John 10.1-9 (Matins Gospel, St Tikhon)

1“Most certainly, I tell you, one who doesn’t enter by the door into the sheep fold, but climbs up some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2But one who enters in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4Whenever he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5They will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him; for they don’t know the voice of strangers.” 6Jesus spoke this parable to them, but they didn’t understand what he was telling them.

7Jesus therefore said to them again, “Most certainly, I tell you, I am the sheep’s door. 8All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them. 9I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out and will find pasture.

Isaiah 42.5-16 (6th Hour)

5Thus says the Lord God, who made the heaven, and established it; who settled the earth, and the things in it, and gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to them that tread on it: 6I the Lord God have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand, and will strengthen you: and I have given you for the covenant of a race, for a light of the Gentiles: 7to open the eyes of the blind, to bring the bound and them that sit in darkness out of bonds and the prison-house. 8I am the Lord God: that is my name: I will not give my glory to another, nor my praises to graven images. 9Behold, the ancient things have come to pass, and so will the new things which I tell you: yes, before I tell them they are made known to you. 10Sing a new hymn to the Lord: you⌃ who are his dominion, glorify his name from the end of the earth: you⌃ that go down to the sea, and sail upon it; the islands, and they that dwell in them. 11Rejoice, you wilderness, and the villages thereof, the hamlets, and the dwellers in Kedar: the inhabitants of the rock shall rejoice, they shall shout from the top of the mountains. 12They shall give glory to God, and shall proclaim his praises in the islands. 13The Lord God of hosts shall go forth, and crush the war: he shall stir up jealousy, and shall shout mightily against his enemies. 14I have been silent: shall I also always be silent and forbear: I have endured like a travailing woman: I will now amaze and wither at once. 15I will make desolate mountains and hills, and will dry up all their grass; and I will make the rivers islands, and dry up the pools. 16And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not, and I will cause them to tread paths which they have not known: I will turn darkness into light for them, and crooked things into straight. These things will I do, and will not forsake them.

Genesis 18.20-33 (Vespers)

20And the Lord said, The cry of Sodom and Gomorrha has been increased towards me, and their sins are very great. 21I will therefore go down and see, if they completely correspond with the cry which comes to me, and if not, that I may know. 22And the men having departed thence, came to Sodom; and Abraam was still standing before the Lord. 23And Abraam drew near and said, Wouldest you destroy the righteous with the wicked, and shall the righteous be as the wicked? 24Should there be fifty righteous in the city, will you destroy them? will you not spare the whole place for the sake of the fifty righteous, if they be in it? 25By no means shall you do as this thing is so as to destroy the righteous with the wicked, so the righteous shall be as the wicked: by no means. You that judge the whole earth, shall you not do right? 26And the Lord said, If there should be in Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole city, and the whole place for their sakes. 27And Abraam answered and said, Now I have begun to speak to my Lord, and I am earth and ashes. 28But if the fifty righteous should be diminished to forty-five, will you destroy the whole city because of the five lacking? And he said, I will not destroy it, if I should find there forty-five. 29And he continued to speak to him still, and said, But if there should be found there forty? And he said, I will not destroy it for the forty's sake. 30And he said, Will there be anything against me, Lord, if I shall speak? but if there be found there thirty? And he said, I will not destroy it for the thirty's sake. 31And he said, Since I am able to speak to the Lord, what if there should be found there twenty? And he said, I will not destroy it, if I should find there twenty. 32And he said, Will there be anything against me, Lord, if I speak yet once? but if there should be found there ten? And he said, I will not destroy it for the ten's sake. 33And the Lord departed, when he left off speaking to Abraam, and Abraam returned to his place.

