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Orthodox Calendar 2019
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Преподобный Герасим Иорданский Святой Благоверный князь Даниил Московский Святой князь Вячеслав Чешский
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Old Style
March 4 		Sunday
New Style
March 17
First Sunday of Great Lent. Tone 1.
Great Lent.
Wine and oil allowed.

Cовершается служба, не отмеченная в Типиконе никаким знакомSt. Gerasimus of the Jordan (451). St. Gerasimus of Vologda, founder of the Holy Trinity Monastery (1178). St. Daniel, great prince of Moscow (1303).

Martyrs Paul and his sister Juliana, and Quadratus, Acacius, and Stratonicus, at Ptolemais in Syria (ca. 273). St. James the Faster, of Phoenicia (Syria) (6th c.). Translation of the relics of Martyr Wenceslaus (Vyacheslav), prince of the Czechs (929-935). Blessed Basil (Vasilko), prince of Rostov (1238). Saints of Pskov martyred by the Latins: St. Ioasaph of Snetogorsk Monastery and St. Basil of Mirozh Monastery (1299). St. Gregory, bishop of Constantia on Cyprus.

New Hieromartyrs Archpriest Dimitry Ivanov of Kiev (1933) and Priest Vyacheslav Leontiev of Nizhegorod (1937).

St. Julian, bishop of Alexandria (189). St. Gregory, bishop of Assos near Ephesus (1150). New Martyr John of al-Sindiyana (Palestine) (1937).

Repose of Schemamonk Mark of Glinsk Hermitage (1893) and Schemanun Agnia (Starodubtseva), eldress, of Karaganda (1976).

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

The First Sunday of Lent. [Heb. 11:24–26, 32–12:2; John 1:43–51]

   The Sunday of Orthodoxy.[1] Do not forget the right word[2] which you spoke to God, renewing your testament with Him which you broke through your negligence. Remember how and why you broke it and try to avoid being unfaithful again. Pretty words are not glorious; faithfulness is glorious. Is it not glorious to have a testament with a king? How much more glorious is it to have a testament with the King of kings! But this glory becomes your disgrace if you are not faithful to this testament. How many great people have been glorified since the beginning of the world! And all of them have been glorified for their faithfulness, in which they stood firm, regardless of great misfortunes and sorrows as a result of this faithfulness. They had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; Of whom the world was not worthy: they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth…. Wherefore, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith (Heb. 11:36–38; 12:1–2).

[1] The first Sunday of Great Lent is called “The Sunday of Orthodoxy,” and celebrates the restoration of the veneration of Icons and the victory of Orthodoxy over the Iconoclast heresy.

[2] “The right word” is a reference to the meaning of the word “Orthodox” in Russian, which is literally “rightly glorifying.”

Articles

Venerable Gerasimus of the Jordan

Saint Gerasimus established a strict monastic Rule. He spent five days of the week in solitude, occupying himself with handicrafts and prayer. On these days the wilderness dwellers did not eat cooked food, nor did they kindle a fire, but ate only dry bread, roots and water.

Venerable Gerasimus of Vologda

The saint chose the dense virgin forest for his dwelling place, separated from the settlement by the Kaisarova creek. There the monk built a hut, and in the tranquil solitude he devoted himself to the contemplation of God, unceasing prayer and work.

Uncovering of the relics of St Daniel the Prince of Moscow

Holy Prince Daniel of Moscow, son of the holy Prince Alexander Nevsky, died on March 4, 1303. On August 30, 1652 his relics were uncovered incorrupt.

Right-believing Prince Daniel of Moscow

Holy Prince Daniel of Moscow was born at Vladimir in the year 1261. He was the fourth son of St Alexander Nevsky.

The Holy Martyr Paul and his sister Juliana

The Holy Martyr Paul and his sister Juliana were executed under the emperor Aurelian (270-275) in the Phoenician city of Ptolemais.

St. James the Faster of Phoenicia, Syria

Saint James the Faster lived a life of asceticism near the Phoenician city of Porphyrion in the sixth century.

