Martyrs Nazarius, Gervasius, Protasius, and Celsus, of Milan (54-68). St. Parasceva (Petka) of Epibatima, Thrace, whose relics are in Iasi, Romania (11th c.).
Hieromartyr Silvanus, priest, of Gaza, and with him 40 martyrs (311). St. Nikola Sviatosha, prince of Chernigov and wonderworker, of the Kiev Caves (1143). St. Cosmas, founder of Yakhromsk Monastery (Vladimir) (1492).
Yakhromsk Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos (15th c.).
Martyr Peter Apselamus of Eleutheropolis in Palestine (309). St. Burchard, first bishop of Wurzburg, English missionary to Germany (754). St. Ignatius, metropolitan of Mithymna (1566). St. Cosmas the Hymnographer, bishop of Maiuma (787).
Friday. [Col. 2:1-7; Luke 9:12-18]
The miraculous filling of the multitude
in the desert is an image of the filling of the faithful
in holy communion with the Most Pure Body and Most Pure
Blood of the Lord. The Lord is sitting apart; the
multitude is made to sit in groups; the apostles are
intermediaries—they receive the bread and give it
out. So it is now: believers are all divided into
groups—small individual churches in which the Lord,
invisibly present, gives out His Body and Blood through
the apostolic successors. As He did to the apostles then,
so now to their successors does He say, Give ye them to
eat. As then, so now do the believing multitudes stand
steadfastly before the Lord in fasting, hearing the word,
and a prayerful desire be healed from sins as they prepare
to approach the Divine Mysteries. Thus the mystery begun
by the Lord’s appearance continues until now and
will continue until the end of the world. And in the world
to come there will be a communion of its own sort, for the
Lord promises to give to eat of the hidden manna and of
the tree of life (Rev. 2:7,17). Our forefathers’ own
mystical communion was also arranged in the earthly
paradise—eating from the tree of life. In the Old
Testament Church its image is the eating of the paschal
lamb. Thus, mystical communion began with the human race,
was and will be with it until eternal ages, in various
forms, but in the one meaning of the most true communion
with the Lord; for In Him was life; and the life was
the light of men (John 1:4). It is fitting for those
who are created according to the image of God to be in
such communion with Him, Who being the brightness of
his glory, and the express image of his person (Heb.
1:3).