Friday, 11 December 2026

Ven. Daniel the Stylite

Friday of the 28th week after Pentecost

243 days after Pascha · Tone 2 · Liturgy · Nativity Fast

Saints commemorated

Saint Daniel the Stylite

493

Saint Daniel the Stylite was born about 409 in the village of Bethara near Samosata in Mesopotamia. His mother Martha was long childless and vowed to dedicate any son granted her to the Lord. At twelve Daniel entered the local monastery and was tonsured against the abbot's hesitation about his youth. While accompanying the abbot to Antioch, he met Saint Simeon the Stylite on his pillar near Aleppo, who blessed the young monk and foretold that he too would undertake the same labour. After Simeon's repose in 459, Daniel set out on pilgrimage to the Holy Land but was warned by an angel to turn aside to Constantinople. He spent nine years in a disused pagan temple at Anaplus on the Bosphorus, then mounted a pillar provided by a benefactor at Anaplus near the city, where he stood for thirty-three years exposed to the elements, even surviving a frozen winter that left him a block of ice. The patriarch Saint Anatolius and later Saint Gennadius ordained him priest at the foot of the pillar. Emperors Leo, Zeno and Basiliscus sought his counsel; he descended once only to confront the usurper Basiliscus and recall him to Orthodoxy. He prophesied a great fire in Constantinople and many other things. Daniel reposed in 493 aged about eighty-four and was buried at the foot of his pillar.

Saint Luke the New Stylite of Chalcedon

Saint Luke the New Stylite was born in the village of Atroe in the diocese of Anatolia toward the close of the ninth century to pious parents named Christopher and Cale, the sixth of seven children. From childhood he was inclined to prayer, fasting and almsgiving. As a young man he served as a soldier under the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, fighting in the Bulgarian war of 917 in which the imperial army was disastrously defeated at Anchialos; through the providence of God he came out unscathed, and recognising the vanity of earthly things he embraced the monastic life. After receiving the tonsure he was found worthy of ordination to the priesthood. He stood three years upon a pillar at his first place of struggle, then withdrew to Mount Olympus in Bithynia, then to Constantinople, and finally settled at Chalcedon, where he ascended a pillar on which he remained for forty-five years. There he was granted the gifts of healing, prophecy and consolation, and people of every rank came to him for counsel and to be relieved of their afflictions. He reposed in peace about the year 979 in the time of the emperor Basil II.

Saint Nikon, Abbot of Iveron

Saint Nikon, sometimes called Nikon Metanoeite from his constant cry of "Repent," was a Georgian monk of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries who became abbot of the Iveron Monastery on Mount Athos. He took the monastic habit early in life and was distinguished by his deep humility, ascetic strictness and sweetness of speech. As superior of the great Georgian monastery on the Holy Mountain he laboured to preserve the cenobitic order established by Saints John and Euthymius the Iberians, the founders of Iveron, and supported the translation of the Greek Fathers into the Georgian tongue. He governed the brotherhood with discernment, was generous to pilgrims and to the poor, and reposed in peace at Iveron, leaving the community strengthened in observance and in love of the holy services. He is sometimes confused in the calendars with Saint Nikon the Dry of the Kiev Caves, but is properly the abbot of the Iberian house on Athos commemorated on this day.

Venerable Leontius of Monemvasia, the Myrrh-streaming

Saint Leontius the Myrrh-streaming was born in the early sixteenth century at Monemvasia in the Peloponnese. From childhood he was attracted to the divine services and the study of the Scriptures, and as a young man he set out for the Holy Mountain, where he was tonsured a monk and given to severe asceticism. He laboured at several monasteries on Athos and especially at Dionysiou, where he distinguished himself by humility, silence and unceasing prayer. Withdrawing for greater solitude he spent many years in cave-dwelling and rigorous fasting. He reposed in peace, and after his burial his relics were found to stream a fragrant myrrh which became a source of healing to the faithful, on account of which he is called the Myrrh-streaming. His memory is kept on the Holy Mountain and in his native Monemvasia.

Saint Nikon the Dry of the Kiev Caves

1101

He was a monk in Kiev, taken into slavery by a band of Polovtsi (Turkic raiders who were troubling the country at that time) along with the holy Martyr Eustratius (March 28). He humbly refused to be ransomed by his family and therefore suffered a harsh captivity for three years. Despite this, he prayed constantly for his captors, worked miracles for their sake, and once healed their leader from a deadly illness. One day St Eustratius appeared to him in a vision and told him that he would be set free in three days. When he told his captors, they severed the tendons of his knees and ankles and kept him under guard. But at the appointed time he was miraculously transported to Kiev, where he suddenly appeared in church among his astonished brethren. The Saint did not want his chains removed until his Abbot said “Brother, if the Lord wanted to see you in these chains, he would not have delivered you from captivity!” He was so withered from his hardships that he became known as Nikon the Dry. Later, the captor whom he had healed came to the Monastery of the Caves and became a disciple of his former slave.

Our Venerable Father Luke the New Stylite

979

He was an Anatolian, and in his youth served in the Byzantine army in the war against the Bulgar Tsar Symeon. After the war, he left the army to become a monk, and was in time ordained to the priesthood. For a time he served as an army chaplain, living even more austerely than he had as a monk and distributing all his possessions to soldiers in need. He entered the Monastery of St Zacharias on Mount Olympus in Bithynia, where he was appointed steward. Here his ascetical labors reached new levels. He kept a large stone in his mouth so that he would be unable to speak, and spent each night in a tree. When his exploits threatened to attract admiration, Luke fled to his homeland and lived for a few years in an isolated cave. Then, following in the footsteps of Symeon the Elder (September 1), Symeon the Younger (May 24), Daniel (today) and Alypius (November 26), he began to live as a stylite, dwelling on a tall pillar near Constantinople. Here he became a powerful intercessor for those who flocked to him for healing or counsel, and countless miracles were worked through his prayers. Saint Luke lived on his pillar for more than forty years without interruption, and fell asleep in peace, aged more than one hundred. He was buried in the Monastery of St Bassian.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Titus — Titus 1.15-2.10

¹⁵Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. ¹⁶They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.

¹But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine: ²That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. ³The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; ⁴That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, ⁵To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. ⁶Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded. ⁷In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, ⁸Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you. ⁹Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again; ¹⁰Not purloining, but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Luke — Luke 21.37-22.8

³⁷And in the day time he was teaching in the temple; and at night he went out, and abode in the mount that is called the mount of Olives. ³⁸And all the people came early in the morning to him in the temple, for to hear him.

¹Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover. ²And the chief priests and scribes sought how they might kill him; for they feared the people.

³Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve. ⁴And he went his way, and communed with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray him unto them. ⁵And they were glad, and covenanted to give him money. ⁶And he promised, and sought opportunity to betray him unto them in the absence of the multitude.

⁷Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed. ⁸And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare us the passover, that we may eat.