Martyr Wenceslaus the Prince of the Czechs

Envious nobles decided to murder the saint and, at first, to incite his mother against him, and later to urge his younger brother, Boleslav, to occupy the princely throne.

Right-believing Prince Basil (Vasilko) of Rostov

Describing the burial of Prince Basil, the chronicler said: “The multitude of Orthodox people wept bitterly, when they saw the departed father and nourisher of orphans, the great comforter of the sorrowful, and... the setting of a luminous star.... By his martyr’s blood his transgressions and those of his brethren were washed away.”

Venerable Joasaph of Snetogorsk, Pskov

The Holy Hieromartyrs Joasaph of Snetogorsk and Basil of Mirozh suffered under the Germans at two of the most ancient of the Pskov monasteries during the thirteenth century.

From a Homily on the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy

St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)

The word anathema means severance, rejection. When the Church anathematizes a teaching, it means that that teaching contains blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and for the sake of salvation it should be rejected and removed, as poison is removed from food.

Commemoration of the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787). The Holy Icons.

The Iconoclasts, by repudiating all representations of God, failed to take full account of the Incarnation. They fell, as so many puritans have done, into a kind of dualism. Regarding matter as a defilement, they wanted a religion freed from all contact with what is material; for they thought that what is spiritual must be non-material. But this is to betray the Incarnation, by allowing no place to Christ’s humanity, to His body; it is to forget that man’s body as well as his soul must be saved and transfigured.

The Triumph of Jesus Christ in the Triumph of Orthodoxy

Gabe Martini

But again, the celebration is about more than just the restoration and veneration of holy icons; it is a celebration of the victory of the Orthodox Faith itself. That is to say, it is a victory of both right-belief in (and right-worship of) our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

On the Sunday of Orthodoxy

St. Luke, Archbishop of Crimea

Really, did the Lord Jesus Christ, who we glorify amd who we venerate in icons, not living among us? Did the Virgin Mary, who was painted by the apostle and evangelist Saint Luke not live among us? This icon was blessed by the very Theotokos herself, saying that grace would always be with this icon. Do you know how many miracles happen from icons of the Virgin Mary?

The First Sunday of Lent: The Sunday of Orthodoxy

The theme of the victory of the icons, by its emphasis on the incarnation, points us to the basic Christian truth that the one whose death and resurrection we celebrate at Easter was none other than the Word of God who became human in Jesus Christ.

Triumph of Orthodoxy Sunday

Fr. Thaddaeus Hardenbrook

After the exercise of Clean Week, the wisdom of the Church grants us a rest in the joy of Triumph of Orthodoxy Sunday.

Sunday of Orthodoxy

Archpriest Alexander Schmemann

Rejoicing today in the triumph of Orthodoxy on this first Sunday of Lent, we joyfully commemorate three events: one event belonging to the past; one event to the present; and one event which still belongs to the future.

No Graven Image: Icons and Their Proper Use

Fr. Jack N. Sparks, Ph.D.

The first time I invited a particular Protestant friend to step inside an Orthodox Church, he looked around very slowly, carefully, cau­tiously. “It’s pretty,” he said, “but doesn’t the Bible warn against graven images?”

The Triumph of Orthodoxy and Holy Icons

An icon celebrating the veneration of icons, the Triumph of Orthodoxy is the festal icon for the first Sunday of Great Lent. As Lent is a period of communal fasting which continues for seven weeks, such triumphalism early on is understandable: it helps to strengthen the faithful for the coming days.

The First Sunday of Great Lent: The Triumph of Orthodoxy

Fr. Sergei Sveshnikov

The iconoclast heresy rejected not only the icon as a window through which a ray of light may shine into the darkened human soul, but also the Orthodox teaching about Christ as fully God and fully human in the hypostasis of God the Son.

The Triumph of Orthodoxy: Why we kiss Pictures

A poster of the solar system on a kid's bedroom wall violates the commandment because it is an image of "heaven above." Jesus-fish stickers are also excluded because they depict something from "the water under the earth."
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