Daily Orthodox - December 15th, 2024

Today is the 25th Sunday after Pentecost.

Fasting Obligations

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

Today, we commemorate...

1. Holy Hieromartyr Eleutherius, bishop of Illyria, and Martyrs Anthia (his mother), Coremonus the Eparch, and two executioners who suffered with them (ca. 120)

From a good tree comes good fruit. This wonderful saint had noble and greatly eminent parents. Eleutherius was born in Rome, where his father was an imperial proconsul. His mother Anthia heard the Gospel from the great Apostle Paul and was baptized by him. Having been left a widow early, she entrusted her only son for study and service to Anicetus the Bishop of Rome. Seeing how Eleutherius was gifted by God and illumined by the grace of God, the bishop ordained him a deacon at the age of fifteen, a priest at the age of eighteen, and a bishop at the age of twenty. Eleutherius' God-given wisdom made up for what he lacked in years, and this chosen one of God was appointed Bishop of Illyria with his seat in Valona (Avlona), Albania. The good shepherd guarded his flock well and increased their number day by day. Emperor Hadrian, a persecutor of Christians, sent the commander Felix with soldiers to seize Eleutherius and bring him to Rome. When the raging Felix arrived in Valona and entered the church, he saw and heard the holy hierarch of God; suddenly his heart changed, and he became a Christian. Eleutherius baptized Felix and departed for Rome with him, returning joyfully as if he were going to a feast and not to trial and torture. The emperor subjected the noble Eleutherius to harsh torture: flogging, roasting on an iron bed, boiling in pitch, and burning in a fiery furnace. But Eleutherius was delivered from all these deadly tortures by God's power. Seeing all this, Caribus the Roman eparch declared that he also was a Christian. Caribus was tortured and then beheaded, and so was Blessed Felix. Finallly, the imperial executioners cut off the honorable head of St. Eleutherius. When his mother, the holy Anthia, came and stood over the dead body of her son, she also was beheaded. Their bodies were translated to Valona, where even today St. Eleutherius glorifies the name of Christ by his many miracles. He suffered during the reign of Hadrian in the year 120.

2. Saint Stephen the Confessor, of Surozh in Crimea (ca. 790)

Stephen was born in Cappadocia and educated in Constantinople under the Patriarch, St. Germanus. He withdrew into solitude and lived hidden from the world. An angel appeared to St. Germanus and ordered him to appoint Stephen bishop of the town of Surozh (now Sudak in the Crimea), and the patriarch did so. The zealous Stephen converted many to Christianity. He suffered bitterly under Emperor Leo the Isaurian for the sake of icons. He prophesied to the emperor his impending death. Following this wicked emperor's evil death, Stephen was returned to his diocese, where he fed his God-pleasing flock and died peacefully at the end of the eighth century.

3. The Venerable Paul of Mt. Latros

Paul was born in Pergamum. He lived a life of asceticism on a mountain called Latros in Asia Minor. Glorified because of his asceticism and many miracles, he entered peacefully into rest in old age and took up his habitation with the Lord in the year 956.

4. The Venerable Pardus the Hermit of Palestine

In his youth Pardus was a cart-driver, but because of an unintentional sin, he left the world and withdrew to the desert to live in asceticism. He lived in Palestine in the sixth century.

5. Martyr Eleutherius of Byzantium (beg. of 4th c.)

6. Martyr Susanna the Deaconess, of Palestine (4th c.)

7. Monk-martyr Bacchus of St. Sabbas Monastery, at Misr al-Fustat (Egypt) (787)

8. Synaxis of the Saints of Crimea

9. Sts. Tryphon of Pechenga, or Kola (1583), and his martyred disciple Jonah (16th c.)

10. Synaxis of the Saints of Kola

11. New Hieromartyr Hilarion (Troitsky), archbishop of Verey (1929)

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.

For unintentional murder, the earthly court frees the murderer. The Church, however, imposes a penance on someone who commits murder unintentionally: a penance much lighter than that for a voluntary murder, but does not leave him without a penance. If a priest kills unintentionally, the Church places him under a lifelong suspension of priestly functions. Christians with sensitive souls and keen consciences impose upon themselves a more difficult penance than the Church would impose. St. Pardus once came to Jericho as a cart-driver. Leaving his mules in front of an inn, he entered it. At that moment, a child fell under the mule, and the mule trampled the child with its hooves and killed it. When Pardus saw the bloody and dead child killed by his mule, he was so crushed in heart that he felt himself intentionally responsible for the child's death. And this man of conscience imposed the harshest penance upon himself. He abandoned his trade, left the world and, even though he was relatively young, withdrew to the harsh wilderness, where he undertook a life of difficult asceticism consisting of physical and spiritual labor and repentance. With many tears, he offered repentance to God for the murder of the child. He desired to pay for the life of the child with his own life, and he prayed to God that He would somehow make this possible. He teased a lion so that the lion would tear him apart, but the lion fled from him. he lay on the narrow path on which the lion walked so that he would be killed by the beast, but the lion leapt over him and would not touch him. Seeing, therefore, that it was God's will for him to live and not perish, he was at peace with himself but remained a contrite penitent until his death. Is not this a sensitive, man-loving and God-fearing soul? Is not this the refined and sharpened conscience of a true Christian?

Daily Scriptures

Slavic

• Epistle: Colossians 3:4-11

<4> When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. <5> Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. <6> Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, <7> in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. <8> But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. <9> Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, <10> and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, <11> where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.

Greek

• Epistle: 2 Timothy 1:8-18

<8> Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, <9> who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, <10> but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, <11> to which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles. <12> For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day. <13> Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. <14> That good thing which was committed to you, keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. <15> This you know, that all those in Asia have turned away from me, among whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes. <16> The Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain; <17> but when he arrived in Rome, he sought me out very zealously and found me. <18> The Lord grant to him that he may find mercy from the Lord in that Day—and you know very well how many ways he ministered to me at Ephesus.

Slavic and Greek

• Gospel: Luke 14:16-24

<16> Then He said to him, "A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, <17> and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.' <18> But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.' <19> And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.' <20> Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.' <21> So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.' <22> And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.' <23> Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. <24> For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.' "