Orthodox Calendar

Monday, November 24, 1986
Monday of the 23rd week after Pentecost

Nativity Fast — Fish, Wine and Oil are Allowed — Abstain from meat, dairy, and eggs

Scripture Readings

Commemorations

Scripture Readings

1 Thessalonians 1.1-5 (Epistle)

1Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the assembly of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

2We always give thanks to God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers, 3remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and perseverance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father. 4We know, brothers loved by God, that you are chosen, 5and that our Good News came to you not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and with much assurance. You know what kind of men we showed ourselves to be among you for your sake.

Philippians 3.20-4.3 (Epistle, Hieromartyrs Clement & Peter)

20For our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21who will change the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working by which he is able even to subject all things to himself.

1Therefore, my brothers, beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.

2I exhort Euodia, and I exhort Syntyche, to think the same way in the Lord. 3Yes, I beg you also, true partner, help these women, for they labored with me in the Good News with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.

Luke 17.20-25 (Gospel)

20Being asked by the Pharisees when God’s Kingdom would come, he answered them, “God’s Kingdom doesn’t come with observation; 21neither will they say, ‘Look, here!’ or, ‘Look, there!’ for behold, God’s Kingdom is within you.”

22He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 23They will tell you, ‘Look, here!’ or ‘Look, there!’ Don’t go away or follow after them, 24for as the lightning, when it flashes out of one part under the sky, shines to another part under the sky, so will the Son of Man be in his day. 25But first, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

Commemorations

Hieromartyr Clement, Pope of Rome

He was instructed in the Faith of Christ by St Peter himself, and may be the Clement mentioned by the Apostle Paul as a fellow-worker in Philippians 4:3. He was consecrated Bishop of Rome about the year 91; some traditions call him the first Bishop of Rome, others the third after Sts Linus and Anacletus. (This is not necessarily inconsistent: in the Apostolic age, the offices of Elder and Bishop were not strictly distinguished, and the three bishops may have served at the same time or by turns.) He is the author of the Epistle of Clement, which was so highly esteemed in the early Church that it is often found in early versions of the New Testament. The holy Bishop effected countless conversions in Rome, even bringing the Prefect Sisinius and his wife Theodora to the Faith after miraculously healing them of blindness. The bishop’s success so angered the Emperor Trajan that he had Clement exiled to the Crimea, on the far eastern frontier of the Empire. There the holy bishop continued to work wonders of evangelism, founding seventy-five churches in one year and bringing countless pagans to faith in Christ. Finally, to put a stop to the Saint’s work, the Governor of the region had him cruelly tortured, then thrown into the Black Sea with an anchor around his neck. More than 700 years later, in 860, St Cyril (commemorated May 11) arrived in the Crimea, sent by St Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople. He found the relics of St Clement faithfully preserved there and brought part of them back to Constantinople.

Peter, Archbishop of Alexandria

Saint Peter was Bishop of Alexandria for twelve years. It was he who excommunicated Arius. When some of Arius’ followers appealed to the Bishop to restore Arius to the communion of the Church, they were surprised by the bishop’s vehement refusal, for the heretic had not yet clearly and publicly made known his blasphemous teaching that the Son is a creation of the Father. The holy bishop then revealed to these followers a vision he had seen, in which Christ appeared to him as a child wearing a garment torn in half from head to foot. When St Peter asked the Lord who had rent His garment, he said that it was Arius, who must not be received back into communion. The holy bishop was beheaded during the reign of Maximinus. He is called the “Seal of the Martyrs” because he was the last Bishop of Alexandria to suffer martyrdom under the pagan Emperors.