Thursday, 31 December 2026

Ven. Melania the Younger of Rome

Thursday of the 31st week after Pentecost

263 days after Pascha · Tone 5 · Liturgy · No Fast (Fast Free)

Saints commemorated

Apodosis of the Nativity of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ

The thirty-first of December is the Apodosis, the Leavetaking, of the great feast of the Nativity. As with all the Twelve Feasts of the Lord and the Theotokos, the joy of the principal day of celebration is extended through an afterfeast and brought to its conclusion with a final solemn keeping. On this day the troparion, kontakion, hymns and readings of the Nativity are repeated as on the day of the feast itself, that the Church may once more drink her fill of the mystery of God made man before passing on to the new cycle of feasts that begins on the morrow with the Circumcision of Christ and the memory of Saint Basil the Great. The Apodosis is the seal upon the seven days of the festal celebration: the Synaxis of the Theotokos on the second day, the protomartyr Stephen on the third, and the Holy Innocents on the fifth, all gathered into the single radiance of God-with-us. The Church bids farewell to the manger of Bethlehem only to take up immediately the witness of the Forerunner and the entry of the Lord into the Jordan in His Theophany.

Saint Sylvester I, Pope of Rome

Saint Sylvester was born in Rome in the second half of the third century and raised in the Christian faith by his pious mother Justa. As a young man he distinguished himself by his zeal in showing hospitality to Christians fleeing from persecution. He was ordained presbyter by Pope Marcellinus and lived through the great persecution of Diocletian, comforting confessors and burying the bodies of the martyrs. In 314, after the peace of the Church under the emperor Constantine, Sylvester was elected Pope of Rome, and governed the Church there until his repose in 335. During his pontificate the great basilicas of Saint Peter on the Vatican, Saint John Lateran and the Holy Cross in Jerusalem were begun, and the First Ecumenical Council was held at Nicaea in 325, at which Sylvester sent his legates and joined his voice in the condemnation of the Arian heresy and the proclamation of the consubstantial Trinity. Many holy traditions, recorded in the early Acts of Saint Sylvester, attribute to him the catechesis and baptism of the emperor Constantine and the conversion of his mother Saint Helen. He is also remembered for his learned dispute with the rabbis of the Jews, in which he confessed Christ before the assembled scholars and confounded their objections. He reposed in peace on the last day of December 335 and was buried in the cemetery of Priscilla on the Via Salaria. Some calendars commemorate him on 2 January, but in many local traditions, including that of the Russian Church, he is honoured on 31 December together with Saint Melania the Younger.

Saint Zoticus the Orphan-Feeder, presbyter of Constantinople

Saint Zoticus was a Roman of senatorial rank who came to Constantinople with the emperor Constantine the Great. Wealthy, learned and pious, he was ordained presbyter and gave himself to works of charity, and especially to the care of the destitute and the diseased. When at one time the emperor Constantius (337 to 361), influenced by Arian advisers, ordered that lepers should be drowned in the sea, Zoticus, taking gold from the imperial treasury under pretext of buying jewels, secretly used it to ransom lepers and to settle them upon a hill outside the city, where he tended them with his own hands. When his deception was discovered, Zoticus brought the emperor to the place where the lepers were dwelling, and the emperor's own daughter, herself a leper, was numbered among them. Constantius was thus moved to repentance and granted the saint full freedom and ample resources to build a leprosarium and church, the famous Zoticeion of Constantinople. According to one tradition, however, Zoticus was first dragged behind the emperor's horses and then martyred for his works of mercy. He is honoured as the protector of orphans, lepers and the destitute, and his memory is kept on this day.

Venerable Melania the Younger of Rome

She was born in 383 in Rome, to a very wealthy family with large estates in Italy, Africa, Spain and even Britain. She was the grand- daughter of St Melania the Elder (June 8) and a pious disciple of Christ from a young age. She was married against her will at the age of fourteen, to a relative named Apinianus. They had two children, both of whom died in early childhood. Henceforth Melania and her husband dedicated themselves entirely to God. They had both dreamed of a high wall that they would have to climb before they could pass through the narrow gate that leads to life, and soon began to take measures to dispose of their wealth. This aroused opposition from some of the Senate, who were concerned that the selling off of such huge holdings would disrupt the economy of the State itself.

With the support of the Empress, though, Melania was able to free 8000 of her slaves and give each a gift of three gold pieces to begin life as freedmen. She employed agents to help fund the establishment of churches and monasteries throughout the Empire, donated many estates to the Church, and sold many more, giving the proceeds as alms. When Rome fell to the Goths under Alaric in 410, Melania and Apinianus moved to Sicily, then to Africa, where they completed the sale of their propery, donating the proceeds to monasteries and to aiding victims of the barbarians.

