Orthodox Calendar

Saturday, July 5, 2025
Saturday of the 4th week after Pentecost

No Fast

Scripture Readings

Commemorations

Scripture Readings

Romans 6.11-17 (Epistle)

11Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

12Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14For sin will not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! 16Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered.

Galatians 5.22-6.2 (Epistle, Athanasius of Mount Athos)

22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, 23gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.

25If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit. 26Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.

1Brothers, even if a man is caught in some fault, you who are spiritual must restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself so that you also aren’t tempted. 2Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Matthew 8.14-23 (Gospel)

14When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever. 15He touched her hand, and the fever left her. So she got up and served him. 16When evening came, they brought to him many possessed with demons. He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, 17that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.”

18Now when Jesus saw great multitudes around him, he gave the order to depart to the other side.

19A scribe came and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”

20Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

21Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, allow me first to go and bury my father.”

22But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”

23When he got into a boat, his disciples followed him.

Matthew 11.27-30 (Gospel, Athanasius of Mount Athos)

27All things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows the Son, except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father, except the Son and he to whom the Son desires to reveal him.

28“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Commemorations

Uncovering of the Relics (1422) of St Sergius of Radonezh (1392)

For his life, see September 25.

St Athanasius of Mt Athos (1003) and his six disciples

Born in Trebizond, he was educated in Constantinople, then entered into ascetic life. Seeking greater reclusion, he went to the Holy Mountain to live in silence. But many others gathered around him, and in time he was forced to build the monastery known as the Great Lavra. As construction was being planned, he beheld the Mother of God, who miraculously brought forth water from a rock near the site, and promised him that she would be the abbess of his monastery. He died when the newly-constructed dome of the monastery collapsed while he and six of his brethren were working on it.