Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: October 31

 

The Month of October

Day 31

62. Work and Prayer

(From the Life of Venerable Spyridon, the Prosphora Maker at the Kiev Caves Monastery)

It is well known that almost all the saints combined bodily labor with prayer. Thus, of the Venerable Spyridon, the Prosphora Maker at the Kiev Caves Monastery, whom the Church commemorates today, it is said that while serving in the prosphora bakery, he continually sang the Psalms of David. Whether he was chopping wood, kneading dough, or doing some other task, he always offered up to God, alongside his work, a sacrifice of praise. In this way, the saints knew how to work and pray at the same time. But what do you think, brethren? Was there any benefit to them in doing so, or not? We do not know what you will say in answer to this, but for our part, we believe that there was indeed a benefit, and a great one. What was it? We shall answer you now.

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: October 30

The Month of October

Day 30

61. What Blessings Does Almsgiving Bring Us?

(From the Life of the Hieromartyr Zenobios and His Sister Zenobia)

The Lord teaches us to give alms. “Sell,” He says, “what you have and give alms” (Luke 12:33). And we give alms according to the Lord’s word. But here a question inevitably arises of its own accord: why, then, do we give alms? Is there any benefit to us ourselves from our almsgiving? Do we gain anything for ourselves through it? Does it bring us any blessings as well? Know, brethren, that almsgiving is of great benefit to us ourselves, that through it we acquire much for ourselves, and that it brings us great blessings. What are these blessings? And what, in general, does almsgiving bring us?

Synaxarion of the Venerables Abramius and Maria

Synaxarion

By St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

On this same day, the commemoration of our Venerable Father Abramius and Maria, His Niece.

Verses For Abramius

Having mortified every member of his body, Abramius,
At his death, dwells with the bodiless Angels.

Verses For Maria

Having abandoned the lovers of the flesh, Maria,
You mystically embrace the Lover of souls.

This Saint Abramius was the son of Christian parents. Having taken a wife in marriage against his will, he abandoned everything of the world out of longing for Christ and withdrew into the desert. He shut himself inside a small hut and practiced every form of hardship and ascetic discipline.

After spending fifty years in asceticism, he was ordained a priest and afterward became a bishop and shepherd, against his will, of a village called Tainia, which lies in Lampsacus on the Hellespont, that is, by the Sea of Marmara. For the salvation of the people of Tainia, the blessed man endured many hardships and temptations on numerous occasions, for the inhabitants there were sunk in the delusion of idolatry.

October: Day 29: Teaching 3: Holy Martyr Anastasia the Roman

 

October: Day 29: Teaching 3:
Holy Martyr Anastasia the Roman
 
(How Can We Learn to Be Grateful to God?)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. On the feast of Saint Anastasia of Rome, who, amid her torments, sang praises and offered thanksgiving to God in the words of the Psalms of the Prophet-King, it is fitting, brethren, to speak about how we too may learn to be grateful to God, we who, having received thousands of blessings from Him, have failed to value them and have not thanked Him for them.

II. Someone may ask me: Can one really learn to be grateful? Yes, brethren, one can. Everything can be learned in the school of the gospel. Put this to the test.

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: October 29

The Month of October

Day 29

60. Mercy Is the Best Means of Turning a Sinner to the Path of Truth

(From the Life of Venerable Abramius the Recluse)

Just as physicians treating the body, when they consider it necessary to remove an infected limb from a sick person, first endeavor to encourage and calm the sufferer and only then proceed with the operation, so also those among you, brethren, who may wish to become physicians of the soul and undertake the great task of turning sinners from the path of sin to the path of truth should first approach them, not with harsh words of reproach, but in the spirit of evangelical meekness. They should not aggravate the wounds of sinners’ souls, but pour the balm of mercy upon them. If spiritual physicians act toward sinners in this way, following our advice, they will see good results from their efforts on behalf of sinners, and the sinners themselves will indeed return to the right path.

Holy Great Martyr Paraskevi of Iconium

St. Paraskevi of Iconium (Feast Day - October 28)

The Holy Great Martyr Paraskevi lived in the third century in Iconium, a city in Asia Minor. She was born into a wealthy and pious Christian family. Her parents held Friday in special reverence because it was the day on which our Lord Jesus Christ suffered on the Cross. For this reason, they named their daughter Paraskevi, a Greek name meaning “Friday.”