Proverbs 16.17-17.17 (Vespers)

17The paths of life turn aside from evil; and the ways of righteousness are length of life. He that receives instruction shall be in prosperity; and he that regards reproofs shall be made wise. He that keeps his ways, preserves his own soul; and he that loves his life will spare his mouth. 18Pride goes before destruction, and folly before a fall. 19Better is a meek-spirited man with lowliness, than one who divides spoils with the proud. 20He who is skillful in business finds good: but he that trusts in God is most blessed. 21Men call the wise and understanding evil: but they that are pleasing in speech shall hear more. 22Understanding is a fountain of life to its possessors; but the instruction of fools is evil. 23The heart of the wise will discern the things which proceed from his own mouth; and on his lips he will wear knowledge. 24Good words are honeycombs, and the sweetness thereof is a healing of the soul. 25There are ways that seem to be right to a man, but the end of them looks to the depth of hell. 26A man who labors, labors for himself, and drives from him his own ruin. 27But the perverse bears destruction upon his own mouth: a foolish man digs up evil for himself, and treasures fire on his own lips. 28A perverse man spreads mischief, and will kindle a torch of deceit with mischiefs; and he separates friends. 29A transgressor tries to ensnare friends, and leads them in ways that are not good. 30And the man that fixes his eyes devises perverse things, and marks out with his lips all evil: he is a furnace of wickedness. 31Old age is a crown of honor, but it is found in the ways of righteousness. 32A man slow to anger is better than a strong man; and he that governs his temper better than he that takes a city. 33All evils come upon the ungodly into their bosoms; but all righteous things come of the Lord.

1Better is a morsel with pleasure in peace, than a house full of many good things and unjust sacrifices, with strife. 2A wise servant shall have rule over foolish masters, and shall divide portions among brethren. 3As silver and gold are tried in a furnace, so are choice hearts with the Lord. 4A bad man hearkens to the tongue of transgressors: but a righteous man attends not to false lips. 5He that laughs at the poor provokes him that made him; and he that rejoices at the destruction of another shall not be held guiltless: but he that has compassion shall find mercy. 6Children's children are the crown of old men; and their fathers are the glory of children. The faithful has the whole world full of wealth; but the faithless not even a farthing. 7Faithful lips will not suit a fool; nor lying lips a just man. 8Instruction is to them that use it a gracious reward; and wherever it may turn, it shall prosper. 9He that conceals injuries seeks love; but he that hates to hide them separates friends and kindred. 10A threat breaks down the heart of a wise man; but a fool, though scourged, understands not. 11Every bad man stirs up strifes: but the Lord will send out against him an unmerciful messenger. 12Care may befall a man of understanding; but fools will meditate evils. 13Whoso rewards evil for good, evil shall not be removed from his house. 14Rightful rule gives power to words; but sedition and strife precede poverty. 15He that pronounces the unjust just, and the just unjust, is unclean and abominable with God. 16Why has the fool wealth? for a senseless man will not be able to purchase wisdom. He that exalts his own house seeks ruin; and he that turns aside from instruction shall fall into mischief. 17Have you a friend for every time, and let brethren be useful in distress; for on this account are they born.

Hebrews 7.26-8.2 (Epistle, St Tikhon)

26For such a high priest was fitting for us: holy, guiltless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; 27who doesn’t need, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices daily, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. For he did this once for all, when he offered up himself. 28For the law appoints men as high priests who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints a Son forever who has been perfected.

1Now in the things which we are saying, the main point is this: we have such a high priest, who sat down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, 2a servant of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, not man.

John 10.9-16 (Gospel, St Tikhon)

9I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out and will find pasture. 10The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.

11“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who doesn’t own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and flees. The wolf snatches the sheep and scatters them. 13The hired hand flees because he is a hired hand and doesn’t care for the sheep. 14I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and I’m known by my own; 15even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep. 16I have other sheep which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd.

St Justin (Popovic) of Chelije in Serbia (1979) (March 25 OC)

He was born on the Feast of the Annunciation 1894, in Vranje, South Serbia, to a family whose seven previous generations had been headed by priests (Popovich means ‘family or son of a priest’ in Serbian). He began reading the scriptures at a young age, and as an adult carried a New Testament with him, reading three chapters every day. He studied at the Seminary of St Sava in Belgrade while St Nikolai Velimirovic (March 18) was on the faculty. In 1914, Blagoje (as he was called before his tonsure) completed the nine-year seminary program. He desired to become a monk, but postponed entry into the monastic ranks due to the outbreak of war and the poor health of his parents. He spent the war caring for his parents and serving as a student nurse.

