Orthodox Calendar

Aug. 21, 2077
Saturday of the 11th week after Pentecost

No Fast

Commemorations

Scripture Readings

1 Corinthians 1.3-9 (Epistle)

3Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

4I always thank my God concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, 5that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge— 6even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you— 7so that you come behind in no gift, waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8who will also confirm you until the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Matthew 19.3-12 (Gospel)

3Pharisees came to him, testing him and saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?”

4He answered, “Haven’t you read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, 5and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh’? 6So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, don’t let man tear apart.”

7They asked him, “Why then did Moses command us to give her a certificate of divorce and divorce her?”

8He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been so. 9I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries her when she is divorced commits adultery.”

10His disciples said to him, “If this is the case of the man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry.”

11But he said to them, “Not all men can receive this saying, but those to whom it is given. 12For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. He who is able to receive it, let him receive it.”

Commemorations

Apostle Thaddeus of the Seventy

He was by birth a Jew from Edessa; it was he who instructed king Avgar in the Faith and baptised him (see August 16). According to Eusebius he is not the Thaddeus who was one of the Twelve (Mt 10:3), but was one of the Seventy. After Christ’s Resurrection, he preached the Gospel in Mesopotamia and ended his life in martyrdom.

Holy Martyrs Bassa and her sons Theognis, Agapios, and Pistis (4th c.)

“Bassa was the wife of a pagan priest, but she was secretly a Christian and brought her sons up in a Christian spirit. Her husband hated her for her faith, and handed her over to the judge for torture, together with her sons. After harsh torture, her sons were beheaded (it is thought, in Edessa in Macedonia). Bassa was filled with joy to see her sons thus gloriously finish their martyr’s course for Christ, and herself went with yet greater desire from torture to torture. When she was thrown into the sea, angels appeared to her and took her to an island in the Sea of Marmara, where she was slain with the sword under Maximian. Thus holy Bassa was in a twofold manner made worthy of the Kingdom of Christ: as a martyr and as the mother of martyrs.” (Prologue)

Holy Forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

They are also commemorated on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, before Nativity.