Paraskevi was devoted from an early age to the Christian faith. After her parents died, she dedicated herself entirely to the service of God. When she reached adulthood, she took a vow of virginity, choosing to devote her life to Christ rather than enter into marriage. She also devoted herself to proclaiming the Christian faith among the pagans, seeking to bring them to the knowledge of the true God.

Saint Athanasius Sakharov the Confessor and Bishop of Kovrov (+ 1962)

Saint Athanasius Sakharov (Feast Day - October 28)

The future Bishop Athanasius (Sergei Grigoryevich Sakharov) was born on July 2, 1887 (Old Style), on the feast of the Placing of the Honorable Robe of the Most Holy Theotokos at Blachernae. Sergei’s parents, Gregory and Matrona, lived in Vladimir. His father, a native of Suzdal, was a court councillor, while his mother came from a peasant family. Their goodness and piety provided fertile ground in which the spiritual gifts of their only son could grow. Named in honor of the Venerable Sergius of Radonezh, the intercessor for the Russian land, the future hierarch deeply embraced the selfless love for the Church and the Fatherland that so distinguished the Venerable Sergius.

Encomium to our Venerable and God-bearing Father Symeon the New Theologian (St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite) - 5 of 5

...continued from part four.

37. But what are we to do, brothers, we Christians and monks of this evil age—or, rather, we who are the refuse of Christians and monks? What are we to do, or what means are we to employ, in order to please God and be saved? Let us imitate the example of the God-pleasing life and conduct of our Venerable and God-bearing Father Symeon. For this is why we have gathered today to celebrate his venerable memory: not so much to honor him, because the transcendent honor and glory that he enjoys in the heavens are sufficient for him, and he does not need any further addition of honor and glory from us; rather, we celebrate the memory of the sacred Symeon so that we ourselves may benefit by imitating his life according to God. For thus Basil the Great instructs us:

“His memory, therefore, is sufficient for continual benefit. For those men have no need of an addition to their good repute; rather, remembrance is necessary for us who are in this life, for the sake of imitation. For just as giving light follows fire spontaneously, and fragrance follows perfume, so benefit necessarily follows good deeds.”³⁴

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: October 28

The Month of October

The 28th Day

59. How Children Who Are Left Without Parents and Receive Large Inheritances from Them Should Conduct Themselves

(From the Life of Holy Great Martyr Paraskevi)

Unfortunately, especially in recent times, we often see children who have been left without parents and have received large estates from them behaving very badly. Again and again, we see such wealthy children, as soon as they reach adulthood, and sometimes even before they attain it, forgetting God, associating with bad people, beginning to indulge in every kind of vice, squandering the wealth their parents may have gathered through hard labor, and ultimately meeting their ruin amid great commotion. What, then, remains for us to do? We can at least turn other children, who have not yet perished, away from a sinful life and toward virtue. But how can we do this? It seems to us that the best way is to show our wealthy orphans how other wealthy orphans of ancient times, who were saints, conducted themselves, and how they used and managed the wealth their parents had left them. Let our own heirs, therefore, hear about such children and learn from them.

Miracles of Venerable Demetrios the New of Basarabov

 

Venerable Demetrios the New came from the village of Basarabov, in present-day Bulgaria, a few kilometers from the border with present-day Romania. He lived in the thirteenth century, during the reign of Peter and John Asen.

He was very poor and for a long time herded the villagers’ cattle in Basarabov. On Sundays and great feast days, he attended church together with the other villagers in the village church. He later decided to dedicate his life to Christ, abandoned the world, and took up the ascetic life in a cave that he dug into a rock near the Lom River, close to a male skete. He became a monk and practiced asceticism through continual fasting, prayer, and remembrance of God.

When he foresaw the end of his life, he hid himself between two large stone slabs, as if in a coffin, on the banks of the Lom River, where he fell asleep in the Lord. Later, following floods, this piece of land broke away, and his holy body fell into the Lom River, where it remained incorrupt for hundreds of years.

