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Daily Orthodox - December 10th, 2024

Today is Tuesday of the 25th Week after Pentecost.

Fasting Obligations

  • OCA: Wine and oil permitted.
  • GOARCH, Antioch: Fish, wine, and oil permitted..

Today, we commemorate...

  1. The Holy Martyrs Menas the Most Eloquent, Hermogenes and Eugraphus, of Alexandria (ca. 313)

Both Menas and Hermogenes were born in Athens. They both lived in Byzantium, being held in great honor by the emperor and the people. Menas was known for his great learning and eloquence of speech and, although he acted outwardly as a pagan, he was a convinced Christian in his heart. Hermogenes was Eparch of Byzantium and acted as a pagan both inwardly and outwardly, but he was compassionate and performed many good deeds. When a dispute flared up between the Christians and the pagans in Alexandria, Emperor Maximin dispatched Menas to calm the disturbance and to root out the Christians from the city. Menas went and restored peace, but he declared himself a Christian and converted many pagans to the true Faith by his eloquence and many miracles. Hearing of this, the emperor sent Hermogenes to punish Menas and to smother Christianity. Hermogenes brought Menas to trial, cut off his feet and tongue, gouged out his eyes, and then cast him into prison. In prison, the Lord Jesus Himself appeared to Menas, healing and comforting His suffering servant. Seeing Menas miraculously healed, Hermogenes was baptized. He began to preach the powerful Christian Faith and was consecrated as Bishop of Alexandria. Then the enraged Maximin went to Alexandria himself and subjected Menas and Hermogenes to cruel tortures, which they courageously endured, helped by God's grace. Beholding the bravery of these soldiers of Christ and the miracles of God upon them, Eugraphus, secretary and friend of St. Menas, appeared before the tribunal and cried out to the emperor's face: "I too am a Christian!" The emperor became enraged, drew his sword and beheaded St. Eugraphus. Following this, the evil emperor ordered the executioner to behead St. Menas and St. Hermogenes. Their holy relics, thrown into the sea, miraculously floated to Constantinople, where the bishop, to whom this was revealed in a dream, solemnly met them and honorably buried them.

  1. The Venerable Angelina and St. Jovan the Despot of Serbia
    [ed. note: According to other synaxarion listings, the commemoration is more properly styled "St. Jovan the Despot, and his parents..."]

Angelina was the daughter of the Albania prince, George Skenderbeg, and the wife of Stefan, Despot of Serbia, who was the son of Despot George. She endured exile with her husband and shared with him all the biterness of life in Serbia as well as in Albania and Italy. She raised her sons Maxim and Jovan in a truly Christian spirit. Following the death of her husband, she was tonsured a nun, devoting herself entirely to prayer, acts of charity and the building and restoring of holy churches. A faithful wife, an excellent mother and a perfect Christian, she in truth merited the title "Mother Angelina," as the people call her even now. Her miracle-working relics, together with those of her righteous husband Stefan and her devoted sons Maxim and Jovan, rest in the Monastery of KruĊĦedol (although some of the relics were destroyed by the Turks). She entered into rest and took up her habitation in the Immortal Kingdom at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

  1. The Holy Martyr Gemellus of Paphlagonia (361)

Gemellus was an honorable citizen of Ancyra. When Emperor Julian the Apostate came to this city, Gemellus came before him and openly denounced him for his apostasy. For this, he was tortured and crucified in the year 361. While in pain on the Cross, he heard a voice from heaven saying: "Blessed are you, Gemellus!"

  1. The Venerable Thomas Defourkinos of Mt. Kyminas of Bithynia (9th c.)

Thomas was a great ascetic, a conqueror of demons, and a seer. Emperor Leo the Wise wrote him a letter, and he replied without even opening it. He entered into rest in the Lord in great old age in the ninth century.

  1. St. Ioasaph, bishop of Belgorod (1754)
  2. New Hieromartyr Sergius, hieromonk, of Sreznevo (Ryazan) (1937)
  3. New Nun-confessor Anna, schemanun, of Sreznevo (Ryazan) (1958)

For more information on today's saints or commemorations not provided, see https://www.oca.org/saints/lives (Slavic) and/or https://www.goarch.org/chapel (Greek).

Reflection

Reflections are added when it includes additional stories from the life of a saint commemorated today.

In innumerable ways the Living Lord knows when to show mercy and when to chastise, when to deliver the faithful from temptation, when to turn unbelievers into believers, and when to punish incorrigible persecutors of the Faith. When the evil Maximin slew the wonderful martyrs of Christ, Menas, Hermogenes, and Eugraphus, he boarded a boat with his retinue and set sail from Alexandria to Byzantium. But suddenly he was blinded, being blind beforehand in soul and mind, and began to complain to those among his retinue of invisible hands that were harshly striking him. Shortly after that he died wickedly, just as he had lived. At the time of St. Ambrose the following incident occurred: The heretical Empress Justina had persuaded Euthymius, a landowner from Milan, to somehow seize the bishop, whom she hated, and to take him somewhere far away into exile. Euthymius prepared a cart and settled in a house near the church so that he could more easily catch sight of Ambrose alone and carry him off in the cart. And precisely on the day when he had arranged and prepared everything to seize Ambrose, an imperial order arrived that Euthymius immediately be exiled because of some crime. That day, the soldiers came, bound the malicious one, and took him off into exile in the very cart that he had prepared for Ambrose's banishment. On another occasion, an Arian entered the church where St. Ambrose was celebrating, with the intention of hearing from his mouth something for which Ambrose could be denounced. Looking around, this heretic saw God's saint instructing the people and beheld a shining angel alongside him, whispering words into his ear. Being greatly frightened by this, he became ashamed of himself, rejected the heresy and returned to Orthodoxy.

Daily Scriptures

Slavic and Greek
  • Epistle: 2 Thessalonians 1:10-2:2

<10> when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed. <11> Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, <12> that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. <1> Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, <2> not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come.

  • Gospel: Mark 8:22-26

<22> Then He came to Bethsaida; and they brought a blind man to Him, and begged Him to touch him. <23> So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when He had spit on his eyes and put His hands on him, He asked him if he saw anything. <24> And he looked up and said, "I see men like trees, walking." <25> Then He put His hands on his eyes again and made him look up. And he was restored and saw everyone clearly. <26> Then He sent him away to his house, saying, "Neither go into the town, nor tell anyone in the town."

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