In 1915 he was tonsured a monk under the name Justin, after St Justin the Philosopher. Shortly thereafter he traveled to Petrograd to study at the seminary; there he acquired a deep, first-hand knowledge of the Russian ascetical tradition and a lifelong love of Russian spirituality, especially that of the common people. He then attended Oxford University from 1916 to 1919, writing a doctoral dissertation which was rejected. After a brief return to Belgrade, he entered the Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Athens. As in Russia, he used his time there not merely to study but to drink in the Orthodox spirituality of the Greek people. He was ordained to the diaconate while in Greece, then to the priesthood after returning to Belgrade in 1922. He wept ‘as a newborn babe’ throughout his ordination service. One of his first labors as a priest was to translate the Divine Liturgy into modern Serbian. During this period he came to know Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky (later first hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad) and St John Maximovich, both of whom were living in Serbia as exiles from the Russian Revolution.

Father Justin’s preaching, writing and spiritual counsel became known throughout his country. In 1931 he was sent to Czechoslovakia to help in reorganizing the Church there (then under the jurisdiction of the Serbian Church), which was greatly tried and weakened by Uniatism. Realizing the people’s crying need a clear exposition of the Faith in their own language, he began in 1932 his three-volume Dogmas of the Orthodox Church. The first volume was so well-received that Fr Justin was made Professor of Dogmatics at the Seminary of St Sava, where he remained, completing the Dogmas and several other books, until the end of World War II. The new atheistic Communist regime then banned him from the university system, and Fr Justin lived from that time on in various Serbian monasteries.

In 1948 he entered Chelije Monastery, where he remained until his repose in 1979. He became Archimandrite and spiritual head of the Monastery. It was during this period that he emerged as a great light of Orthodoxy: pious believers from all parts of Yugoslavia, from Greece, and from all over the world traveled to Chelije to hear the holy Justin’s preaching and seek his counsel.

Saint Justin reposed in peace in 1979 at the age of 85, on the Feast of the Annunciation — the date of his birth. Since his repose, many miracles have been witnessed at his grave: healings, flashes of unearthly light from his tomb, and conversions of unbelievers by his prayers. His many writings are increasingly recognized as a fount of pure Orthodox teaching in the midst of our dark time.

Note: St Justin is commemorated on the anniversary of his repose, so his commemoration only coincides with the Feast of the Annunciation on the Old Calendar.

Holy Martyr Calliopius, with his mother Theoclea (304)

Calliopius was the only son of a senator from Pamphylia and his wife Theoclea, who had long prayed to God for a child. The devout Theoclea reared her son in purity of life and love for God from infancy. When persecution of Christians broke out under Maximian, Theoclea put Calliopius aboard a ship bound for Pompeiopolis to save him from the persecutors. But Calliopius, as soon as he disembarked, encountered a pagan festival, where he was arrested when he refused to make sacrifice to the idols. Brought before the governor Maximus, he freely confessed that he was a Christian. For this he was cruelly tortured and thrown into prison. His mother, hearing of his torments, sold her goods and hurried to comfort him and encourage him in his martyrdom.

Calliopius was sentenced to death by crucifixion, as it happened on Holy Thursday; but the holy Theoclea bribed the officials to postpone the execution by one day, so that her son might imitate the Lord’s Crucifixion on the day that He endured it; she also prevailed upon the torturers to crucify Calliopius upside-down (like St Peter) in humility toward the Lord. When her son’s lifeless body was taken down from the cross, Theoclea cast herself upon it and died.

St George the Confessor, bishop of Mitylene (ca. 820)

The righteous George was Metropolitan of Mitylene. In his old age, a persecution was unleashed against the Church by the iconoclast Emperor Leo V (the Armenian). To further his plans, the Emperor summoned a Council of bishops which he expected to support his iconoclasm. At the Council, George and some other faithful bishops refused to follow the Emperor’s wishes, and openly stood in defense of the icons. For his stance, George was publicly humiliated, then sent into exile at Cherson on the Black Sea. There, after many years of extreme privation, the holy bishop died. By his prayers many were healed, both during his life and after his repose.