The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Vincent, Sabina and Cristeta

 

Introduction 

The text translated below represents the absolute foundation and oldest surviving prose narrative for the martyrdom of Saints Vincent, Sabina, and Cristeta. Every modern encyclopedia entry, regional festival, and historical study regarding these three sibling-martyrs of Ávila ultimately derives from this specific text. To understand its nature, however, one must distinguish between the physical age of the book it is found in and the older layers of history and legend preserved within its pages.

The translation presented here is transcribed from the Pasionario Hispánico—a comprehensive liturgical compilation of Iberian saint stories. The physical book itself is a 10th-century manuscript (specifically Codex British Museum Additional 25600, copied at the monastery of San Pedro de Cárdena). However, the text it preserves is actually a mid-8th-century literary compilation that wove together traditions, theological battles, and templates stretching back several centuries.

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: October 27

The Month of October 

The 27th Day

58. How a Warrior Should Conduct Himself Before Going into Battle

(From the Life of the Martyr Nestor)

Your lot, God-loving warriors, is such that today you live in peace and tranquility, while tomorrow war may break out, and very soon you may find yourselves face to face with death. What should you do then? What is the best way to go out against your enemies? How can you best defeat them? Go forth not only with weapons of war, but also with spiritual weapons. Place your firm hope in God’s help; turn to God with fervent prayer; ask others to pray for you; when entering battle, invoke the invincible power of the Cross of Christ; reverently protect yourselves with the sign of the Cross, and only then enter the fight. Then you will undoubtedly receive God’s help and defeat your enemies. The event itself will convince you of the truth of what we are telling you now.

Saint Demetrios the Myrrhgusher — Patron Saint of Thessaloniki

By Evripidis Antoniou,  

Vice-President Emeritus of the Areios Pagos

Demetrios was born in Thessaloniki in the year 280, into a distinguished Macedonian family, and received a thorough education and Christian upbringing. He is one of the most popular figures in the hagiology of the Greek Church and of Orthodoxy as a whole. He enlisted in the Roman army and, while still young, rose to the highest military and political offices. Maximian (245–310), Augustus and co-ruler of Diocletian, who had made Constantine the Great his son-in-law by giving him his daughter Fausta in marriage, recognized Demetrios’s qualifications and appointed him first senator of Thessaloniki and later proconsul. The new Roman consul apparently governed Macedonia, which began on the shores of the Adriatic and extended as far as the Evros River and Thessaly.

Holy Great Martyr Demetrios of Thessaloniki in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

Wonder, amazement, awe, doxology, fullness of divine eros! These are the first impressions one receives upon coming into contact with the hymns of our Church for the Great Martyr, Myrrhgushing and Wonderworking Saint Demetrios. The spiritual wealth of the Saint is so great that the hymnographer Theophanes, with his Canon, was not sufficient to hymn the whole life of Demetrios; Saint Philotheos, Patriarch of Constantinople, was also called upon, and with a second Canon he focuses our attention primarily on the saint’s myrrhgushing. “The second canon has as its subject both encomia and supplication concerning his holy myrrh,” according to the explanatory note accompanying this Canon. Thus, faced with the wondrous person of Saint Demetrios, our Church, through its hymnographers, feels the inadequacy of precisely praising his struggles and the honors the Saint enjoys in heaven. “The mind and human speech are not sufficient, O Martyr, to recount the supernatural honors and glories that you have received.”

 

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: October 26

The Month of October

The 26th Day

57. The Saints Continue to Pray for Their Homeland After Departing to the Heavenly Realm

(From the Life of the Great Martyr Demetrios of Thessaloniki)

There is no doubt that all the holy saints of God loved their respective homelands and helped them during their lives in whatever ways they could; and, of course, they prayed and interceded for them before God. To prove this truth, it seems to us that it is enough to consider even our own fatherland. Who, for example, does not know the services rendered to their homeland and the prayers offered for it by the Venerable Sergius, the Holy Hierarchs of Moscow, and other Saints glorified in the Russian land? Thus, it is an indisputable truth that all the saints, during their lives, were intercessors who prayed for their respective homelands. But here is the question: did they remain the same toward their homelands after death? Did they preserve their love for them in the world after death? Do they also pray and help them there? What answer can we give to this? We shall say the following.