In Africa Melania, now aged about thirty, took up a life of the strictest asceticism: she kept a total fast on weekdays, only eating on Saturday and Sunday; she slept two hours a night, giving the rest of the night to vigil and prayer. Her days were spent in charitable works, using the remainder of her wealth to relieve the poor and benefit the Church. After seven years in Africa, Melania, her mother and her husband left on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. There they founded a monastery on the Mount of Olives, which grew to a community of ninety nuns. Melania’s mother died in 431, then her husband and spiritual brother Apinianus ; she buried them side by side.

Save for one visit to Constantinople, Melania continued to live in reclusion in a small cave on the Mount of Olives; she became an advisor to the Empress Eudocia, who sought her expert counsel on her gifts to churches and monasteries.

Melania fell ill keeping the Vigil of Nativity in 439, and fell asleep in the Lord six days later; her last words were ‘As it has pleased the Lord, so it has come to pass.’ Her monastery was destroyed in 614 by the Persians, but her cave hermitage on the Mount of Olives is still a place of pilgrimage and veneration.

Saint Zoticus, Cherisher of the Poor and Servant of Lepers

4th c

He was born in Rome, and as a young man was chosen by the Emperor Constantine to assist in the foundation of his new capital at Byzantium. An outbreak of leprosy in the new City became so severe that the Emperor ordered that all lepers, whatever their rank, be driven from the city or drowned in the sea. Zoticus, moved by compassion for these people, went to the Emperor and asked him for a large amount of gold to buy gems and pearls to enhance the glory of the city, ‘For, as Your Majesty knows, I am well-qualified in this field.’ The Saint then used the gold to ransom all those being led into exile or to drowning, and to establish for them a camp on the hill of Olivet on the opposite shore of the Bosphorus. There he brought the sick and provided for their care. In 337 Constantius, an Arian heretic, took the throne upon the death of his father. Some of Zoticus’ enemies at court, seeing an opportunity, denounced Zoticus to the new Emperor, saying that he not only held subversive views, but had misappropriated public money. When he learned of these charges, Zoticus presented himself to the Emperor, finely dressed, and offered to take Constantius to see the gems and pearls that he had bought on his behalf. When they reached the hill of Olivet, Constantius was astonished to see a company of lepers coming to greet him with lighted candles, honoring and praising him and their patron Zoticus. Then the holy Zoticus said to the Emperor, ‘These are the precious stones and brilliant pearls that give luster to the crown of the heavenly Kingdom that you will inherit by their prayers. I bought them for the salvation of your soul.’ Instead of being grateful, the heartless Emperor ordered that Zoticus be tied behind wild mules and dragged until dead. The mules ran down the hill, breaking the Saint’s body upon the rocks and brush. Then, of their own accord, they returned to the top of the hill, still dragging the body, and, like Balaam’s ass (Numbers ch. 22), spoke and proclaimed that the Martyr must be buried on that hill. The astonished and repentant Emperor ordered the Martyr buried with honor, and commanded that a hospital for lepers be built there, staffed by the best physicians and caretakers. Saint Zoticus is also called Orphanotrophos, ‘Cherisher of Orphans,’ because in later years a large orphanage was added to the leprosarium. The orphanage included a general hospital and a home for the aged. The Saint was honored throughout Byzantine history as the patron of the orphanage.

St Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid

c. 1126

He was born on the island of Euripos and, after being educated in Constantinople, became one of the clergy of the Great Church there. He was consecrated a bishop and sent, against his will, to Ochrid, where he shepherded the Church in Bulgaria for twenty-five years. An inspired theologian and orator, he has left many homilies and, most important, a commentary on the whole New Testament, which has been has been treasured by Orthodox Christians ever since. In his last years he moved to Thessalonica, where he reposed in peace.

Daily readings

Epistle

weekly cycle

James — James 1.19-27

¹⁹Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: ²⁰For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. ²¹Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. ²²But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. ²³For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: ²⁴For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. ²⁵But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. ²⁶If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. ²⁷Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

Gospel

weekly cycle

Mark — Mark 11.27-33

²⁷And they come again to Jerusalem: and as he was walking in the temple, there come to him the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders, ²⁸And say unto him, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority to do these things? ²⁹And Jesus answered and said unto them, I will also ask of you one question, and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. ³⁰The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? answer me. ³¹And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why then did ye not believe him? ³²But if we shall say, Of men; they feared the people: for all men counted John, that he was a prophet indeed. ³³And they answered and said unto Jesus, We cannot tell. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.