Monday, 21 December 2026

Virgin Martyr Juliana and Companions

Monday of the 30th week after Pentecost

253 days after Pascha · Tone 4 · Liturgy · Nativity Fast

Saints commemorated

Holy martyr Themistocles of Myra

Saint Themistocles lived in the city of Myra in Lycia during the reign of the persecutor Decius, around the year 251. As a young man he tended sheep in the fields outside Myra. When the persecution against the Christians arose, a fellow believer named Dioscorus fled into the hills to escape arrest and took refuge among the rocks where Themistocles was pasturing his flock. The soldiers, seeking the fugitive, came to the shepherd and demanded to know where Dioscorus was hiding. To save his brother in Christ, Themistocles confessed himself to be the Christian they sought. He was led to the tribunal, where he firmly declared his faith. The governor commanded him to be cruelly beaten, scraped with iron hooks, and dragged over a path strewn with sharp thorns and stones. Throughout these torments the saint glorified God. He was at last pierced through with a sword and so received the crown of martyrdom.

Holy virgin martyr Juliana of Nicomedia

She was the daughter of a prominent family in Nicomedia during the reign of the persecutor Maximian (286-305). Her parents betrothed her to a nobleman named Eleusius, but without his knowledge, or that of her parents, she had already committed her life to Christ, and consecrated her virginity to him. To put off her suitor, she told him that she would not marry him until he became Prefect. Eleusius went to work using his fortune to bribe and influence those in power, and succeeded in being appointed Prefect of Nicomedia. When he went to Juliana to claim her as his wife, she was forced to confess herself a Christian, saying that she would never marry him unless he gave up the worship of idols and embraced the faith of Christ. For her confession, she was arrested and taken before the Prefect: Eleusius, her once-ardent suitor. He was now filled with an ardent rage toward her and, when she would not renounce her faith, had her subjected to the most sadistic tortures imaginable. Miraculously, she endured these without harm. Witnessing this wonder, 500 men and 130 women from among the pagans confessed Christ. The enraged Prefect had all of them beheaded immediately, followed by Juliana herself. She was eighteen years old when she won the Martyr’s crown.

Saint Peter, metropolitan of Moscow, wonderworker

“Saint Peter was born in Volhynia in 1260 and entered a monastery there at the age of thirteen. Making the Ladder of Saint John Climacus his guide in the monastic life, his obedience, meekness and willingness to undertake tasks that were repugnant to his brethren made him beloved of them all. He also painted icons and was the originator of the Muscovite style of Russian iconography. After some years, he left for the small Monastery of the Transfiguration in order to find the quiet favourable to prayer. Saint Maximus, the metropolitan of Kiev (6 Dec.) visited this monastery and was greatly edified by the virtues of Peter, whom he decided should be his successor as head of the Russian Church. He was confirmed in this resolve by an apparition of the Mother of God, and he made the request to the Patriarch of Constantinople on whom the Russian Church depended. In 1325 therefore Saint Peter was consecrated Metropolitan of Kiev, of which the see had been transferred to Vladimir by Saint Maximus, after the sack of Kiev by the Tatars. Peter’s election was confirmed by a Council, but he immediately encountered opposition from the Russian princes, who were vying with one another for influence over the leader of the Church. Peter’s meekness and charity towards his enemies won him their respect; but although conciliatory in all that concerned himself personally, he was nonetheless strict as regards the faith and moral uprightness. He energetically opposed intense Muslim propaganda, and travelled throughout Russia to confirm the faith. He did not hesitate to risk his life for the sake of making peace among the princes and, foreseeing that Russia would reunite around the principality of Moscow, he transferred his Metropolitanate see to that city and began the construction of the renowned Cathedral of the Dormition in the Kremlin. He gave up his soul to God while at prayer on 21 December 1326, and many miracles of healing were wrought at his tomb.” (Synaxarion)

Sunday of the Holy Forefathers

When 21 December falls on the Sunday before the Nativity of Christ, the Orthodox Church commemorates the holy Forefathers and Foremothers of the Lord, that is, the genealogy of Christ "according to the flesh" reaching from Adam through Abraham, the patriarchs, kings and prophets, to Joseph the betrothed, the all-holy Theotokos and the Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel reading for the day is the genealogy from the first chapter of Saint Matthew, and the hymns of the day praise Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses, David, Daniel and the three holy youths in the furnace, together with all the righteous men and women of the Old Covenant who looked forward in faith to the coming of the Saviour. This commemoration is also observed on the second Sunday before Christmas as the Sunday of the Forefathers, but when it falls on this date it carries the title "Sunday before the Nativity" and continues the preparation begun in the Forefeast.

Saint Procopius of Vyatka, Fool for Christ

1627

“Saint Procopius, the son of devout peasants, first feigned madness to escape a marriage that was being urged on him. He spent his life in the streets half-naked, slept wherever night overtook him and would never accept the shelter of a house. He used signs to make himself understood and never spoke a word, except to his spiritual father, with whom he would converse normally as a man in possession of all his faculties. When he was given an article of clothing, he wore it for a while out of obedience and then give it away to someone poor. When he visited the sick, he set fire to the beds of those who were going to get better, and rolled up in their sheets those who were going to die. He made many predictions, often by means of disconcerting prophetic signs, whose meaning became clear with the event. He spent thirty years in foolishness for Christ and, having foretold his death, fell asleep in peace in 1627.” (Synaxarion)

Also commemorated: Our Holy Father Peter, Metropolitan of Moscow (1326)

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

Hebrews — Hebrews 8.7-13

⁷For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. ⁸For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: ⁹Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. ¹⁰For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: ¹¹And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. ¹²For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. ¹³In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Mark — Mark 9.42-10.1

⁴²And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. ⁴³And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: ⁴⁴Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. ⁴⁵And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: ⁴⁶Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. ⁴⁷And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: ⁴⁸Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. ⁴⁹For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. ⁵⁰Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.

¹And he arose from thence, and cometh into the coasts of Judæa by the farther side of Jordan: and the people resort unto him again; and, as he was wont, he taught them again.