Daily Orthodox - November 18th, 2024
Today is Monday of the 22nd Week after Pentecost.
Fasting Obligations
- OCA: Strict fast.
- GOARCH, Antioch: Fish, wine, and oil permitted.
Today, we commemorate...
1. The Holy Martyr Plato of Ancyra
Plato was from the town of Ancyra in Galatia. He was a Christian by birth and upbringing. While in his youth, he showed great perfection in every virtue. Plato did not conceal his faith in Christ the Lord, but preached it openly, denouncing idolaters because of their worshipping lifeless objects in the place of the Living Creator. For this, he was brought to trial before Governor Agrippinus, and was interrogated and harshly tortured by him. When the governor counseled him to avoid death and save his life by worshipping the idols, Plato said: "There are two deaths, the one temporary and the other eternal; so also there are two lives, one of short duration and the other without end." Then Agrippinus subjected him to even harsher tortures. Among other tortures, red-hot cannon balls were set on the saint's naked body; then they cut strips from his skin. "Torture me more harshly," the martyr cried out to the torturers, "so that your inhumanity and my endurance may be seen more clearly." When the torturer reminded the martyr that his namesake, Plato the philosopher, was a pagan, the martyr replied: "I am not like Plato, nor is Plato like me except in name. I learn and teach the wisdom of Christ, but Plato was a teacher of wisdom that is foolishness to God." After that, Plato was thrown into prison, where he remained for eighteen days without food and water. When the guards were amazed that Plato was able to live in hunger for so long, he told them: "You are satisfied by meat, but I, by holy prayers. Wine gladdens you, but Christ the True Vine gladdens me." Plato was beheaded in about the year 266 and received his wreath of eternal glory.
2. The Holy Martyrs Romanus, deacon, and Child-martyr Barulas (303), of Antioch
St. Romanus was a deacon of the church in Caesarea and zealously preached the Gospel in Antioch. One day, there was an idolatrous feast. The Eparch of Antioch, Asclypiades, went to enter a pagan temple to offer sacrifices, but Romanus stood in the way and said: "You sin, O Governor, when you go to the idols. The idols are not gods-Christ is the only true God." The enraged eparch subjected Romanus to tortures and had him flogged and scraped without mercy. During this, St. Romanus saw a child by the name of Barulas, and said to Asclypiades: "Even this small child has more understanding than you, old man, for he knows the true God and you do not." The eparch questioned Barulas about his faith, and he confessed Christ the Lord as the One True God, contrary to false idolatry. Asclypiades commanded that young Barulas be beheaded and St. Romanus be strangled in prison. Thus, both of these martyrs inherited the Kingdom of Christ in the year 303.
3. Hieromartyr Zacchaeus, deacon, and Martyr Alphaeus, reader, of Caesarea in Palestine (303)
4. Martyr Romanus, who suffered under Maximian, at Antioch (305)
5. St. Mawes, bishop in Cornwall and Brittany (5th c.)
6. St. Odo, abbot, of Cluny (942)
7. St. Helen, abbess of Novodevichy Convent (Moscow) (1547)
8. New Martyr Anastasius of Paramythia in Epirus (1750) and New Monk-martyr Daniel of Corfu (18th c.)
9. Synaxis of the Saints of Estonia
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: Colossians 2:13-20
<13> And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, <14> having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. <15> Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it. <16> So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, <17> which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. <18> Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, <19> and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God. <20> Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—
- Gospel: Luke 17:20-25
<20> Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation; <21> nor will they say, ‘See here!' or ‘See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you." <22> Then He said to the disciples, "The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. <23> And they will say to you, ‘Look here!' or ‘Look there!' Do not go after them or follow them. <24> For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day. <25> But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.