founded the great monastery of Echternach in Luxembourg as a missionary base, and from there he laboured for forty more years among the peoples of the Low Countries and Lower Germany, even preaching among the Danes. He reposed at Echternach on 7 November 739, and his shrine there remains a place of pilgrimage, marked each Whit Tuesday by the celebrated dancing procession in his honour.

Venerable Lazarus the wonderworker of Mount Galesius

Saint Lazarus the Wonderworker was born around 968 in the city of Magnesia in Lydia of Asia Minor, the son of devout parents named Niketas and Irene. From childhood he was drawn to prayer and church, and at the age of seven he was given to be educated by his uncle, a monk. Filled with longing for the Holy Land, he secretly left home in his youth and after many adventures reached Palestine, where he was tonsured a monk at the great monastery of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified. There he spent some ten years in obedience and ascetic struggle, gaining the love and respect of the brethren, and was eventually ordained priest by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. When the Saracen persecutions made life in Palestine impossible, he returned to his native country and settled near Ephesus on the desolate Mount Galesius, where he beheld a vision of a fiery pillar surrounded by angels and built a church in honour of the Resurrection of Christ. Following the example of Saint Symeon the Stylite, he embraced the feat of pillar-dwelling, mounting a column where he laboured for many years exposed to wind, sun and frost, while around him grew up three monasteries which he governed and to which he gave the typikon. Renowned during his lifetime for the gifts of healing, prophecy and discernment, he reposed in great old age on 7 November 1053 in the reign of Constantine Monomachos, having foretold the day of his death.

Saint Willibrord, first Bishop of Utrecht and Apostle of Holland

739

He was born in Northubria in England around 638. At the age of seven he was sent to the monastery at Ripon for education under St Wilfrid (April 24), the abbot. At the age of twenty he traveled to Ireland to live among the holy monks of that land; he spent twelve years there as the spiritual child of St Egbert (also April 24). In 690 St Egbert sent Willibrord as head of a company of twelve monks to take the Gospel to the pagan lands around Frisia. The holy missionary first went to Rome to receive the blessing of Pope Sergius, then with his fellow-monks preached the Gospel throughout Holland and Zealand. In 695 Pope Sergius consecrated Willibrord Archbishop of Utrecht, instructing him to organize the Church throughout that area. As Archbishop, Willibrord continued to labor tirelessly for the spread of the Gospel in those pagan lands; his missionary travels took him as far as Denmark. He reposed in peace in 739 at Echternach Monastery (located in present-day in Luxembourg), having served for forty-four years as a bishop and for most of his life as a monastic. His tomb soon became a place of pilgrimage.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

2 Corinthians — 2 Corinthians 8.1-5

¹Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia; ²How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. ³For to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves; ⁴Praying us with much intreaty that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. ⁵And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Luke — Luke 9.1-6

¹Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. ²And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. ³And he said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats apiece. ⁴And whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide, and thence depart. ⁵And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them. ⁶And they departed, and went through the towns, preaching the gospel, and healing every where.