St Nilus (Nil Sorsky), abbot of Sora (1508)

St Nilus established the monastic skete (a community of monks living separately like hermits, but sharing some common life) in Russia. He took one side of a religious controversy that troubled the Russian Church’s life for many years. St Nilus and his disciples claimed that prayer and ascetic struggle are the whole purpose of monastic life, and opposed monastic ownership of property, or involvement in works such as almshouses, hospitals, and orphanages. Joseph, abbot of Volokalamsk, took up the argument on the other side, insisting that the Church and its monks should be involved in good works (and have the means to do those works) as well as in prayer. The two groups became known as the “Possessors” (Joseph’s side) and the “Non-Possessors” (Nilus’ side). Each group had reason to be troubled by the other’s extremes: Monasteries owned huge amounts of land, kept serfs, and were subject to corruption by involvement in finance; at the same time, the Church formed most of the ‘welfare’ system of Russia, and the Non-possessors did not suggest how the poor were to be tended, or orphans cared for, without the monasteries’ charity. Many of the Non-possessors tended toward a non-Russian and almost un-Orthodox puritanism, condemning beautiful churches and icons as diversions from true spirituality.

The Possessors (not surprisingly) were favored by the Tsarist government, and eventually won out. The artificial division of the Church into mystical and practical ‘parties,’ and the victory of one of the parties, led to a period of stagnation in the Russian church that was only corrected two hundred years later, when a great renewal of religious life, characterized by such holy Fathers as St Paisios Velichkovsky and St Seraphim of Sarov, restored the fullness and balance of Orthodox life to the Russian church.

An indication of the fullness of Orthodoxy: the Church has glorified not only St Nilus but his opponent St Joseph of Volokalamsk, who is commemorated on Sept. 9.

Saint Savvas the New of Kalymnos (1948) (March 25 OC)

He was born in Thrace to a poor family. Early in life he desired to become a monk and, failing to get his parents’ consent, left secretly for Mt Athos. After several years there, he traveled to Palestine, where he entered the Monastery of St George the Chozebite. In 1903 he was ordained to the priesthood. From 1907–1916 he lived in severe asceticism as a hermit on the banks of the Jordan. After living in several monasteries in Greece, he served with St Nektarios of Aegina for the last year of the Saint’s life (he reposed in 1920). After six more years on Aegina, Fr Savvas moved to the island of Kalymnos, where he spent the remainder of his life. He lived in quietness and asceticism, acquiring a reputation throughout the island as a confessor and spiritual father. He slept only a few hours each night, and gave away any money that came to him the same day, since he believed that it was wrong for a monk to have money in his cell after nightfall.

Saint Savvas reposed on the Old Calendar feast of the Annunciation in 1948. Innumerable miracles and healings have been wrought through his intercession. A striking example occurred in 1957: A group of young islanders were talking about the Saint, and one of them, who doubted his sanctity, said ‘If this lamp breaks I’ll believe.’ At that moment the lamp shattered spontaneously.

The following account is from Mother Nectaria McLees’ Evlogeite! A pilgrim’s guide to Greece: ‘His last words of counsel to his nuns were, “…love… is the bond of perfection,” and to the abbess he said, “Love, love, love (Agapa, agapa, agapa).” Then he clapped his hands six times, saying “The Lord, the Lord, the Lord…”

‘In 1957 his relics were uncovered in the presence of Metropolitan Isidoros of Kalymnos, who described them as “the bones being perfectly joined, and the vestments intact.” When the sepulchre was opened a divine and otherworldly fragrance covered the area, even to the outskirts of town far below. In 1961, an iconographer of the Skete of Kapsokalyvia on Mount Athos painted an icon of St. Savvas at Abbess Philothei’s request. The icon arrived by ferry, and as it was being transferred from the post office to the customs house where the nuns would pick it up, the convent bell began ringing by itself and continued until the icon was brought to the monastery.’