Hebrews 12.28-13.8 (Epistle)

28Therefore, receiving a Kingdom that can’t be shaken, let’s have grace, through which we serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, 29for our God is a consuming fire.

1Let brotherly love continue. 2Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for in doing so, some have entertained angels without knowing it. 3Remember those who are in bonds, as bound with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you are also in the body. 4Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled; but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.

5Be free from the love of money, content with such things as you have, for he has said, “I will in no way leave you, neither will I in any way forsake you.” 6So that with good courage we say, “The Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me?”

7Remember your leaders, men who spoke to you the word of God, and considering the results of their conduct, imitate their faith. 8Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

John 11.1-45 (Gospel)

1Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, of the village of Mary and her sister, Martha. 2It was that Mary who had anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. 3The sisters therefore sent to him, saying, “Lord, behold, he for whom you have great affection is sick.”

4But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, that God’s Son may be glorified by it.” 5Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. 6When therefore he heard that he was sick, he stayed two days in the place where he was. 7Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let’s go into Judea again.”

8The disciples asked him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you. Are you going there again?”

9Jesus answered, “Aren’t there twelve hours of daylight? If a man walks in the day, he doesn’t stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10But if a man walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light isn’t in him.” 11He said these things, and after that, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going so that I may awake him out of sleep.”

12The disciples therefore said, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.”

13Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he spoke of taking rest in sleep. 14So Jesus said to them plainly then, “Lazarus is dead. 15I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe. Nevertheless, let’s go to him.”

16Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let’s also go, that we may die with him.”

17So when Jesus came, he found that he had been in the tomb four days already. 18Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about fifteen stadia away. 19Many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother. 20Then when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary stayed in the house. 21Therefore Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. 22Even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.”

23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

24Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. 26Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

27She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, God’s Son, he who comes into the world.”

28When she had said this, she went away and called Mary, her sister, secretly, saying, “The Teacher is here and is calling you.”

29When she heard this, she arose quickly and went to him. 30Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was in the place where Martha met him. 31Then the Jews who were with her in the house and were consoling her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, “She is going to the tomb to weep there.”

32Therefore when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”

33When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled,

34and said, “Where have you laid him?” They told him, “Lord, come and see.”

35Jesus wept.

36The Jews therefore said, “See how much affection he had for him!” 37Some of them said, “Couldn’t this man, who opened the eyes of him who was blind, have also kept this man from dying?”

38Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone lay against it.

39Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.”

40Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed, you would see God’s glory?”

41So they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you listened to me. 42I know that you always listen to me, but because of the multitude standing around I said this, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”

44He who was dead came out, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Free him, and let him go.”

45Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what Jesus did believed in him.

Hieromartyr Artemon, Presbyter of Laodicea

At the time of Diocletian’s persecutions, he was a very old man, having served as a reader for sixteen years, then a deacon for twenty-eight years, and finally as a priest for thirty years, for a total of seventy-four years. The pagan judge put him in the Temple of Aesculapius, where large snakes were kept and worshiped as gods. Though the judge meant for Artemon to be attacked by the snakes, the holy priest immobilized them with the sign of the Cross, brought them out of the temple and, in front of the pagan priests, breathed on the snakes, which died instantly. The chief priest, Vitalis, fell to his knees and cried ‘Great is the Christian God!’ Artemon baptised him along with several of his friends.

The unrepentant judge then condemned Artemon to be thrown into burning pitch, but the judge himself was thrown off his horse into the pitch and died. After this, Artemon went free for a time and spent his time teaching the Faith to his people (“accompanied always by two tame deer,” says St Nikolia Velimirovic!). But he was arrested again and beheaded in the year 303.

St Martin the Confessor, pope of Rome (655)

“Martin became Pope on July 5th, 649, at the time of a furious quarrel between the Orthodox and the Monothelite heretics. Constans the Second, Heraclius’ grandson, was on the throne at the time, and Paul was Patriarch of Constantinople. To restore peace in the Church, the Emperor himself wrote a dogmatic decree, the Typos, which leaned heavily towards heresy. Pope Martin summoned a Council of 105 bishops, at which the Emperor’s statement was condemned. At the same time, the Pope wrote a letter to Patriarch Paul, begging him to uphold the purity of the Orthodox faith and to counsel the Emperor to reject the theories of the heretics. This letter infuriated both the Patriarch and the Emperor. The Emperor sent one of his generals, Olympius, to take the Pope to Constantinople in bonds. The general did not dare to bind the Pope with his own hands, but instructed one of his soldiers to kill him with the sword in church. But, when the soldier entered the church with his sword concealed, he was instantly blinded. So, by the providence of God, Martin escaped death. At that time, the Saracens fell upon Sicily, and Olympius went off there, where he died. Then, by the intrigues of the heretic Patriarch Paul, the Emperor sent a second general, Theodore, to bind and take the Pope on the charge that he, the Pope, was in collusion with the Saracens and that he did not reverence the most holy Mother of God. [!!] When the general arrived in Rome and read the accusation against the Pope, he replied that it was a libel; that he had no contact of any sort with the Saracens, the opponents of Christianity, ‘and whoever does not confess the most holy Mother of God and do her reverence, let him be damned in this age and in that which is to come.’ But this did not affect the general’s decision. The Pope was bound and taken to Constantinople, where he lay long in prison in great sickness, tortured by both anxiety and hunger, until he was finally sentenced to exile in Cherson, where he lived for two years before his death. He gave his soul into the hands of the Lord, for whom he had suffered so greatly, in 655. The evil Patriarch, Paul,died two years before him and, when the Emperor visited him on his deathbed, he smote his head against the wall, confessing with tears that he had greatly sinned against Pope Martin and asking the Emperor to set Martin free.’ (Prologue)

In some menaia he is commemorated on April 14.