Orthodox Calendar

June 16, 2025
Monday of the 2nd week after Pentecost

Apostles Fast

Service Notes

  • Beginning of Apostles' Fast

Commemorations

  • Martyr Lucillian and His Companions
  • Hieromartyr Lucian (2nd c.)
  • Holy Martyr Dimitri, Tsarevich of Russia (1591)

Scripture Readings (KJV)

Romans 2.28-3.18 (Epistle)

28For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: 29But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

1What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? 2Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. 3For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? 4God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. 5But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man) 6God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world? 7For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? 8And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.

9What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; 10As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 13Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: 14Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: 15Their feet are swift to shed blood: 16Destruction and misery are in their ways: 17And the way of peace have they not known: 18There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Matthew 6.31-34, 7.9-11 (Gospel)

31Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 34Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. 9Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? 10Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

Commemorations

Holy Martyr Lucillian and those with him (270)

Lucilian spent most of his life as a pagan priest. In advanced old age, he learned the truth of the Christian faith and was baptized. The conversion of so public a figure quickly attracted attention, and Lucilian was brought to trial in Nicomedia. After enduring many tortures he was imprisoned with four young Christians, scarcely older than children: Claudius, Hypatius, Paul and Dionysius. When they were brouht before Silvanos the governor, all five confessed their faith and were sentenced to death and cast into a fiery furnace. When they miraculously emerged unharmed, they were taken to Byzantium, where the four young men were beheaded and Lucillian was crucified. A maiden named Paula openly carried away the martyrs’ bodies and buried them. For this she in turn was tortured and, refusing to renounce her faith in Christ, beheaded. This was in the reign of the Emperor Aurelian. A church was built in their honor in Constantinople.

Hieromartyr Lucian (2nd c.)

He was a Roman nobleman, a disciple of the Apostle Peter. Pope Clement sent him, along with St Dionysius the Areopagite, to preach the Gospel in Gaul, ordaining them both as bishops before they left. The Emperor Domitian later sent soldiers to Rome to seize Christian evangelists. They killed St Dionysius in Rome, then, hearing of the work of St Lucian, tracked him until found him in what is now Belgium. There he was beheaded along with his two fellow-missionaries, Maxianus the priest and Julian the deacon. A church was built over his relics.

Holy Martyr Dimitri, Tsarevich of Russia (1591)

He was murdered at the age of eight by the evil designs of Boris Godunov, in the town of Uglich. After his death he appeared to a monk and accurately foretold Boris Godunov’s death. Countless miracles were worked at the grave of the Tsarevich. When his tomb was opened fifteen years after his death, his relics were found whole and incorrupt, and were solemnly buried in the Church of the Archangel Michael in Moscow.

The circumstances of Boris Godunov’s death are worth telling. He first tried to kill the Tsarevich using the strongest poison, but it had no effect. He then had the child publicly beheaded. Not long afterwards a ‘false Dimitri’ arose, claiming to be the Tsarevich, and rallied a great army against Godunov. Godunov was driven to such a desperate position that he took his own life by poison, the ‘remedy’ he had intended for the true Dimitri.