Martyr Sabbas Stratelates (“the General”), of Rome, and 70 soldiers with him (272).
Martyr Alexander of Lyon (177). Martyrs Pasicrates, Valentine, and Julius, at Dorostolum in Moesia (228). Martyrs Eusebius, Neon, Leontius, Longinus, and others, at Nicomedia (303). St. Thomas, fool-for-Christ, of Syria (ca. 546-560). St. Elizabeth the Wonderworker, of Constantinople (6th c.-8th c.). St. Sabbas of the Kiev Caves (13th c.). St. Alexis the Hermit, of the Kiev Caves (13th c.). New Hieromartyr Branko, priest, of Veljusa, Serbia (1941).
St. Innocent, priest, on the Mount of Olives (4th c.). St. Wilfrid, bishop of York (709). St. Egbert, bishop of Iona (729). St. Xenophon, founder of Xenophontos Monastery, Mt. Athos (ca. 1018). New Martyr Doukas of Mytilene (1564). Sts. Symeon (Stefan) (1656), Elias (Iorest) (1678) and Sava (Brancovici) (1683), metropolitans of Ardeal (Transylvania), confessors against the Calvinists. St. Joseph the Confessor, bishop of Maramures (Romania) (ca. 1711). New Martyr Nicholas of Magnesia (1795). New Martyr George, in Anatolia (1796). St. Alexis Toth, priest, of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania (1909).
Repose of Schemamonk Nicholas of Valaam (1947).
Friday. [Acts 3:1–8; John 2:12–22]
There are certain individuals whom the
holy fathers praise for their Christian lives, for they
rose from the dead before the general resurrection. What
is the secret of such a life? They mastered the
characteristic features of a life according to the
resurrection as they are shown in the word of God, and
made them their own inner properties. The future life is
devoid of all that is fleshly: there men neither marry,
nor are women given in marriage, there they will not eat
dead food, and they will receive a spiritual body. Thus,
whoever lives estranged from all fleshly things receives
in himself, or returns to himself, elements of the future
life according to the resurrection. Reach the point that
all fleshly things within you die, and you will be
resurrected before the future resurrection. The apostle
indicates the path to this when he says: Walk in the
Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh
(Gal. 5:16). And he attests that through this path it is
surely possible to attain what is awaited: he that
soweth to the Spirit, he says, shall of the Spirit
reap life everlasting (Gal. 6:8).