Homily One on the Sixth Sunday of Luke (St. John of Kronstadt)

Homily One on the Sixth Sunday of Luke 

23rd Sunday after Pentecost

By St. John of Kronstadt

And when He (Jesus Christ) had come forth onto the land, there met Him a certain man from the city, who had been possessed by demons for many years, and who wore no clothes, and did not live in a house, but in the tombs. (Luke 8:27)

Have you heard, beloved brethren, the Gospel account read today about the demoniac in the country of the Gadarenes and his healing by Jesus Christ? You have heard how the demons tormented this unfortunate man and how miserably he dragged out his wretched life. Have you seen the divine authority of Jesus Christ over the demons, over an entire legion of them, that is, several thousand, who had entered the unfortunate man? You have seen the sudden destruction of a multitude of animals, the so-called unclean animals, into which the demons entered with the Savior’s permission (Luke 8:26–39).

Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Luke (St. Innocent of Kherson)

Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Luke

23rd Sunday after Pentecost

By St. Innocent of Kherson

If there is any Gospel reading that may give rise to many objections among superficial minds, it is the one appointed for today. “How,” asks a person unaccustomed to thinking deeply, “is it possible for someone to become the dwelling place of evil spirits while still alive? Is this possible? Where, then, would the personhood of a human being be? His dignity? The very nature of a rational being? And is it not a reproach to creative Providence that it should permit such a terrible invasion of our world by evil spirits? That it should deliver such a creature as man over to their ferocity? To what purpose could this serve in the governance of the world? What would be its purpose with regard to man? With regard to the evil spirit itself? The moral existence of a human being would cease in such a case; he would lose the time necessary for his perfection and suffer torments. Is it possible that all this could exist in a world governed by the All-Wise and All-Good?”

Holy Martyrs Markianos and Martyrios in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

 

1. Saints Markianos and Martyrios lived when Saint Paul the Confessor was Patriarch of Constantinople, after the repose of Saint Alexander, during the reign of Constantius, who was Arian-minded. The holy Patriarch was exiled to Armenia and met his blessed end at the hands of the Arians, who drowned him. At that time, Saints Markianos and Martyrios were also killed by the sword on account of their Orthodox faith and were buried at the Melandisia Gate, in the district of Deuteros, within Constantinople. Later, our Holy Father John Chrysostom rebuilt the church of these Saints from its foundations.

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: October 25

 

The Month of October

Day 25

56. To Parishioners Living Among Schismatics

(From the Life of the Martyrs Markianos and Martyrios)

It is known that schismatics entice Orthodox Christians into schism not only through blasphemies against the Church and threats of eternal torments. No, very often their wealthy members also entice poor Orthodox Christians into schism through their wealth. A wealthy schismatic sees a poor man and says, “Come over to our faith, and you will become rich.” Or he entices him in another way. He singles out a poor Orthodox Christian and begins, by every means at his disposal, to oppress him, persecute him, take away what little he has left, and drive him to the utmost extremity. But what do you think, Orthodox Christians? In either case, should you enter into schism or not? God forbid! Know that it is better to die than to change your faith, and a hundred times better to endure every kind of deprivation than to abandon it. The saints will convince you that we speak the truth. Consider how they acted when they were enticed into schism either by promises of wealth or through deprivation.

The Relics of the Holy New Martyr Chryse: Their Discovery in 2009, Scientific Examination, and Translation in October 2026

Introduction

In October 2026, the relics identified by the Holy Metropolis of Edessa, Pella, and Almopia as those of Saint Chryse, the New Martyr of Almopia, were received at the church dedicated to her in the village of Chryse, in the regional unit of Pella, northern Greece. The event followed a process that had begun seventeen years earlier, when human remains were discovered near the ruins of an old church within the Byzantine castle area of the village.

According to the Metropolis, the remains underwent medical and forensic examinations, including examinations by the Forensic Medicine Service of Thessaloniki and two specialized laboratories in Germany. The findings were reported as consistent with the remains belonging to a young woman approximately seventeen years old who died in 1795, the traditional date of Saint Chryse’s martyrdom. The ecclesiastical account also draws attention to signs of severe injury, particularly around the ribs and skull, which it associates with the tortures described in the Saint’s Life.

The discovery and translation of the relics have drawn considerable interest among the faithful in Greece and abroad. They also renewed attention to the life of the young Orthodox Christian woman whose steadfastness in the faith has been preserved in the Orthodox Church’s hagiographical tradition.