ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY Orthodox Calendar
Orthodox Calendar 2016
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Old Style
December 4
Saturday
New Style
December 17
26th Week after Pentecost. Tone 8.
Рождественский пост.
Fish, wine and oil allowed.

Совершается служба на шестьGreat-martyr Barbara and Martyr Juliana (306), at Heliopolis in Syria. Cовершается служба, не отмеченная в Типиконе никаким знакомSt. John Damascene, monk of St. Sabbas Monastery (760).

St. John, bishop of Polybotum (716). St. Gennadius, archbishop of Novgorod (1504).

New Hieromartyr Seraphim, archbishop of Phanarion and Neochorion (1601).

Thoughts for Each Day of the Year
According to the Daily Church Readings from the Word of God
By St. Theophan the Recluse

St. Theophan the Recluse

Saturday. [Eph. 1:16-23; Luke 12:32-40]

           Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning. We must be ready at every hour—one does not know when the Lord will come, either for the Last Judgment, or to take you from here; they are the same for you. Death decides everything. After it comes the results of your life, you can be content with what you have sought to gain for all of eternity. If you sought what is good, your lot will be good; if you sought what is evil, then your lot will be evil. This is as true as it is true that you exist. All of this could be decided this moment—here at this very moment, as you read these lines, and then—the end to all: a seal will be set to your existence, which nobody can remove. This is something to think about! But one never ceases to be amazed at how little people think about it. What is this mystery wrought over us! We all know that death is around the corner, that it is impossible to escape it, but meanwhile almost nobody thinks about it—and it will come suddenly and seize us. Even then.… Even when a fatal disease seizes a person he still does not think that the end has come. Let psychologists decide this from a scientific aspect; from the moral aspect it is impossible not to see here an incomprehensible self-delusion, alien only to one who is heedful of himself.

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