Isaiah 7.1-14 (6th Hour)

1And it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail against it. 2And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind. 3Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field; 4And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. 5Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying, 6Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal: 7Thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass. 8For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people. 9And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah’s son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.

10Moreover the LORD spake again unto Ahaz, saying, 11Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above. 12But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD. 13And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? 14Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Genesis 5.32-6.8 (Vespers)

32And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

1And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 2That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. 3And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

4There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

5And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

6And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 7And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

8But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

Proverbs 6.20-7.1 (Vespers)

20My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: 21Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. 22When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. 23For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life: 24To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. 25Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids. 26For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life. 27Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? 28Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? 29So he that goeth in to his neighbour’s wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent. 30Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry; 31But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house. 32But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. 33A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away. 34For jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance. 35He will not regard any ransom; neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifts.

1My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.

Holy Apostle Onesimos (ca. 109)

He was a Phrygian by birth, a slave of Philemon, to whom the Apostle Paul addressed his epistle. Onesimos escaped from Philemon and fled to Rome, where he was converted to the Faith by St Paul. St Paul sent him back to his master, who at St Paul’s urging gave him his freedom. He served the Church for many years before dying a martyr, beaten to death with clubs.

Saint Onesimos is also commemorated on November 22, with Sts Philemon, Archippus and Aphia; and on January 4 at the Synaxis of the Seventy Disciples.

Our Venerable Father Dalmatius of Siberia (1697)

Saint Dalmatius is venerated as a pioneer of the movement that took many ascetics to dwell in the wilderness of Siberia, establishing a new company of Desert Fathers and causing the Russian Far North to be called the ‘Northern Thebaid.’ He was born in Tobolsk and reared in piety by his family, recently-converted Tatars. When grown, he entered the imperial army as a Cossack and served with such distinction that the Tsar awarded him a noble title. He married and lived in Tobolsk in comfort and prosperity. One day — after the destruction of Tobolsk in a great fire in 1643 — struck by a realization of the vanity of worldly things, he left family, wealth and property and went to a monastery in the Ural Mountains, taking with him only an icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos.

He was tonsured a monk with the name of Dalmatius, and devoted himself to prayer and ascesis with such fervor that, a short time later, the brethren elected him Abbot. Fearing pride and fleeing honor, Dalmatius fled with his icon of the Theotokos to a remote cave, where he lived a life of silence and continual prayer. His presence did not long remain secret in that sparsely-settled region, and soon Christians were coming from far and wide to ask his prayer and counsel; many pagans came to him for holy Baptism. Soon his habitation became too small for those who had chosen to stay as his disciples, and the Saint received a blessing from the Bishop of Tobolsk to build a wooden chapel and some cells. This was the beginning of the great Monastery of the Dormition (also called the Monastery of St Dalmatius).

Over the years the brethren endured many tribulations. Once the Tatar Prince of the region, provoked by false rumors, planned to destroy the monastery and kill all the monks. The night before the attack, the holy Mother of God appeared to the prince in resplendent clothes, holding a flaming sword in one hand and a scourge in the other. She forbade the Prince to harm the monastery or the brethren, and commanded him to give them a permanent concession over the region. Convinced by this vision, the Prince made peace with the monks and became the Monastery’s protector, though he was a Muslim.

In the succeeding years the Monastery was repeatedly burned down by the fierce pagan tribes which inhabited the area; once all the monks except St Dalmatius himself were butchered, but always the monastery was rebuilt. The Saint reposed in peace in 1697, and was succeeded as abbot by his own son Isaac, who built a stone shrine at the Monastery to house the relics of the Saint and the icon of the Mother of God which he had kept with him throughout his monastic life.

Our Venerable Father Anthimos of Chios (1960)

He was born in 1869 to devout peasants on Chios; he left elementary school early to become a shoemender. At the age of nineteen he visited a monastery (founded by the monk Pachomios, who had been the spiritual counsellor of St Nektarios); he was so moved by the monks’ ‘angelic life’ that on returning home he built himself a small hut and dwelt in it. His only ‘help’ in his spiritual contests was an icon of the Mother of God, which soon began to work miracles, drawing many to his hermitage. After a time he retired to a monastery where he was tonsured under the name Anthimos. He fell ill there, and his abbot sent him home to his parents for the sake of his health. At home, despite the fact that he was caring for his aged parents and practicing his shoemender’s trade, he continued to live as a monk, spending nights on end in prayer and sometimes living only on bread and water for extended periods.

Increasing numbers of visitors came to his hermitage and wonder-working icon of the Theotokos, and in 1910 he received the Great Schema. The people of Chios wanted him to be ordained to the priesthood, but his bishop refused due to the Saint’s lack of education. At the prompting of Anthimos’ godfather, the Bishop of Smyrna ordained him instead. After a pilgrimage to Mt Athos, he returned to Chios, where he became chaplain to a leper hospital. Soon the hospital, which had fallen into corruption, became a spiritual center, as much like a monastery as a hospital. Saint Anthimos tended many of the sickest with his own hands, working many miracles of healing; some of his recovered patients became monks or nuns.

With the notorious ‘Exchange of Populations’ of 1922-1924, refugees poured into Chios, many of them destitute nuns and girls. In response to a vision of the Mother of God, St Anthimos built a monastery, which opened with thirty nuns and grew rapidly, despite the opposition of many who said that setting up such a community was out of date (in 1924!). The monastery soon housed eighty nuns and was known througout Greece as a model of monastic life. Father Anthimos served as priest to the nuns, and continued to receive the many faithful — often sixty or seventy per day — who came to him for prayer or counsel. He carried on this ministry for more than thirty years, working many miracles of healing. When he was too old to work with his hands, he retired to his cell and prayed that he be enabled to serve his neighbor until his last breath. He reposed in peace at the age of ninety-one, mourned and revered by the whole island of Chios.