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April 6
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Sunday |
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April 19
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| 2nd Sunday of Pascha. Thomas Sunday, Anti-Pascha. Tone 1. |  Fast-free period.
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St. Eutychius, patriarch of Constantinople (582). 
St. Methodius, Equal-to-the-Apostles, archbishop of Moravia and enlightener of the Slavs (885).
Hieromartyr Archilias, priest, and Martyr Jeremiah, of Rome (3rd c.). St. Platonida (Platonis) of Nisibis (308). 120 Martyrs of Persia (344-347).
New Hiero-confessor Sebastian (Fomin), archimandrite, of Optina and Karaganda (1966).
St. Gregory (Drimys) of the Great Lavra on Mt. Athos (1326), instructor of St. Gregory Palamas. St. Gregory of Sinai (Mt. Athos) (1346). New Martyr Nicholas the Deacon, of Mytilene (1463). New Martyr Paul the Russian, at Constantinople (1683). New Hieromartyr Gennadius of Dionysiou, Mt. Athos, at Constantinople (1818). New Martyrs Manuel, Theodore, George, Michael, and another George, of Samothrace, at Makri in Thrace (1835). St. Martyrius, monk of Glinsk Hermitage (1865).
Repose of Hieromonk Arsenius of Valaam (1853), Elder Mardarius of the Nizhni-Novgorod Caves Monastery (1859), and Archimandrite Seraphim (Tyapochkin) of Rakitin (1982).
Thoughts for Each Day of the Year
According to the Daily Church Readings from the Word of God
By St. Theophan the Recluse
Thomas’ Sunday. [Acts 5:12–20; John 20:19–31]
My Lord and my God! (John 20:28) cried the holy apostle Thomas. Do you feel the strength with which he has grasped the Lord, and how tightly he is holding onto Him? A drowning man grasps the plank on which he hopes to be saved in the same way. We will add that whoever does not have the Lord like this for himself and does not keep himself this way in relation to the Lord, does not yet believe in the Lord as he should. We say: “Saviour and Lord,” meaning that He is the Saviour of all; but Thomas says: “my Saviour and Lord.” He who says: “my Saviour,” feels his own salvation proceeding from Him. The feeling of salvation lies adjacent to the feeling of perishing, out of which the Saviour pulls whomever He saves. The feeling of perishing, for a man who is life-loving by nature and who knows that he cannot save himself, forces him to seek the Saviour. When he finds Him and feels the power of salvation proceeding from Him, he grasps Him tightly and does not want to be torn from Him, though he be deprived for this of life itself. Such a nature of events in the spiritual life of a Christian are not only imagined in the mind, but are experienced in deed. Then, both his faith and his union with Christ become firm, like life and death. Only such a person can sincerely cry: Who shall separate me! (cf. Rom. 8:35).