Acts 4.23-31 (Epistle)

23Being let go, they came to their own company and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24When they heard it, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, “O Lord, you are God, who made the sky, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them; 25who by the mouth of your servant David, said, ‘Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot a vain thing? 26The kings of the earth take a stand, and the rulers plot together, against the Lord, and against his Christ.’

27“For truly, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, 28to do whatever your hand and your counsel foreordained to happen. 29Now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness, 30while you stretch out your hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy Servant Jesus.”

31When they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were gathered together. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.

John 5.24-30 (Gospel)

24“Most certainly I tell you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and doesn’t come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. 25Most certainly I tell you, the hour comes, and now is, when the dead will hear the Son of God’s voice; and those who hear will live. 26For as the Father has life in himself, even so he gave to the Son also to have life in himself. 27He also gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is a son of man. 28Don’t marvel at this, for the hour comes in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29and will come out; those who have done good, to the resurrection of life; and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment. 30I can of myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is righteous, because I don’t seek my own will, but the will of my Father who sent me.

Martyr Sabbas Stratelates

He came from a noble Gothic family. Like St George, he was an officer in the imperial army. He lived a life of great purity, fasted greatly, and often visited imprisoned Christians. Because of this his Christian faith became known, and when he was summoned before the Emperor, he boldly confessed his faith. He was tortured in many ways, but emerged unharmed. Seeing this miracle, seventy of his fellow-soldiers confessed Christ and were beheaded at the Emperor’s command. Sabbas himself was condemned to death by drowning, and gave his soul to God in 272.

St Alexis Toth of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania (1909) (April 24 OC)

This light of Orthodoxy in North America was born in Austro-Hungary in 1854, to poor Carpatho-Russian parents. His father was a priest in the Eastern-rite Roman Catholic church and, following in his father’s footsteps, he was ordained in 1878. In 1889 he was appointed to serve as pastor to a Uniate parish in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Prompted partly by the strong hostility of the American Roman Catholic hierarchy at that time to Eastern-rite practices, he convened a meeting of about ten Eastern-rite priests in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, where the divinely-led decision was made to seek to return to the Orthodox faith. Fr Alexis contacted Bishop Vladimir of the Russian church in San Francisco, who, in 1891, received Fr Alexis and 361 of his parishioners back into the faith of their ancestors.

From that time forward, Fr Alexis worked tirelessly, at great personal sacrifice, to proclaim the truths of the Orthodox faith, especially to those still attached to its mimic, Byzantine Catholicism. For long periods of time he received little or no salary and (despite claims that he had embraced Orthodoxy to enrich himself) worked in a bakery to support himself. Through his work, thousands of Christians in North America were led into the fullness of the Orthodox Faith during his lifetime.

St Alexis reposed in 1909. He was officially glorified in 1994. His holy relics can be venerated at St Tikhon’s Monastery in South Canaan, Pennsylvania.