Prophet Zephaniah (Sophonias) (635-605 b.c.). St. Sabbas, founder of Storozhev Monastery (Zvenigorod), disciple of St. Sergius of Radonezh (1407).
St. Theodulus, eparch of Constantinople (440). St. John the Silent, bishop of Colonia and monk of St. Sabbas Monastery (558). Hieromartyr Theodore I, archbishop of Alexandria (609). St. George of Cernica and Caldarusani (1806).
St. Birinus, bishop of Dorchester (ca. 649). St. Sola, Anglo-Saxon missionary priest under St. Boniface (Germany) (790-794). New Hieromartyr Gabriel, metropolitan of Ganos and Chora, at Prusa (1659). St. Hilarion (Grigorovich), bishop of Krutitsa (1759). New Monk-martyr Cosmas of St. Anne’s Skete, Mt. Athos (1760). New Martyr Angelus of Chios (1813).
Repose of King Magnus II of Sweden and Valaam (Gregory in schema) (1371) and Archimandrite Theophanes of Novoezersk Monastery (1832).
Monday. [Heb. 3:5-11, 17-19; Luke 20:27–44]
The Sadducees had an objection to the resurrection, which
seemed to them irresolvable; but the Lord resolved it so
clearly in several words that everyone understood and
acknowledged the Sadducees as conquered by the truth of
His word (Luke 20:27–40). What then were [called]
Sadducees are now unbelievers of all sorts. They have
heaped up for themselves a multitude of fantasised
suppositions, set them forth as irrefutable truths, and
magnify themselves with them, supposing that there is
nothing to say against them. In reality they are so empty,
that there is no point in speaking against them. All of
their philosophizing is a house of cards: blow on it and
it will scatter. There is no need to refute them in each
part; it is enough to relate to them as to dreams. When
speaking against dreams, people do set not about proving
any incongruity in composition or in the parts of a dream;
they simply say, “It is a dream”—and
that says it all. Such precisely is the theory of the
formation of the world from cloudy spots, with its
props—the theory of spontaneous origination, of the
Darwinian origin of genus and species, with his latest
fantasy about the origin of man. It is all like the
delirium of a sleeping man. Reading them, you walk in the
midst of shadows. And scientists? What can you do with
them? Their motto is: do not listen if you do not want to,
but do not hinder us from telling lies.