Martyr Julian of Tarsus in Cilicia (ca. 284-305). Uncovering of the relics of St. Maximus the Greek, of Russia (1996).
Hieromartyr Tertius (Terence) apostle of the Seventy, bishop of Iconium (1st c.). St. Julius, priest, of Novara, and his brother St. Julian, deacon (5th c.). Martyrs Archil II (744) and Luarsab II (1622), kings of Georgia. Martyr Theodore, right-believing prince of Starodub (1330).
New Hieroconfessor George (Lavrov), archimandrite, of Kaluga (1932). New Hieromartyr Nicholas Rozanov, archpriest, of Zvenigorod (1938). New Hieromartyr Jonah (Sankov), hieromonk, of Alpatievo (Moscow) (1938).
St. Cormac of the Sea, abbot, of Durrow Monastery (Ireland) (ca. 590). St. Raoul (Rudolph or Ralph), abbot, and archbishop of Bourges (Gaul) (866). Martyr Aphrodisius in Cilicia. New Martyr Nicetas of Nisyros, near Rhodes, at Chios (1732). Martyr Julian and his wife Basilissa, and with them Martyrs Celsius, his mother Marcianilla, Anastasius, the priest Anthony, seven brothers, and twenty prison guards, of Antinoe in Egypt (283- 305).
Repose of Schemamonk John “the Muscovite,” of Valaam (1933).
Wednesday. [I Cor. 2:9-3:8; Matt. 13:31-36]
The kingdom is like a grain of mustard
seed and leaven. A small grain of mustard seed grows up
into a big bush; leaven penetrates the whole lump of dough
and makes it leavened. Here, on the one hand, is an image
for the Church, which in the beginning consisted only of
the apostles and several other people, then spread and
became most numerous, penetrating all of humanity; on the
other hand, it is an image of the spiritual life revealed
in every person. Its first seed is the intention and
determination to be saved through pleasing God, upon faith
in the Lord and Saviour. This determination, no matter how
firm, is like a tiny dot. In the beginning it embraces
only one’s consciousness and activities; then from
this all of the activity of a spiritual life develops. Its
movement and strength multiply and mature within its own
self, and it begins to penetrate all the powers of the
soul—the mind, will, feelings, then fills them with
itself, makes them leavened according to its spirit, and
penetrates the entire constitution of the human nature,
body, soul, and spirit in which it was engendered.