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October 10
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Friday |
New Style
October 23
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21st Week after Pentecost.
Tone 3.
Fast Day. |
 Wine and oil allowed.
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Martyrs Eulampius and Eulampia and 200 martyrs with them, at Nicomedia (303-311). 
St. Ambrose, elder, of Optina Monastery (1891). St. Innocent, bishop of Penza (1819).
Martyr Theotecnus of Antioch (3rd-4th c.). St. Bassian of Constantinople (ca. 458). St. Theophilus the Confessor, of Bulgaria (716). Blessed Andrew of Totma (Vologda), fool-for-Christ (1673). Synaxis of the Saints of Volhynia: Sts. Stephen (1094) and Amphilochius (1122), bishops of Vladimir in Volhynia; St. Yaropolk-Peter, prince of Vladimir in Volhynia (1086); St. Theodore (in monasticism Theodosius) of the Kiev Caves, prince of Ostrog in Volhynia (1483); St. Juliana, princess of Olshansk (ca. 1540); St. Job, abbot and wonderworker of Pochaev (1651); and Hieromartyr Macarius of Kanev, archimandrite, of Obruch and Pinsk (1678). New Hieromartyr Theodore (Pozdeyevsky), archbishop of Volokolamsk (1937).
Zographou Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos “Of the Akathist.”
St. Pinytus, bishop of Knossos on Crete (2nd c.). Martyrs of the Theban Legion, along the Rhine: Sts. Cassius and Florentius, at Bonn; Sts. Gereon and companions, at Cologne; and Sts. Victor and companions, at Xanten (Germany) (ca. 287). St. Paulinus, archbishop of York (644). Martyrdom of the 26 Martyrs of Zographou Monastery on Mt. Athos by the Latins: Abbot Thomas, Monks Barsanuphius, Cyril, Micah, Simon, Hilarion, Job, James, Cyprian, Sabbas, James, Martinian, Cosmas, Sergius, Paul, Menas, Ioasaph, Ioannicius, Anthony, Euthymius, Dometian, and Parthenius, and four laymen (1284).
Repose of Schemamonk Theodore, desert-dweller of Valaam (1834).
Thoughts for Each Day of the Year
According to the Daily Church Readings from the Word of God
By St. Theophan the Recluse
Friday. [Phil. 3:8-19; Luke 7:31-35]
Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? That is, unbelievers. If the Lord poses this question as if in perplexity, is it not even more proper for us to be perplexed by acts of unbelief? One might ask: how can people go against something that is obvious in every respect? And yet they do. The fact that Satan resists is not surprising—such is his name: the enemy of truth and goodness. He clearly sees that God exists, that God will judge him and condemn him, that death for him is already prepared, but is nevertheless defiant, and not for the sake of anything but evil, and consequently, for greater ruin to himself. Are not unbelievers being controlled by this spirit of fighting against God? At least according to the understanding we have about the soul and its operations, unbelief, given the obviousness of the foundations of faith, is as inexplicable as a sinner’s slavery to sin after he has clearly seen that sin is destroying him. And here is another contradiction! Only unbelievers and lovers of the passions deny the existence of Satan and unclean spirits. Those who should have stood up for them most of all totally renounce them. Does not this teaching come from them? Those who are of the darkness love the darkness, they teach people to say that they do not exist, and that moral life takes shape by itself, without their snares and deceit.