| Previous day |  |
Next day |
| Old Style
May 4
|
Tuesday |
New Style
May 17
|
| 3rd Week after Pascha. Tone 2. |  Fast-free period.
|
Virgin-martyr Pelagia of Tarsus in Asia Minor (ca. 290).
Hieromartyr Erasmus, bishop of Formia in Campania, and 20,000 martyrs with him (303). Hieromartyr Olbian, bishop of Anaea, and his disciples, in the province of Asia in Asia Minor (304). Hieromartyr Silvanus of Gaza and with him 40 martyrs (311). Translation of the relics of the Alfanov brothers of Novgorod: Sts. Nicetas, Cyril, Nicephorus, Clement, and Isaac, founders of the Sokolnitzki Monastery (14th c.-15th c.).
Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos “Staraya Russa.” (1570)
Martyrs Florian and 40 companions, at Lorsch, Austria (304). Martyrs Aphrodisius, Leontius, Anthony, Melda (Meles), Valerian, Macrobius, and others, at Scythopolis of Palestine (4th c.). St. Monica of Tagaste (mother of Blessed Augustine) (387). St. Ethelred, king of Mercia and monk (716). St. Nicephorus, abbot and founder of Medikion Monastery (813). St. Athanasius, bishop of Corinth (10th c.-11th c.). St. Nicephorus the Hesychast, of Mt. Athos (1340). 4,000–5,000 New Martyrs of Batak (Bulgaria) (1876). New Hieromartyr Dimitry (Lyubimov), archbishop of Gdov (1935). St. Hilary the Wonderworker (Gr. Cal).
Thoughts for Each Day of the Year
According to the Daily Church Readings from the Word of God
By St. Theophan the Recluse
Tuesday. [Acts 8:5–17; John 6:27–33]
Then Simon himself believed also: and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip (Acts 8:13). He both believed and was baptized, but nothing came of him. One must think that there was something not quite right in the formation of his faith. Sincere faith is the renunciation of your mind. You must bare your mind and present it to faith as a clean slate, so that faith might inscribe itself on the mind as it is, without any mixing in of alien definitions and tenets. When one’s former beliefs remain in the mind, then a mixture occurs in it after the tenets of faith are written there. The consciousness will be confused between the mind’s sophism and the operations of faith. Simon was therefore a model for all heretics, as all who enter the realm of faith thinking as they did as before. They are confused in the faith and nothing comes of them other than harm: for themselves—when they remain silent, for others—when this confusion is not kept within them alone, but breaks out to others, due to their thirst to be teachers. Hence there always turns out to be a party of people more or less sinning in the faith, with a wretched surety of their correctness, and with a calamitous drive to remake everyone their way.