Daily Orthodox - December 8th, 2024
Today is the 24th Sunday after Pentecost.
Fasting Obligations
- OCA, GOARCH, Antioch: Fish, wine, and oil permitted.
Today, we commemorate...
- The Venerable Patapius of Thebes (7th c.)
Patapius was born and brought up in the Faith and in the fear of God by pious parents in the Egyptian city of Thebes. At an early age he perceived and abhorred the vanity of this world and withdrew into the wilderness of Egypt. There he devoted himself to a life of asceticism, cleansing his heart of all earthly desires and thoughts, for the sake of God's love. However, when his virtues became known among the people, they began to come to him and to seek solace from him in their sufferings. Fearing the praise of men, which darkens the minds of men and separates them from God, Patapius fled this wilderness to Constantinople, for this wonderful saint thought that he could hide himself more easily from people in the city than in the wilderness. Patapius built a hut for himself in the proximity of the Church of Blachernae in Constantinople. There, immured and unknown, he continued his interrupted life of eremitic asceticism. However, a light cannot be hidden. A child, blind from birth, was led by God's providence to St. Patapius. He besought the saint to pray to God that he be given his sight and be able to look upon God's creation—thus allowing him to praise God all the more. Patapius having compassion on the suffering child, prayed to God, and the child's sight was restored. This miracle revealed God's chosen one throughout the entire city, and people rushed to him for healing, comfort and instruction. Patapius healed an eminent man of dropsy by tracing the sign of the Cross over him and anointing him with oil. By making the sign of the Cross in the air with his hand, he freed a youth from an unclean spirit that had cruelly tormented him. The evil spirit, with a loud shriek, came out from God's creature like smoke. He made the sign of the Cross over a woman who had a sore on her breast all filled with worms, and made her healthy. Many other miracles did St. Patapius perform, all through prayer in the name of Christ and by the sign of the Cross. He entered into rest peacefully in great old age and took up his habitation in the Heavenly Kingdom in the seventh century.
- The Holy Apostles of the Seventy Sosthenes, Apollos, Cephas, Tychicus, Epaphroditus, Caesar, and Onesiphorus
All of them are commemorated on January 4 with the other lesser apostles. St. Apollos is also commemorated separately on September 10; St. Onesiphorus, September 7; Saints Cephas and Caesar, March 30. St. Sosthenes was bishop in Caesarea, and St. Tychicus was his successor in the same city. Epaphroditus was bishop in Andriopolis in Pamphylia; Cephas, in Iconium; and Caesar, in the Colophon Peloponnese. They all preached the Gospel of Christ with burning love, endured suffering for His holy name and entered into the Kingdom of Eternal Joy.
- The Holy Martyrs in Africa
They suffered for the truth of the Orthodox Faith at the hands of the Arian heretics during the reign of the Vandal King Gunerik or Genzerik (477-484). Two priests were burned and sixty more had their tongues cut out. In addition, three hundred laymen were beheaded. All of them suffered, but they defeated falsehood and confirmed Orthodoxy through their deaths, handing the Faith down to us pure and untarnished. The Lord crowned them with wreaths of glory in His Immortal Kingdom.
- St. Valerius, bishop of Trier (3rd c.)
- Martyr Anthusa, at Rome (5th c.)
- St. Cyril, founder of Chelmogorsk Monastery (Karelia) (1367)
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).
Daily Scriptures
Slavic and Greek
- Epistle: Ephesians 2:14-22
<14> For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, <15> having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, <16> and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. <17> And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. <18> For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. <19> Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, <20> having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, <21> in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, <22> in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
Slavic
- Gospel: Luke 17:12-19
<12> Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. <13> And they lifted up their voices and said, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" <14> So when He saw them, He said to them, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed. <15> And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, <16> and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. <17> So Jesus answered and said, "Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? <18> Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?" <19> And He said to him, "Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well."
Greek
- Gospel: Luke 13:10-17
<10> Now He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. <11> And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. <12> But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, "Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity." <13> And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. <14> But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, "There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day." <15> The Lord then answered him and said, "Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it? <16> So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?" <17> And when He said these things, all His adversaries were put to shame; and all the multitude rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him.